All Chapters of The Man on the Morning News : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

We didn’t stop driving until we reached the border.The car tore through the Colombian countryside, headlights cutting through the darkness. Victoria sat in the passenger seat, her phone pressed to her ear, speaking in rapid, hushed Spanish. Martin drove, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his eyes darting to the rearview mirror every few seconds.I sat in the back, clutching the bag of evidence to my chest like a lifeline. My hands were still shaking. I could still smell the gunpowder. I could still see Marcus’s face as he collapsed.I had watched a man die tonight. A man who had tried to kill me. A man who had betrayed us all. And yet, I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt hollow.“Did we lose them?” I asked, my voice hoarse.“For now,” Martin said. “But they’ll be looking for us. Alexander isn’t going to let this go.”“What about Diego?” I asked. “Did anyone see what happened to him?”Victoria lowered her phone, her face pale. “I have a contact in Bogotá. He’s checking the hospit

We had five days.Five days to stop a shipment of fifty women and children from being sold into slavery. Five days to expose Senator Richard Hayes and Alexander Thorne. Five days to save lives.We worked around the clock. Victoria coordinated with her media contacts, preparing a package of evidence to release the moment the shipment was intercepted. Martin analyzed the coded emails, mapping out the route the traffickers would take. Diego, despite his wounds, provided detailed information about the network’s operations—the safe houses, the drop points, the buyers.I focused on the warehouse in Miami.According to the files, the shipment would arrive at a private dock on the Miami River on Saturday night. From there, the women and children would be transported to a warehouse in Little Havana, where they would be held until the buyers arrived.“We need eyes on the warehouse,” I said, studying the blueprint Martin had printed. “We need to know how many guards there are, where the victims

The silence in Senator Hayes's office was suffocating.I stared at Victoria, my mind refusing to process what I had just heard. She had been my ally. My friend. The woman who had held my hand in the coffee shop and promised to help me destroy the man who killed my sister.And now, I knew the truth.She had let Elena die."You knew," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "You knew they were going to hurt her. And you didn't stop them."Victoria looked up at me, her face streaked with tears. "I didn't know they were going to kill her. I swear to God, Claire. I thought they were just going to scare her. I thought they were going to threaten her, maybe rough her up a little. I never thought they would actually go through with it.""But you didn't warn her," I said, my voice rising. "You didn't call her. You didn't tell her to run. You just let her get in that car and drive off that bridge.""I was scared!" Victoria cried. "They threatened me too. They said if I warned her, they would kill me

The office was buzzing with activity.Victoria had called in every favor she had. Interpol. The FBI. Private security contractors. Everyone who owed her anything was now working around the clock to locate Dimitri Volkov and protect the survivors.I sat at a conference table, a map of the East Coast spread out in front of me. Red pins marked the locations of the survivors—the women and children we had rescued from the network. There were forty-seven of them, scattered across six states.“We can’t protect all of them,” Martin said, his voice heavy. “We don’t have the manpower.”“Then we prioritize,” Victoria said. “The ones who are most at risk. The ones who have agreed to testify.”She pointed to a cluster of pins in upstate New York.“Maria and Diego are here,” she said. “They’re our top priority. Maria is the only survivor who can identify Volkov directly. She saw him at the warehouse. She heard him give orders.”My heart clenched. Maria was just a child. She had already been through

The Velvet Room was exactly what its name promised—dark, luxurious, and seductive. Red velvet curtains draped the walls. Crystal chandeliers cast a dim, golden glow over the crowd. The air was thick with the scent of expensive perfume and cigar smoke.I stood at the bar, a glass of champagne in my hand that I had no intention of drinking. I was wearing a black cocktail dress that Victoria had picked out for me—elegant, expensive, the kind of dress that would make me blend in with the wealthy elite who frequented this place.But I wasn't here to blend in.I was here to find the basement.Lena had given me everything she knew. The club was owned by a shell company that traced back to a man named Viktor Petrov. He was the new leader, the one who had rebuilt the network after Alexander's death. He was ruthless, intelligent, and paranoid. He never appeared in public. He never used his real name. He was a ghost.But he had a weakness. Every Friday night, he hosted an auction in the basement