Chapter 3 - The Lock on 2nd Street
The industrial district along the river was dead at 10:00 PM on Christmas Eve.
Old brick warehouses stood side by side like rotting teeth, their windows barred with rusted iron. The wind off the water was brutal here, dragging ice across the pavement with a dry, screaming sound.
Reed’s suburban pulled up to the front of Standard Textile Services, a low, concrete block structure surrounded by a ten-foot chain-link fence topped with razor wire. Inside the chain-link gate, a heavy padlock secured a heavy iron chain.
Through the frosted, dirt-streaked windows of the main floor, fluorescent lights flickered. The heavy, rhythmic thumping of industrial steam presses echoed through the dark street.
Reed stepped out of the vehicle. Vance followed, flanked by two armed security officers.
"Property belongs to a man named Arthur Vance," Vance reported, holding a tablet. "No relation. He owns four commercial laundries in the city. Has six citations for labor violations, three for illegal facility locking."
Reed walked straight to the padlocked gate. He didn't ask Vance to call the owner. He didn't wait for a lawyer.
"Cut it," Reed said.
Vance pulled a set of hydraulic bolt cutters from the trunk of the suburban. With a single, sharp CRACK, the steel chain snapped and hit the frozen asphalt.
Reed pushed the gate open and walked to the front door of the laundry. It was reinforced steel with a heavy deadbolt.
Vance didn't bother with keys. He stepped forward and drove his heavy tactical boot directly beside the lock frame. The frame splintered, the door flew open, and Reed walked inside.
The heat hit them first—not the clean, dry warmth of a radiator, but a suffocating, wet, chemical steam that smelled of bleach, burning lint, and industrial detergent. The noise was deafening, the roar of massive steel dryers drowning out the sound of the door being kicked in.
A half-dozen women in faded aprons were standing along a hundred-foot assembly line, feeding heavy white hotel linens into roaring steam rollers.
One of the women—a thin, pale mother with dark circles under her eyes so deep they looked like bruises—froze as the heavy steel door slammed against the wall.
Sarah Mercer was twenty-eight years old, but her hands looked fifteen years older, raw and red from bleach water. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy bun, dark with sweat at the temples.
A man in a stained cardigan stepped out of a glass-walled office at the back of the facility, holding a clipboard.
"Hey!" the man yelled, his face turning red with sudden rage. "What the hell is this?! You're trespassing! Get the hell out of my shop!"
Reed ignored him entirely. He walked past the roaring machinery, his eyes fixed on Sarah.
Sarah backed away against a linen cart, her eyes wide with terror. "Who are you? What... what happened? Is it my girls? Oh God, are Hazel and Nora okay?!"
Reed stopped three feet in front of her. His expression softened just enough for her to catch her breath.
"Hazel and Nora are fine," Reed said, his voice carrying effortlessly over the hum of the dryers. "They are warm. They are fed. And they are wearing new coats."
Sarah blinked, confused, her chest heaving as she tried to process his words. "What? Who... who are you?"
Arthur Vance came charging up, shoving his clipboard toward Reed’s chest. "I don't care who you are! She's on shift until six AM! She signed a contract! You break my door, you pay for it, or I call the police!"
Reed turned his head slowly to look at Arthur.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees.
"Call them," Reed said softly.
Arthur hesitated, caught off guard by the absolute lack of fear in the tall man's eyes. "What?"
"Call the police," Reed repeated, pulling his titanium phone from his coat. "Tell them Arthur Vance is currently holding seven workers inside an unventilated commercial facility with the emergency exits chained shut from the outside on Christmas Eve. Tell them Reed Calloway is standing in your lobby waiting for them."
The name Reed Calloway hit the air like a heavy weight.
Arthur’s face drained of color. His hand, which had been raised to point a finger at Reed’s chest, slowly dropped. "Calloway? The... the tech guy?"
"The guy who owns eighty percent of the commercial debt holding your equipment leases," Reed corrected, his voice dangerously quiet. "As of four minutes ago, Calloway Capital acquired the primary mortgage on this building from First City Bank. I am your landlord, Arthur."
Arthur swallowed hard, his throat making a dry clicking sound. "Mr. Calloway... listen, this is just a misunderstanding. We have a deadline for the Hilton order—"
"You have five minutes to open every exit in this building," Reed said, stepping closer until he towered over the smaller man. "You will issue full holiday pay to every woman on this floor for the next two weeks. If I see a single padlock on any door associated with your name by midnight, I will execute a total debt acceleration order. You will be bankrupt by Monday morning. Do you understand me?"
Arthur nodded frantically, his lip trembling. "Yes, sir. Yes, Mr. Calloway. Right away."
Reed turned back to Sarah, who was staring at him as if he were a ghost that had materialized out of the chemical steam.
"Mrs. Mercer," Reed said softly, extending his gloved hand. "Your daughters are waiting for you."
Sarah looked down at his clean leather glove, then at her own raw, bleach-stained palms. Tears welled up in her eyes, carving clean tracks through the lint dust on her cheeks.
"I... I can't leave," she whispered, her voice cracking. "I need the forty dollars for the rent. The shelter... they said if we don't pay the administrative fee, we lose our cots."
"You are never going back to that shelter," Reed told her.
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"Where... where are we going?"
"Somewhere Santa can find you," Reed said.
