Page 41 of Crown of Ash

A cold shiver ran down his spine as he thought about all the cases over the years that had wrapped up too neatly, all the leads that had conveniently appeared just when they were needed, all the times Reyes had pulled him off a case without explaining why. He'd spent his entire career reading people, deciphering their secrets and lies. But it had never occurred to him that his own captain might be doing the same to him - and doing it better.

Andre closed the file with a snap, the sound echoing in the empty room. He had somewhere to be.

The container sat under a single sodium light, its orange glow flickering erratically against the rusted metal. The number stenciled on its side was a stark black against the weathered steel, matching the one Ghost had read off twenty minutes ago like a countdown. The air was heavy with anticipation, the silence broken only by the distant hum of the city and the occasional screech of a rat in the shadows.

Andre went in second, behind Zain, ahead of Trip. Their footsteps echoed in the quiet night, each one a testament to their grim determination. Nobody said anything. Words were superfluous at this point; the plan had been run four times before they ever left Lakefront.

The bolt cutters bit into the lock with a sharp snap, the sound echoing in the stillness. The lock fell to the ground with a dull thud, its purpose rendered obsolete while Bell and Sovriegn's guys took out the muscle keeping guard. He could hear Scarlet's twin, Savage, laughing like a madman in the distance.

The smell hit before the light did. It was a stench Andre had smelled before, years ago, in a different warehouse. It was the smell of fear and desperation, of humanity reduced to cargo. His stomach dropped the same way it had then. Zain didn't flinch. Trip didn't either. Andre made himself not flinch a half-second behind both of them.

Bodies, alive but barely so, curled against crates in the dark. A woman near the door threw an arm up against the sudden intrusion of light. A boy, maybe sixteen, went rigid and silent in the corner, his body frozen in the stillness of someone who'd learned that stillness was survival.

"We're not with them," Andre said, his voice low and steady despite the pounding of his heart. Both hands were visible, badge out even though it wasn't strictly DPD business anymore and hadn't been for a while. "We're getting you out. Right now. Nobody touches you who you don't want touching you."

The woman lowered her arm slowly, her eyes squinting against the light, her face etched with a mix of fear and hope.

"Six," Trip said, his voice clipped as he moved through the space with the particular economy of a man who'd done this exact math too many times in a different uniform. "Six here. Ghost said the manifest weight matched for more than this."

"There's another container." The words came from the boy, his voice cracked from disuse. "Two over. They split us."

Andre's radio crackled to life, Ghost's voice coming through clear and calm, already redirecting Nate and Seth to the second container before Andre had finished repeating the number back to him.

He crouched down in front of the woman instead of standing over her, because years at this job had taught him that much if nothing else.

"What's your name?" His voice was gentle, a stark contrast to the harsh reality of their surroundings.

"Adaeze." Her voice was a whisper, barely audible over the distant hum of the city. She said it like she expected him to mispronounce it, to mangle the syllables in his unfamiliar tongue. But he didn't.

"Adaeze," Andre repeated, his voice a soft echo of hers. He let the name linger in the air between them, a promise of recognition and respect. "You're safe now, Adaeze." His words were a steady stream in the darkness, a lifeline thrown out into the turbulent sea of her fear. "I know that doesn't mean anything yet, coming from a stranger in the dark, but it's true."

His voice was even, calm despite the adrenaline that still pulsed through his veins. His hands were visible, open and unthreatening. "There's a medic outside, and after that, anywhere you want to go that isn't here."

She didn't answer him in words. Instead, her hand reached out from the shadows, her fingers curling around his sleeve with a grip that belied her frailty. It was a desperate grasp, as if she needed to confirm his solidity before she could allow herself to believe his promises.

Andre let her hold on as long as she needed to, his own hand hovering over hers but not touching. He understood the need for physical confirmation, for tangible proof that he was real and not just another phantom in the darkness.

Two containers over, Nate's voice crackled through the radio, tight and controlled in a way that spoke volumes about what he was seeing. Four more. Ten total between both containers. Ten people who had been reduced to mere numbers on a shipping manifest an hour ago were about to reclaim their identities.

The two men responsible for this human trafficking operation didn't receive the same gentleness that Andre had shown Adaeze. Zain had one pinned against the container wall before the man had even finished raising his hands in surrender. His forearm pressed against the man's throat, a silent but effective threat.

"Where do the ones from last week go?" Zain's voice was a deadly whisper, a snake poised to strike. "Three ships at this same dock. Forty people. Somebody in this operation knows where that shipment ended up, and you're going to be the somebody who tells me, or I'm going to lose my patience with this conversation a lot faster than you'd like."

The man talked. They always did, eventually, once Zain got that particular look on his face. He wasn't a man who had patience left for these kinds of men. That had left him when he'd turned in his badge.

Andre stood in the open container door, listening as a stranger gave up a location that had haunted them. A warehouse outside Flint. Still active, if the man was telling the truth. And Zain had a way of making sure men told the truth.

Ten people walked out of two shipping containers tonight instead of disappearing into whatever hellish fate Drakov's network had planned for them. Forty more, maybe, still had a chance.

Andre radioed Ghost. "Get Marcus the Flint address. Tell him we're not done."

"Already sent it," Ghost replied, his voice as calm and steady as ever. "Man does not sleep, in case you were wondering."

Adaeze was still clutching his sleeve when the medics reached them. Andre stayed crouched beside her all the way to the ambulance, his presence a constant reassurance in the chaos. And when she finally let go of his sleeve, it felt like redemption.

Chapter 22

Marcus had counted them twice before anyone sat down. Five factions. Five separate armies, each one a ragtag collection of individuals, yet in the loosest and most literal sense of the word, each one capable of leveling a city block if the wrong person uttered the wrong phrase in this room tonight. He'd built rooms for smaller stakes than this and had labeled them dangerous. This one, however, was so perilous it didn't have a word yet.