Chapter 6 - The Warehouse List

The Mercer freight archive occupied the basement of a logistics office near the river.

Nathan had not been there in years.

Metal shelves stretched beneath fluorescent lights. Paper files from the years before digitization filled boxes labeled by route, terminal, client, and date.

Hannah stood beside him in borrowed gloves.

“This is where your criminal secrets live?”

“Some of them.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It was not meant to be.”

Rachel sat at a folding table with a laptop. Mateo guarded the stairwell.

Nathan pulled a box marked CANAL - 2009.

Hannah watched him open it.

“You said my father inspected that terminal seventeen years ago.”

“Yes.”

“And Anton died the same year?”

“Three months later.”

“Then if there is a connection, it should be here.”

Nathan removed old manifests, maintenance reports, security logs.

For an hour, they found nothing.

Then Hannah held up a yellowed sheet.

“What is ‘North Star’?”

Nathan looked over.

His face changed.

Rachel noticed. “What?”

“Anton used code names for off-book shipments.”

Hannah’s grip tightened. “What kind of shipments?”

Nathan took the page.

Twenty-six deliveries. All late at night. All listed as machine parts.

“No weights,” Rachel said.

“No invoice numbers,” Hannah added.

Nathan read the destination column.

Most ended at warehouses controlled by Anton.

Three went to an address on Pulaski.

Mateo came closer. “That building used to belong to Sloane.”

Nathan looked at him. “Before Sloane had it?”

“His uncle.”

Hannah searched another stack. “Here.”

She pulled out an inspection citation signed by Thomas Cole.

UNDECLARED SUBLEVEL. UNAUTHORIZED ELECTRICAL MODIFICATIONS. BLOCKED FIRE EXITS. EVIDENCE OF OCCUPANCY IN NONRESIDENTIAL SPACE.

Her face drained of color.

“Occupancy.”

Nathan read the line twice.

Rachel whispered, “People were living down there.”

Hannah looked at him. “What did Anton move?”

“I do not know.”

“You worked for him.”

“I did not handle North Star.”

“Who did?”

Nathan looked through the manifests.

One set of initials appeared beside every entry.

J.P.

Rachel went still.

“No.”

Hannah noticed. “Who?”

Nathan’s voice was quiet. “Julian Price.”

“The man you told Rachel not to call?”

“Yes.”

“Who is he?”

“My chief financial officer.”

Hannah stared at him. “Your current CFO worked for Anton Bellini?”

“For twenty-two years.”

Rachel closed her laptop. “He also handled the development packet involving Lakefront.”

Nathan’s face hardened.

Mateo said, “And he has access to every holding company we own.”

Hannah took a step back.

“So your own executive may be connected to the man threatening Bridge House.”

Nathan was already reaching for his phone.

She caught his wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“Finding Julian.”

“No.”

“Hannah.”

“You walk into his office angry, and what happens?”

Nathan said nothing.

“That silence is exactly why you are not going.”

Rachel stood. “She’s right.”

Nathan looked at his sister.

“Julian has been with us since before Mercer Global existed,” Rachel continued. “If he is dirty, he knows how you react. He may want you emotional.”

Nathan lowered the phone.

Hannah released his wrist.

“Good.”

He looked at her. “Do not sound proud.”

“I am extremely proud.”

Mateo opened another file box.

“Here’s something.”

Inside was an old visitor log.

Thomas Cole’s name appeared on three dates.

The last entry was two days before his death.

Beside it, someone had written a note in red ink.

ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT GIRLS.

Hannah sat down.

Nathan felt the meaning before anyone spoke it.

Rachel covered her mouth.

“Girls,” Hannah said.

Mateo’s face became stone.

Nathan read the North Star list again.

The blocked exits. The occupied basement. Late-night shipments.

His stomach turned.

“Anton was moving people,” he said.

Hannah looked at him with tears in her eyes. “Girls.”

“Yes.”

“And my father found them.”

“It looks that way.”

She stood too quickly, knocking the chair backward.

“My mother said he was obsessed with one case before he died. She said he stopped sleeping. She thought it was corruption at city hall.”

“It may have been both.”

Hannah pressed both hands to her face.

Nathan took one step toward her, then stopped.

She looked at him through her fingers.

“You knew Anton was violent.”

“Yes.”

“Did you know he trafficked women?”

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

Nathan felt the question like a blade.

“Yes.”

She lowered her hands.

“I want to believe you.”

“That is not the same as believing me.”

“No.”

Rachel’s computer chimed.

An email had arrived from an address none of them recognized.

Subject line: THOMAS COLE DID NOT DIE ON ICE.

Attached was a scanned police report.

The original collision report said Thomas’s brakes had failed.

A supplemental page, never included in Hannah’s family copy, contained a mechanic’s note.

BRAKE LINE APPEARS CUT WITH TOOL.

At the bottom was another notation.

CASE CLOSED BY ORDER OF CAPTAIN E. PRICE.

Hannah whispered the name.

“Price.”

Nathan looked at Rachel.

Elliot Price had signed the condemnation order that morning.

And Julian Price had signed Anton’s North Star manifests seventeen years earlier.

Same surname.

Same network.

Rachel searched public records.

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Thirty seconds later, she looked up.

“They’re brothers.”