Chapter 3 - The Ghost of 14th Street
Within twenty minutes, my armored convoy was racing through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago. Emily sat wrapped in a heated cashmere blanket inside my private SUV, clutching a cup of hot cocoa with shaking hands. She looked around the luxurious leather interior of the vehicle as if she had been transported to another planet.
"You're safe now, Emily," I told her, sitting beside her. "Nobody is going to hurt you ever again. What's your last name?"
"I don't have one," she whispered. "Just Emily."
"Well, Emily, starting tonight, you never have to be cold or hungry again. Do you understand?"
She nodded slowly, a tiny, hesitant smile touching her lips.
I looked up at Marcus, who was riding in the front passenger seat tracking digital signals. "Status on the 14th Street train yard?"
"Secured perimeter, Boss," Marcus replied, checking his assault rifle. "Falcone's men were using it as a transit hub for contraband, but they abandoned it in a hurry after your call. Local patrol reports kids being held there for underground labor rings."
My fists clenched so tightly my knuckles turned white. My son had been subjected to this hell while I sat in a high-rise office.
When the convoy pulled up to the abandoned rail depot on 14th Street, the atmosphere was suffocating. Rusted freight cars loomed like giant iron skeletons under the flashing red lights of my security detail. We swept the area building by building, doors kicked open, flashlights cutting through the darkness.
In the main warehouse, we found the makeshift camp. Dozens of thin mattresses lay scattered across the concrete floor, surrounded by empty cans and discarded clothing.
I walked over to a corner where a small wooden crate served as a desk. Resting on top of it was a faded blue baseball cap.
I picked it up. Inside the brim, written in faded black marker, were the initials: L.R.
Lucas. He had been sitting right here. He had breathed this cold, stagnant air. He had looked at the same graffiti-covered walls.
"Boss," Marcus called out from the far end of the warehouse, holding up a blood-stained piece of cloth and a torn drawing. "Look at this."
Pinned to a wooden pillar with a rusted hunting knife was a note written in rushed, angry handwriting:
May you like
“Ross, you want the boy back? Bring the title deeds to all downtown shipping docks to Pier 42 by midnight. Come alone, or the kid feeds the fish.”
I stared at the note, my blood turning to ice. Midnight. We had less than two hours.
