Page 1 of Marked By the Mob

1

EMMA

The warehouse smells like rust and old concrete. I press my back against the cold metal wall, my Glock steady in both hands as I listen to the muffled voices echoing from somewhere deeper inside the building.

My earpiece crackles with static then goes silent again. That’s the third time in ten minutes.

Something is wrong.

“Control, this is Moore. Comms check,” I whisper into my mic.

Nothing.

I glance at my watch. Backup should have been in position five minutes ago. The plan was simple. I go in first, confirm the auction is happening, identify the organizers, then the tactical team moves in and shuts it down.

Clean. Efficient. The kind of operation I’ve run a dozen times before.

Except tonight feels different.

I’ve spent the past year building this case, following every lead no matter how thin, chasing shadows and financial records so tangled it took months to unravel them.

The underground bride auction isn’t just some urban legend whispered about in organized crime circles.

It’s real.

Women disappear into it and never come out. Women like Krystal.

My best friend vanished a year ago after attending a private party that I connected to this network. The official investigation went cold within weeks, but I never stopped looking. I couldn’t.

Krystal was the kind of person who saw the best in everyone, who trusted too easily and gave second chances when she shouldn’t. She didn’t deserve whatever happened to her that night.

I move forward carefully, keeping to the shadows as I approach the main floor of the warehouse.

Voices grow louder. I catch fragments of conversation in Russian and English, the kind of mix you hear when Bratva families do business together.

My pulse quickens. This is it.

The auction is happening tonight, just like my informant said it would.

I reach the edge of a catwalk overlooking the warehouse floor and crouch low behind a stack of old crates.

Below me, at least twenty men gather in clusters, smoking and talking in low voices. A makeshift stage has been set up at the farend of the space, lit by harsh industrial lights. My stomach twists when I see the heavy chains bolted to the floor near the stage.

This is real. This is actually happening.

I pull out my phone to document what I’m seeing, but before I can take a single photo, footsteps echo behind me. Fast. Too close.

I spin around, raising my weapon, but three men are already on me. I fire once, the shot going wide as one of them slams into me from the side. My gun skitters across the metal grating.

I drive my elbow into the closest man’s ribs and hear him grunt in pain, but another grabs my arm and twists it behind my back hard enough to make my vision blur.

“Federal agent!” I shout, hoping someone, anyone, will hear me. “FBI!”

The man holding me laughs. “We know.”

My whole body stiffens. They know. And they don’t care. In fact, they don’t seem surprised to see me. They seem happy, in fact.

I thrash harder, managing to stomp on one man’s instep before driving my head backward into another’s face.