Chapter 28

Perched on top of a water tower, I look down across the street to a, by all means, regular little building, a hovel, if anything, but it is nothing out of the ordinary. Especially not for the area we are currently in since the building perfectly suits its shady surroundings; if anything, I would say that it is actually inconspicuous.

But I know that this place is, without doubt, the most fucked up residence in this neighbourhood, though I don't know in what way. The helpful piece of crap I grabbed and held off of the top of a building didn't really know much, but he did hear some of his superiors discussing this place in hushed tones, talking about important merchandise.

That was all I got, but it looked to be much more of a lucrative tip than all the ones I had got so far. Usually, a corner where a dealer hangs out or a bar some higher up regularly goes to, things to keep in mind for sure in case I can use it later on, but all in all, small beans, and for my first blow, I want to have a significant impact, and it seems like this might just do it.

Right now, I could storm into that building and start kicking the crap out of every degenerate hiding inside that building, and then once they are all taken care of, I can place an anonymous tip to the police and then watch as they clean house. But, there are a few problems with this place, and there is a better way to handle this.

I am still determining what the merchandise actually is, it could be drugs, or it could be weapons for all I know, but I know for a fact that it is at least somewhat important, and that is good enough for me. The thug told me that from what he heard, he figured that they were storing some merchandise at this place, a stop-gap, apparently.

And tonight, the merchandise here will be picked up and transported to one of the places in the city where they store whatever it is I am liberating from their hands tonight.

So I figure, why settle for the little fish when I can use it to bait something bigger and crackdown on that instead? So my plan right now is to wait for this truck to come and pick up this merchandise. At this point, I will stealthily follow it to wherever it is going and find the bigger jackpot, after which I will kick the asses of all of the goons inside there and then confiscate all of the merchandise there, and then call in the police force for the cleanup.

Thankfully, all of the diversions and distractions on my way here will not negatively impact my plan. I planned to come an hour earlier than the time the thug told me the pickup was going to take place just to scout out the site properly and make sure I wasn't fed some bogus intel. Thankfully the thug was telling the truth since I had been observing for a few minutes, and I had seen some guys walking around with guns on them through the windows.

The drop is not supposed to be for quite a while now, and I have some time to kill, so I better not waste my time. Therefore, I have decided to go and infiltrate the building and sneak around to find out any more information I could get and what precisely this merchandise was. But, of course, I am only planning to observe and learn, nothing else; I still want to follow the stuff to its next destination and break a bigger operation.

While this location does serve as an excellent place to hide stuff, given its none suspicious looks, it does not have very good defences. However, it was honestly not even hard for me to get inside. All I had to do was get up on the roof. And since they chose a dilapidated building to blend into their surroundings, there are quite a few holes in the roof, the tiles have fallen off, and so I can easily slip inside.

Once inside, I sneak around in the shadows and lurk in the darkness, observing all the thugs inside and listening in for anything that might prove to be crucial information. But all I can seem to delve from all the ongoing conversations is that they are all on high alert and that they will all soon be moving out, orders from their boss, who I have learnt is residing on one of the top floors.

Seeing that the rest of these mooks are all useless, I head up to the boss's room to see if I can find anything of worth and maybe find out why all these guys are on high alert and why they will all be moving out soon. But, honestly, even though these guys are on high alert, this building is too broken down and dark that they don't notice as I quickly work my way through the building and into their boss's room, who seems to be in conversation with one of his men.

"So, why are we all on the lookout, boss? We have done these types of transfers of merchandise before, and it has been fine every time, not even a single nosy cop. But this time, not only are we patrolling the building, but you have even moved up the pickup. What's going on, Johnny?" The apparent second-hand man asks the boss, who is aptly named Johnny, asking the exact questions I have on my mind.

"You know that little shit, the naive one that recently joined us? The little rat called me a little while ago and told me he gave up this place to a devil or something, I think he meant Daredevil, and he gave him the time of the pickup. Which is why I told you guys to pick up the slack and why I moved up the pickup. It should be here in about fifteen." So Johnny tells his man, revealing to me just why everything has been thrown out of whack. That stupid little idiot must have been very new to make a mistake and call up his boss. So now I have to worry about them lynching the kid.

"Wait, Daredevil? What the hell are we going to do, Johnny? We are going to get the shit kicked out of us. And what the hell is the big man going to say when he learns that we fucked up this badly? Shit, let's just tell them to stop the pickup and then get the hell out of here." The number two immediately starts to panic and freak out while Johnny watches on passively.

"Are you done? Do you think I haven't already thought about this shit? I can't just stop this pickup. The big man expects things to run smoothly and on time, like a well-oiled machine. If we stop the transfer, then the boss is going to get angry, and when we tell him that we had a rat, he is going to boil me alive. I recruited the little shit, after all." So Johnny tells his man, who seems to calm down a little bit and starts to pace up and down the room, still stressing out.

"Alright, then, what are we going to do? He could be watching us right now, or he could even be in the building. We can't hope to take him down, literal supervillains have tried, and they couldn't do it." The right-hand man starts to doubt, looking askance at his leader.

"We aren't going to be sticking around to fight that horned fucker. It didn't even cross my mind. That little rat shit told Daredevil the original pickup time, which is why I moved it up. Hopefully, we can do this pickup, and then we will pack up and get the fuck out of here, find a new place to set up shop, and just say we started to get a little heat here and needed a change of scenery." Johnny calmly explains from behind his desk, or what is made to seem like a desk since it is as broken down as the rest of this building.

"Then, once we have changed location and gotten things in order, we will get that little shit and teach him a lesson. Though it will be too little too late since we are going to make sure he never squeals again. Now go out there and do something useful. Go check on the two boys in the garage that will be loading the truck up and make sure they know to be as quick as possible." Johnny continues and dismisses his man, already pulling open his desk drawer and reaching in for a bottle of whisky and a glass.

"And... What if he gets here early? What if he is already here?" Instead of going like was clearly asked of him, the right-hand man expresses his fears, still worrying about me, or technically Daredevil, but really me. Clearly, that was not the right move as the boss thunderously gets up, knocking his bottle of whisky over and charges up to his man to grab him by the collar.

"DIDN'T I ALREADY TELL YOU THAT IT IS ALREADY TAKEN CARE OF, JIM!? NOW, GO OUT THERE AND DO YOUR FUCKIN' JOB! AND IF DAREDEVIL DOES SHOW UP, THEN... Then we will deal with it, alright." Clearly, the boss is just as stressed and freaked out, but he is trying to keep a hold of it, and Jim's incessant questions are getting on his nerves and driving it to the forefront of his mind.

I don't waste any more time on this and drop down from the rafters where I was listening in on them and immediately grab their heads and smash them together, letting go. They both drop to the floor, unconscious. I don't have any time to waste now, the pickup is in about fifteen minutes, and after that, all of these guys are going to pack up and jump ship, and I will be following the truck.

I need to knock out all the goons in this building except the two in the garage before the truck gets here because otherwise, they are going to scurry away into the night, and that idiot kid that tipped me off is going to get lynched by them. Thankfully even though their boss has told them to start patrolling and be on high alert, they don't know his reasoning, so even though they are doing it, they are being quite lackadaisical about it, making it easy for me to knock them off one by one.

Using my unfair advantage of my super senses, my increased strength and my best ability for this environment, my ability to walk on walls. No one looks up at the ceiling, making it easy for me to sneak around and pick them off one by one. I could even take out two at a time silently by acting swiftly enough. In no time, everyone except the two thugs chilling out in the garage was taken out, and I just managed to get into the garage in time for the truck's arrival.

After three knocks on the garage door, the two thugs went and opened it up, allowing the back of a truck to back in. Some new thugs walk through the opening and open the back of the truck up while the other two walk over to the back of the room and move a wardrobe out of the way, revealing a staircase going down into the dark depths.

They walk down the steps and disappear for a while, and then they come back with the merchan...dise.

Shit. Those are people... in chains... with bags over their heads.

This is a human trafficking ring.