Chapter 2 - The Hound at the Gate
Across the city, in the grim, damp alleyways of the Industrial District, the atmosphere was vastly different.
A rusted, smoke-belching sedan pulled up to the curb outside a neon-lit pool hall. The driver's door swung open, and Marcus Vance stepped out onto the wet pavement.
Marcus was a broad-shouldered, thick-necked man in his late forties. He wore a stained leather jacket, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw stubbled with greasy gray whiskers. His breath reeked of cheap whiskey and stale tobacco.
He slammed the car door and marched into the back room of the pool hall, where a skinny man with greasy hair sat behind a counter, counting wads of small bills.
"Where are they, Joey?" Marcus growled, slamming his heavy, scarred palm down onto the counter. "It's been three days! I paid you two hundred bucks to check the shelters!"
Joey didn't even look up from his cash. "They ain't at the shelters, Marcus. Sarah’s too smart for that. She knows you've got friends watching the intake desks."
"She's twelve years old!" Marcus roared, his face flushing red with rage. "She's got a six-year-old kid with her! They don't have money, they don't have shoes, and they don't have anywhere to go! Somebody saw them!"
Joey reached under the counter, pulled out a small piece of paper, and tossed it toward Marcus.
"A street sweeper over on 4th and Main saw a girl and a boy sitting on a bench under the heavy rain on Thursday night," Joey said casually. "Said a fancy black limousine pulled up. A guy in a dry coat got out, talked to 'em for two minutes, and loaded 'em into the back seat."
Marcus snatched the paper, his yellowed eyes narrowing into slits. "A limousine? Who?"
"I ran the partial plate the street sweeper remembered," Joey continued, finally looking up with a sly, sinister grin. "The vehicle belongs to Anderson Global Logistics. Private security fleet registered to Richard Anderson."
"Richard Anderson?" Marcus repeated, the name tasting like ash in his mouth. "The tech billionaire up in the North Hills?"
"The very same," Joey chuckled coldly. "Looks like your little stepdaughter struck gold, Marcus. She traded her street bench for a thirty-million-dollar mansion."
Marcus stared at the paper, a slow, terrifying grin spreading across his pitted face. The anger in his eyes morphed into something far more dangerous: pure, unadulterated greed.
"A billionaire," Marcus muttered, his fingers crushing the paper into a tight ball. "She thinks she ran away. She thinks she found a knight in shining armor."
Marcus reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his mother’s old silver locket—the one item he had managed to snatch from Sarah's mother before she was taken to the morgue.
"That girl holds the keys to my twenty-thousand-dollar insurance check," Marcus sneered, his voice dropping to a harsh, gutteral growl. "And now she's living with a man who has deep pockets. Richard Anderson might have millions, Joey, but he doesn't know how far I'm willing to go to get what's mine."
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"What are you gonna do?" Joey asked, leaning forward. "You can't just storm a billionaire's estate, Marcus. He's got private military guards up there."
"I don't need to storm it," Marcus laughed wickedly, turning toward the door. "I'm their legal stepfather. The police don't like rich men stealing poor men's kids. I'm gonna make a very noisy scene at his front gate—and if that billionaire wants me to go away, he's gonna have to write me a very big check."
