Chapter 69: Another Talk

The morning sun had barely crested the rooftops when Nacho woke to the sound of someone pounding on his door like they were trying to beat it to death.

He rolled off the mattress and landed in a crouch, six tentacles manifesting on pure instinct before his brain caught up with his body. The pounding continued, urgent and insistent, accompanied by a voice he recognized.

"Open up, Siren. We need to talk."

Vance.

He dismissed the tentacles and crossed to the door, yanking it open to find the Inquisitor standing in the hallway with an expression that could curdle milk. Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail, and the shadows under her eyes suggested she hadn’t slept any better than he had.

"It’s barely sunrise," he said. "This couldn’t wait?"

"No." She pushed past him into the room without waiting for an invitation, her eyes sweeping the cramped space with professional assessment. "Daven talked. All night. The man’s got the spine of a wet noodle, and once he realized we weren’t going to let him buy his way out, he started spilling everything he knew."

Nacho closed the door and leaned against it, crossing his arms. "And?"

"And it’s worse than I thought." Vance turned to face him, and for the first time since he’d known her, she looked genuinely shaken. "The Consortium isn’t just running smuggling operations and protection rackets. They’re trafficking Sirens. Capturing them from coastal settlements and selling them to buyers in the Empire’s interior. Nobles, mostly. People who want exotic servants or worse."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut. He thought about Lizbeth, alone in her inn in the slums of Lumen. About the women who came to his massage parlor looking for relief from lives that had ground them down to nothing. About Sera, fighting desperately to hold her people together while enemies circled from every direction.

"How many?"

"Daven didn’t know exact numbers. Hundreds, at least. Maybe thousands over the years." Vance’s jaw tightened. "The worst part? Some of them are being sold with the cooperation of Siren officials. People on the inside, taking bribes to look the other way when the slavers come."

"Korith."

"That’s my guess. But Daven never dealt with her directly. Everything went through intermediaries, shell companies, dead drops. The kind of setup designed to protect the people at the top even if someone like him gets caught."

Nacho pushed off from the door and started pacing, his mind racing through the implications. Trafficking. Corruption at the highest levels of Siren governance. A conspiracy that reached from the slums of Valdris to the Elder council in Lumen.

And Sera had three days to find proof, or she’d lose everything.

"There’s something else," Vance said. "Daven mentioned a shipment. A big one, scheduled to leave from the eastern docks in two days. Forty Sirens, captured from a settlement near the outer reefs. They’re being held somewhere in the city until the buyers arrive to collect."

"Where?"

"He didn’t know. The location changes for every shipment, and only the people handling logistics have access to that information." She paused, her hawk eyes boring into his. "But he did give me a name. Someone who would know. A woman called Mirela Thorne. She runs a shipping company that serves as the Consortium’s primary cover for moving people."

Nacho filed the name away, adding it to the mental list of targets he’d been building since arriving in the Mortal World. "What do you need from me?"

"I need you to find that shipment before it leaves the city. I can’t move openly against Thorne without tipping off the Consortium, and if they realize we’re onto them, they’ll scatter those Sirens across the Empire before we can blink." She stepped closer, her voice dropping. "You’ve got abilities I don’t understand and connections I can’t access. Use them. Find those people. And when you do, contact me immediately."

"And if I find them too late?"

"Then forty more Sirens disappear into slavery, and we lose our best chance to expose the trafficking ring before the council meeting." Her expression hardened. "I’m not willing to accept that outcome. Are you?"

He thought about Sera’s words from the night before. About what he was willing to protect.

"No," he said. "I’m not."

Mirela Thorne operated out of a converted warehouse near the eastern docks, a sprawling complex that served as headquarters for Thorne Shipping and Transportation. The sign above the main entrance featured a stylized ship riding a cresting wave, all sleek lines and professional competence.

Nacho watched the building from a rooftop across the street, his Apex Senses cataloging every detail while his mind worked through possible approaches. The place was busy even in the early morning, workers loading and unloading cargo from a steady stream of wagons while clerks hurried between buildings with armfuls of paperwork.

On the surface, it looked like any other successful shipping company. But his enhanced perception picked up things that didn’t quite fit. Guards stationed at points that made no sense for protecting merchandise. Workers whose movements were too coordinated, too watchful, to be simple laborers. A tension in the air that spoke of secrets hidden behind a veneer of normalcy.

[Apex Senses active. Threat assessment in progress.]

[22 personnel detected. 7 exhibiting combat-ready postures. 3 confirmed weapons.]

[Building has 4 exits. 2 ground level, 1 loading dock, 1 roof access.]

The front door wasn’t an option. Too many eyes, too many questions. But his Thread Sight picked up something interesting on the building’s eastern wall. A window left slightly ajar on the second floor, the fabric of the curtain fluttering in the morning breeze.

Someone forgot to lock up properly. Sloppy.

He waited until a particularly large wagon pulled up to the loading dock, drawing the attention of the nearest guards, then dropped from the rooftop and crossed the street in three quick strides. His Phantom Talent suppressed his presence as he scaled the wall, fingers finding holds in the weathered brick with ease.

The window opened into what looked like a filing room. Rows of cabinets lined the walls, each one stuffed with papers and ledgers. The air smelled of dust and old ink, with an undertone of something else. Something that made his instincts twitch.

Fear. Old and stale, soaked into the very wood of the walls.

He moved through the room in silence, his tentacles coiled tight against his body as he searched for anything useful. Most of the files were mundane shipping records, cargo manifests and delivery schedules that told him nothing. But one cabinet in the corner was locked, its surface clean where the others were dusty.

The lock yielded to his tentacle in seconds, the mechanism clicking open with a soft sound that seemed loud in the quiet room. Inside, he found a different kind of paperwork.

Lists of names. Dates. Destinations. Amounts paid.

Siren names.