Chapter 10
The afternoon sun broke through the gray clouds, casting long, sharp shadows across the wooden floor of the coastal safe house. Agent Miller had departed hours earlier, taking Arthur’s signed confessions and the encrypted hard drives with him, leaving behind a temporary quiet that felt both fragile and permanent. Elena sat at the dining table, sorting through a stack of personal financial documents—her own accounts, completely independent of the family trust, which she had quietly separated three years ago when she first began investigating the Savannah disaster. She had enough to start over, but the psychological weight of her family’s legacy was not something she could simply pack into a suitcase.
Her phone buzzed on the table. It wasn’t a blocked corporate number or a frantic journalist this time; it was a text message from an unfamiliar local number containing a single address and a time: The maritime hospital, downtown, room 412. Come alone if you want to know about the dock workers. Elena stared at the screen, her heart skipping a beat. The official report on the Savannah collapse claimed all injured workers had been compensated and discharged, but she knew the Vance legal machine had buried victims in non-disclosure agreements and hush money to prevent independent investigations.
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She looked over at Arthur, who had fallen into a restless sleep in his armchair, his breathing shallow and uneven. She didn't want to leave him alone, but this was the missing piece of the puzzle—the human cost behind the spreadsheets and wire transfers. Without hesitation, Elena grabbed her keys, slipped on her wool coat, and walked out to the sedan idling in the driveway. Marcus didn't ask questions; he simply shifted the car into drive as soon as she closed the door, navigating the winding coastal highway back toward the grim, concrete sprawl of the city.
The drive took over an hour, the scenic cliffs giving way to industrial shipyards, rusted cranes, and towering shipping containers bearing the faded logo of Vance Global Logistics—a logo that would soon be scrubbed from history. The maritime hospital was a decaying brick building tucked behind the active docks, a facility funded by an obscure charitable trust that Arthur’s company had secretly maintained as a silent ward for individuals who couldn't be easily silenced through payoffs. Elena walked through the heavy double doors, the antiseptic smell of rubbing alcohol and old despair hitting her like a physical blow.
