BLOOD BUYS THE SILENCE

What Priya Knows

Nadia didn't say anything for a long moment after Dorian told her about the favor.

She stood in her kitchen, arms crossed, staring at nothing, and when she finally spoke her voice was quiet in a way Dorian hadn't heard from her before. "An unspecified favor to a woman who works for the same city that murdered Cole. That's what you traded for Jonah's life."

"I didn't have another option."

"There's always another option. You just didn't like any of the others." She rubbed her eyes, exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with her shift schedule. "I should be angrier about this. I'm too tired to be angrier about this."

*She wasn't wrong. He'd known it the moment he shook Odette's hand.*

"I need to know what I'm actually fighting," Dorian said. "Not rumors. Not half a ledger from a scared man. The real shape of it."

Nadia pulled a folder from her bag — not medical records this time, printouts, screenshots, the kind of paper trail someone built when they didn't trust computers to keep their secrets. "I've been building this for three weeks. Missing persons reports that overlap with Pit fight nights. Nineteen names in six months, all men with no family to file a report themselves. I couldn't make sense of where they went until you told me what Silas said. The undercard fighters aren't just losing on purpose. They're the shipment."

"Where does it go after the Pit?"

"I don't know. My reach ends at the hospital doors." Nadia closed the folder. "But I know someone whose reach doesn't."

---

Priya Anand's stall in the Bazaar didn't have a sign. It didn't need one. Everyone who mattered already knew where to find the woman who traded in information instead of goods, and everyone who didn't matter was smart enough not to ask.

She was younger than Dorian expected, maybe mid-twenties, with the kind of watchful stillness that came from a life spent noticing things other people missed. She didn't look up from a laptop screen when Nadia approached, but her hand drifted toward something under the counter until she recognized who was walking beside her.

"Nadia Ferro." Priya's eyes flicked to Dorian, cataloging him fast — the fighter's build, the bruises, the wariness. "And a friend. This must be important."

"It is." Nadia set the folder on the counter. "We need to know where the Pit's shipments go after they leave the city."

Priya's expression didn't change, but her hands went still on the keyboard. "That's not a cheap question."

"We're not asking for free." Dorian pulled out the burner phone he'd taken off the man he'd killed at the loading dock, still holding whatever data lived inside it. "This came off one of Voss's men. I don't know what's on it. Maybe nothing. Maybe something worth trading."

Priya studied the phone a long moment before she took it, turning it over like it might bite her. "You're the fighter who's been asking questions Silas Vance doesn't want asked. People are talking about you. Not the good kind of talking."

"Good. Means somebody's paying attention."

Priya's fingers moved fast across her laptop, cross-referencing something Dorian couldn't see. Nadia stood close, arms crossed, watching the alley behind them out of habit Dorian recognized — the habit of someone who'd learned the hard way that some conversations got people killed for being overheard.

"There's a company," Priya said finally, voice dropping lower. "Corvane Logistics. Registered as a freight and staffing agency, moves 'contract labor' out of three ports on the east side. On paper it's boring. Underneath it, the ownership chain runs through six shell companies before it dead-ends at a name I've only seen once before, on a donor list for a city council campaign."

"Which councilman?"

Priya hesitated, and for the first time since they'd arrived, something like fear crossed her face. "Councilman Foster Grey. Chairs the committee that oversees port authority contracts. If Corvane's moving people through those ports, it's because someone with real power made sure nobody's looking too closely at the manifests."

*The Pit wasn't the end of the chain. It was barely the beginning of it.*

Dorian's stomach turned cold. This wasn't just Voss running a fight club with a side business. This was a pipeline that reached into city government, protected by someone who could make investigations disappear with a phone call.

"How sure are you?" Nadia asked.

"Sure enough that I've never said his name out loud before tonight." Priya closed her laptop, hands trembling slightly despite her calm voice. "Thursday's shipment leaves from Pier 14 at midnight. That's everything I have. I'd appreciate it if neither of you mentioned where you got it."

"You have my word," Dorian said.

Priya's eyes met his, sharp and afraid and resolved all at once. "Your word's worth more than most people's in this city. Try to keep it that way."

She was already packing her laptop away, moving faster now, glancing toward the alley's mouth like she expected trouble to arrive the moment they left. Dorian understood, watching her, that she'd just handed them something dangerous enough to get her killed if the wrong person ever traced it back.

*Should Dorian move on Councilman Grey directly, using the political angle to blow the conspiracy wide open, or focus everything on stopping Thursday's shipment at Pier 14 before more names get added to Nadia's list?*