Paragon

⊰❉⊱ 9 ⊰❉⊱

I expected a mundane route to her apartment. Perhaps an emergency with a client. What I did not expect was the route her car took very deliberately to the deep East end. Most of the city's drug gangs were located here for the proximity to the financial district in Canary Wharf.

So what in every hell was Quinn Adams doing here?

We travelled for some time until even the traffic started getting sparse and the houses more closely crammed on top and next to each other. More corner shops without licenses and chicken shops past us as we tailed the silver car at a distance.

A brick bridge above held the overground trains that passed every few minutes. Her car pulled up under one of its arches.

"Pull over." I said simply, watching Quinn draw out of the car in a dark hood and not the pristine suit I was used to. I frowned hard. Why would someone of such good stature possibly involve herself with the underworld like this–

She hefted a thick duffle bag over one shoulder as she shut the car door. I opened my own and pulled up my overcoat collar.

"Keep the car running. I will call if anything." I shut the door without waiting for an answer.

I crossed the road silently, while the red of the traffic lights bled onto the empty roads. I watched Quinn's black hood as she walked under the arch and her car pulled away. When I rounded the arch I watched her stop outside a metal door and hit a buzzer.

The inter comm crackled to life and I stopped under the shadows to listen.

"Yeah?"

"Jack, it's me. Open up it's freezing." She answered steadily like she had been here many a time.

I checked my phone and gun still in place within my jacket. Hopefully it would not come to such things... The door clanked once and then opened to her. She walked in at ease and it shut heavily behind her.

I weighed my options here. Calling for assistance without reasonable evidence was out of the question–tailing a civilian alone was pushing the limits. I could break the door without half a thought but that would be yet another charge of breaking and entering which is harder to explain. I sighed through my nose and stayed with a shadowed pillar watching the entrance.

Staking out the area would have to do for now–

A large man with a shaven head and a similar duffle bag strode loudly over to the door in the next moment. I could hear his aggressive music from the can headphones covering his ears. Perhaps I wouldn't need to wait.

I slipped silently closer.

He punched a finger into the inter comm as Quinn had. A similar conversation took place before the door opened heavily. He stepped in and I moved quickly. Crossing the cobble rapidly and catching the door to slip in right after.

The man with the music was already descending a set of metal steps lit by strange purple lighting. But the more striking thing was the steady beat of loud music muffled by walls. I waited for him to reach the bottom before moving more quickly. When he pulled the door at the bottom back, a thick beat entered the staircase.

My eyes narrowed. I had been in similar raids before. The more at home they feel is usually for a reason. I pressed myself against the door contemplating how I would explain this if I had just walked in on one of the hubs for the East end drug rings. Then again I would walk away either way.

I pushed it open and the music surrounded me. Then I saw them.

"TWO, THREE, FOUR!"

Cross trainers. Cycle bikes. It was a god damn gym.