CHAPTER 16: INFRASTRUCTURE
The warehouse on Eleventh Avenue had been abandoned for three years.
Water damage in the ceiling. Rats in the walls. A loading dock door that screamed on rusted hinges. The previous owner—a shipping company that went bankrupt during the recession—had stripped everything valuable before walking away.
I bought it for a quarter of its assessed value.
"This is your grand plan?" Claire stood in the middle of the empty floor, arms crossed, skepticism radiating off her in waves. "A rat-infested warehouse?"
"This is one part of the plan." I pulled out my phone, showing her the renovation blueprints. "Three buildings. Three purposes. All connected through a network nobody knows exists."
She took the phone, scrolling through the drawings. Her expression shifted from skeptical to curious to something approaching impressed.
"Medical station here," I said, pointing. "Secure storage there. Emergency exit through the basement to the old subway tunnel—it connects to the station on Thirty-Fourth."
"You've really thought this through."
"I've had time." Three weeks of training with Matt had given me plenty of hours to plan between sessions. My body learned to fight while my mind mapped out contingencies. "Hell's Kitchen is going to get worse before it gets better. The Russian war, Union Allied, whatever's coming next—people are going to need places to hide. Places to heal. Places to regroup."
Claire handed back the phone. "And you're just going to provide all of this out of the goodness of your heart?"
"I'm going to provide it because nobody else will." I walked toward the loading dock, my footsteps echoing in the empty space. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light from the grimy windows. "The city doesn't care about Hell's Kitchen. The police are compromised—you've seen enough to know that. The only people fighting for this neighborhood are doing it in masks and shadows."
"People like the man I treat at three in the morning."
"People like him. And maybe, eventually, people like me."
Claire was quiet for a moment. Her eyes traced the layout of the warehouse, already seeing the potential I'd described. Then she nodded slowly. "What do you need from me?"
"Help setting up the medical station. You know what we'll need better than I do." I pulled out a list I'd been building for weeks—late nights at my apartment, researching trauma care and emergency medicine. "Trauma kits. IV supplies. Surgical tools for field procedures. Antibiotics, painkillers, blood-clotting agents—"
"This isn't a shopping list for a first aid kit," Claire interrupted, scanning the page. "This is an emergency room."
"That's the idea."
She looked up at me, something new in her expression. Respect, maybe. Or concern that I'd lost my mind. Possibly both. "You're really doing this. Building an underground hospital for vigilantes."
"For anyone who needs it." I took back the list. "But yes. That's what I'm doing."
The apartment building on Forty-Third Street was in better shape.
Pre-war construction. Solid bones. Half the units were vacant because the previous landlord had let maintenance slide into nonexistence. I bought it through a shell company I'd set up with lawyers who knew better than to ask questions—the kind of lawyers who charged triple rates for discretion and earned every penny.
The building manager—a man named Santos who'd worked there for twenty years—looked at me like I was crazy when I showed up for the first time.
"You bought this place?" He gestured at the crumbling façade, at the broken windows on the third floor, at the graffiti covering the entrance. "Why?"
"Investment opportunity."
Santos laughed—a harsh sound with no humor in it. "Investment in what? Half the units can't pass inspection. The other half have tenants who haven't paid in months because the old owner never fixed their heat."
"Then we'll fix the units and work with the tenants." I handed him an envelope. "Three months of back pay for you, starting now. You're working for me."
He opened the envelope. Counted the bills. His weathered hands were steady, but I saw his eyes widen. He looked at me again with new eyes—calculating, assessing.
"What's the catch?"
"No catch. I want to fix this building. Make it livable again. And occasionally, I might need a few units kept available for emergencies."
"What kind of emergencies?"
"The kind where people need a safe place to stay, no questions asked." I met his eyes directly. No flinching. No deception. "Can you handle that?"
Santos tucked the envelope into his jacket. Twenty years in Hell's Kitchen had taught him when to ask questions and when to accept good fortune. "For this kind of money? I can handle a lot."
"Good." I shook his hand—rough calluses, strong grip. A man who'd done real work his whole life. "Start with the heating system. I want every unit warm before winter really hits."
The third property was a small office space on Ninth Avenue.
Ground floor of a mixed-use building, previously home to a tax preparation service that went out of business. The space still had their sign in the window—faded letters reading "FAST REFUNDS"—and rows of empty desks gathering dust.
I turned it into a community resource center. Free legal consultations through Nelson & Murdock referrals. Job training referrals. Housing assistance for people being pushed out by developers. GED classes on Tuesday nights.
All of it legitimate. All of it useful.
And all of it cover for the real operation happening in the back room.
Claire met me there on a Thursday afternoon, carrying boxes of medical supplies we'd ordered through various legitimate channels. IV bags from a hospital supply company that sold to wilderness expedition groups. Trauma kits marketed to outdoor enthusiasts and preppers. Surgical tools purchased from a medical equipment auction in New Jersey.
"This is illegal," she said, not for the first time that week. She set down a box of blood-clotting agents with more force than necessary. "You know that, right?"
"Most of it isn't, technically." I helped her stack boxes in the back room, which we'd converted into a storage space hidden behind a false wall. The construction foreman—Eddie—had done excellent work. You'd never know the room existed unless someone showed you. "Private citizens are allowed to own medical equipment. We're just... collecting it in one place."
"Without licenses. Without oversight. Without any of the safeguards that keep people from dying on operating tables."
"I'm hoping the people we help will prefer dying on our tables to dying in alleys." I paused, hearing how that sounded. "That came out wrong."
Claire actually laughed—a short, surprised sound that seemed to catch even her off guard. "No, I get it. I've treated enough people who couldn't go to hospitals. Immigrants afraid of ICE. Gang members who'd be arrested on sight. Your friend in the mask who shows up bleeding from places he shouldn't have been."
"He's not my friend."
"Yet." She handed me another box. "But you're building all of this for people like him. People who fight in the shadows and need somewhere to patch themselves up afterward."
I didn't deny it. Couldn't deny it. She knew exactly what I was doing, even if she didn't know why.
The pizza arrived at seven, hot and greasy and perfect.
I'd ordered enough for the small crew helping stock the warehouse—Santos, Eddie the construction foreman, and Rosa, the former EMT who Claire had vouched for. None of them knew the full picture. None of them needed to. They each held one piece of the puzzle, carefully compartmentalized to protect everyone involved.
"Community emergency preparedness," I'd told them when they asked. "Natural disasters. Building fires. Whatever Hell's Kitchen throws at us."
They'd nodded and taken the paychecks and asked no questions. That was Hell's Kitchen for you—people learned early that curiosity could get you killed.
We sat on crates eating pizza and talking about the neighborhood. Santos told stories about the old days, before the crime wave, before the developers, before Hell's Kitchen became a place people wanted to escape from. He remembered when the bakery on Forty-Fifth actually baked bread fresh every morning. When you could walk home at midnight without checking over your shoulder.
Eddie complained about building code violations that the city refused to enforce—slumlords who let their properties rot while tenants suffered. He'd reported the same violations for years. Nothing ever changed.
Rosa talked about the calls she used to take as an EMT—the overdoses, the beatings, the shootings that never made the news because they happened to people nobody cared about. Kids mostly. Too many kids.
I listened. Learned. Filed away details that might matter later.
These were the people I was fighting for. The ones who'd stayed when everyone else left. The ones who remembered what Hell's Kitchen could be, if someone cared enough to save it.
By the time the pizza was gone, I had three properties, a network of helpers, and the beginnings of an infrastructure that could support a war.
I hoped it would be enough.
The text from Foggy came as I was locking up the warehouse.
Strange call at the office today. Someone asking about your real estate purchases. Very detailed questions about shell companies and property transfers. Told them nothing.
My stomach clenched.
Someone was tracking me. Noticing the shell companies, the property acquisitions, the money flowing into Hell's Kitchen real estate.
Fisk's people? The Russians? Someone else entirely?
I typed back: Thanks for the heads up. Ignore any more calls like that.
His reply came seconds later: Already planning to. But Roy—be careful. Whoever this is, they're digging deep. Like they're building a file on you.
I stared at the message for a long moment, standing alone in the empty warehouse that was supposed to be a refuge.
Three buildings. A medical cache. A network of allies who didn't know what they were really building.
And now someone was watching. Building a file.
The clock was ticking. I just didn't know how much time I had left.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them . No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1