?Chapter 376:


    The door was slightly open, just a sliver. She slowed her breathing and crept forward, pushing the door gently.


    The old iron lock ttered to the ground with a dull ng, making her flinch.


    She peeped inside.


    Stillness. No voices. No movement.


    She pushed further inside. There were no lights, so she switched on her phone shlight.


    Cold air greeted her, along with that same nauseating chemical odor she’d smelled at the construction site. It wed at her throat.


    Covering her nose with her sleeve, she forged ahead.


    Shelves lined the interior, packed with wooden crates and unmarked supplies. She paused beside one and bent down to examine it. Same substandard particleboard.


    She snapped a few photos for evidence.


    As her shlight swept over the crates, something caught her eye—an engraving burned into the particleboard. A symbol.


    The lighting was too dim to make out the details, so she crouched down, squinting under the beam of her phone shlight.


    There, burned into the side of the crate, was a logo—ornate and oddly elegant. Two letters stood out in the center, swirled with floral designs—S and M. It had definitely been seared in with fire.


    She snapped a photo, then reached out and ran her fingers across the branding. The surface was rough, the edges uneven.


    She frowned. She’d never seen this mark before. It didn’t match any supplier she knew.


    But those letters—SM—made her stomach turn. The first thought that shed through her mind was Haley and the Smith family. Could this batch be tied to Haley’s reach in Achury?


    It wouldn’t be impossible. After Ste helped secure her release from prison, Haley had gone radio silent. No revenge. No fights. Not even a whisper of trouble. She hadn’t gone after Marc. She hadn’te for Ste either. She’d just… disappeared.


    Or maybe not disappeared at all—maybe she’d gone underground, quietly consolidating her influence. Maybe she’d been keeping an eye on the business in Choria all along.


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    Was this it? Was this how Haley had stayed in the game?


    Ste rose to her feet, the corridor ahead stretching into darkness. Her grip tightened on her phone as unease crept into her chest.


    The deeper Ste ventured into the warehouse, the darker it became. Without the shlight from her phone, it felt like walking into a ck hole.


    She paused, took a deep breath, and forced herself to stay calm. No panic. Step by step, she moved forward.


    At the far end, she spotted an old, battered desk. Papers were scattered across it—clearly not covered in dust. Someone had been here recently.


    She stepped closer and reached out. Just as her fingers touched one of the documents, a loud rm red from the front of the warehouse.


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