Chapter 3 - Blood on the Bellweather
By 2:30 in the morning, the Bellweather House—a lavish, multi-million-dollar private dining club situated on Bellhaven’s waterfront—was supposed to be completely shut down for the night.
Instead, three dark armored SUVs pulled onto the cobblestone drive, blocking the main exit. Dante Caruso stepped out into the pouring rain, flanked by eight men in tailored dark suits with hidden holsters.
The club’s general manager, a arrogant man named Marcus Vance—the nephew of the very police chief who had dismissed Noah—opened the back doors with an irritated sigh, thinking a high-roller had returned for forgotten valet keys.
When he saw Dante, all color drained from his face.
“M-Mr. Caruso,” Vance stuttered, taking two steps backward into the polished marble foyer. “We’re closed. If you needed a private room, you could have called my uncle—”
Dante grabbed Vance by the silk lapels of his jacket and slammed him against the glass display case housing fifty-thousand-dollar bottles of wine. The glass cracked under the impact.
“Rachel Carter was here on Friday night at eight o’clock,” Dante said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “She was with a man using the name Evan Rourke. Show me the footage.”
“Mr. Caruso, please! Club policy dictates private surveillance is destroyed after twelve hours to protect our high-profile guests’ privacy—”
Before Vance could finish his sentence, Marco, Dante’s chief enforcer, stepped forward and drew a silenced pistol, pressing it directly under Vance’s jawline.
“You have five seconds to change your policy,” Marco said smoothly.
Sweating profusely, Vance led them into the back security office. Sitting at the console was Leo, Dante’s technical specialist, who had already bypassed the building’s firewall.
“He lied, boss,” Leo said, typing rapidly on a mechanical keyboard. “The footage wasn’t deleted. It was locked inside an encrypted server with an external IP address belonging to Apex Logistics.”
“Apex Logistics?” Dante’s eyes darkened. Apex was a shadow freight company operating out of the old industrial shipyards. Dante had been suspecting them of smuggling contraband into his city for months, but they had maintained a clean public profile backed by local political campaign donations.
“Look at this feed from Friday at 8:42 PM,” Leo said, playing a high-definition video on the monitor.
On the screen, Rachel Carter sat across from a tall, muscular man in a bespoke gray suit—Evan Rourke. Rachel looked visibly uncomfortable. She reached for her glass of water, took a small sip, and within three minutes, her head began to droop. Rourke stood up, draped her coat over her shoulders, and practically dragged her limp body out through the VIP service exit into a waiting black van with tinted windows.
“She was drugged,” Dante growled, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of the desk.
“Look at the driver of the van, boss,” Leo pointed out, zooming in on the side mirror reflection. “That’s not just any security guard. That’s Julian Mercer.”
Dante’s eyes widened slightly. Julian Mercer was a high-level enforcer for an international human trafficking syndicate operating out of Eastern Europe. He was a ghost who bought off local officials, snatched targeted individuals, and moved them onto cargo ships before anyone realized they were gone.
Dante turned his terrifying gaze back onto Vance, who was trembling violently on the floor.
“How much did Mercer pay you to let him drug a schoolteacher in your dining room?” Dante asked softly.
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“I—I didn’t know who she was!” Vance sobbed. “Rourke said she was an undercover reporter trying to ruin his company! He paid fifty thousand dollars to disable the alleyway cameras!”
Dante looked at Marco. “Break his knees. Then call the federal prosecutor’s office and give them every financial record in this room. If Marcus Vance is still conscious when the feds arrive, break his arms too.”
