Chapter 7 - The Freight Route Nobody Was Supposed to Know
Richard Hale disappeared before Victor's security team reached his home.
His phone was found beside the Chicago River.
His car sat abandoned inside a parking garage.
His wife claimed he had left three days earlier for a conference in New York.
There was no conference.
By Thursday morning, Victor had locked down every executive-level system inside Gallow Holdings.
Harper sat opposite him as Arthur projected Route Seventeen's known locations onto a wall.
“Three warehouses,” Arthur said.
“Four,” Victor corrected.
Arthur frowned.
“The letter mentioned three.”
“My father used four.”
Victor highlighted a building near Goose Island.
“This one.”
Arthur studied it.
“That property was sold.”
“To a holding company.”
“Which one?”
Victor typed.
The ownership chain ended at BrightLine Creative.
Harper stared.
“My company owns a warehouse?”
“Apparently.”
“BrightLine rents half an office floor. We don't own industrial property.”
Victor looked at her.
“Someone does under BrightLine's name.”
Arthur started tracing records.
Harper leaned closer to the map.
“What if that's why they hired BrightLine?”
Victor looked at her.
“To hold property?”
“To hold one property.”
She pointed.
“Maybe somebody needed a legitimate creative company attached to it. Then they moved BrightLine into your building.”
Arthur nodded slowly.
“A legal bridge between Gallow and the old route.”
Victor's expression hardened.
“And Harper?”
She looked at him.
Arthur answered carefully.
“An access point.”
Harper disliked the phrase.
Victor disliked it more.
By afternoon, they discovered the warehouse deed had been purchased through a trust eleven years earlier.
Three months before Victor's father died.
The trustee signature belonged to Daniel Mercer.
“He never died,” Harper said.
“No,” Victor replied.
“And he has spent eight years hiding behind fake companies.”
“Yes.”
“Waiting for what?”
Victor stared at the old route map.
“For me to find something my father couldn't.”
That evening they entered the Goose Island warehouse under heavy security.
Unlike Warehouse 214, this building looked maintained.
Electricity worked.
Cameras had recently been installed.
Someone expected visitors.
Arthur's team found no people.
But they found a room.
Steel door.
Electronic lock.
Harper studied it.
“Very subtle.”
Victor entered a code.
Denied.
Arthur tried another.
Denied.
Harper examined the keypad.
“Your father's birthday?”
Victor looked at her.
“He wasn't sentimental.”
“Your birthday?”
Victor hesitated.
Entered it.
Green.
Harper smiled.
“Maybe he was slightly sentimental.”
The door opened.
Inside were shelves filled with empty archive boxes.
Every box had been cleared.
Except one.
Victor approached.
A single red ledger sat inside.
Harper whispered, “That easy?”
Victor didn't touch it.
“No.”
Arthur agreed.
“Trap.”
They examined the book remotely.
No explosives.
No tracking device they could detect.
Victor finally opened it.
Blank pages.
Harper exhaled.
“Decoy.”
Then she noticed something.
“Wait.”
The first page contained faint impressions.
Someone had written on a page above it years ago.
Harper tilted it toward the light.
Numbers.
Coordinates.
Victor photographed them.
Arthur entered the values.
A location appeared.
A freight yard south of Chicago.
Victor knew it immediately.
“My father sold that yard thirteen years ago.”
“To whom?”
Victor opened records.
The buyer was Northline Transit.
Malcolm Vane's former company.
Arthur looked at him.
“Then Vane already knows the location.”
“No,” Harper said.
Both men turned.
“If he knew, why give Victor the clue?”
Victor understood.
“He doesn't have access.”
“To what?”
Victor looked at the coordinates.
“Something only I can open.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
Victor answered.
Malcolm Vane's voice.
“Very good.”
Victor's eyes hardened.
“You've been watching.”
“Always.”
“What do you want?”
“I already told you.”
“The ledger.”
“And the empire built from what your father stole.”
Victor glanced at Harper.
Vane laughed softly.
“She with you?”
Victor remained silent.
“Of course she is.”
Harper moved closer so she could hear.
Vane continued.
“You're making the same mistake Elias made.”
“My father trusted nobody.”
“He trusted you.”
“And that killed him?”
Silence.
Victor's body went still.
“What did you say?”
Vane chuckled.
“You still believe his heart failed naturally?”
Victor felt the floor shift beneath him.
Arthur stared.
Harper's hand touched Victor's arm.
Vane continued.
“Your father died because he wouldn't give us the ledger.”
“Us?”
Vane ignored him.
“South yard. Tomorrow. Midnight.”
Victor's voice turned deadly.
“Why would I come?”
“Because if you don't, Harper's mother dies.”
Harper froze.
Victor looked at her.
Vane hung up.
Harper immediately called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Arthur began issuing orders.
Harper's face turned white.
Victor took the phone.
“Harper.”
“No.”
“Look at me.”
“My mom—”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I'll find her.”
Harper's eyes filled.
“You don't know that.”
Victor held her face gently.
“I'll find her.”
Arthur's phone rang.
He answered.
Then exhaled.
“She's safe.”
Harper nearly collapsed.
“Where?”
“Wisconsin police are with her. Her phone died.”
Victor closed his eyes briefly.
Vane had been bluffing.
This time.
Harper leaned against him.
Victor held her.
Arthur watched silently.
Then a new message appeared on Victor's phone.
A live photograph.
Harper's mother speaking with police.
Taken from across the street.
Below it:
NEXT TIME I WON'T BLUFF.
Victor stared.
Something changed in him.
Fear became anger.
But Harper understood something Victor did not.
Vane wasn't simply trying to locate a ledger anymore.
He was shaping Victor's behavior.
Provoking him.
Making him afraid.
Making him predictable.
And Harper suddenly knew exactly what she had become.
Not Victor Gallow's weakness.
May you like
Victor Gallow's leash.
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