Chapter 25 - The Lion’s Roar
The heavy 12-gauge shell detonated with a deafening blast in the enclosed office. The blast caught Hayes squarely in the tactical vest, throwing his body backward through the shattered doorway and down the iron staircase like a broken ragdoll.
The recoil drove into my shoulder with brutal force, but I didn't drop the gun. I racked another shell into the chamber, my heart hammering against my ribs, smoke curling from the barrel. Clara stared at me, wide-eyed, not in fear of me, but in total awe.
"Mommy..." she whispered.
"I’ve got you, baby," I breathed, wrapping one arm around her waist as I stepped over Hayes’s groaning, incapacitated body on the landing. "Nobody touches you."
Down on the pier, Silas was a whirlwind of slaughter.
He moved between the parked Suburbans like an apparition of death. He disarmed, broke, and executed Sterling’s mercenaries with horrifying military efficiency. Two operatives tried to pin him against a forklift; Silas caught one by the tactical helmet, drove him through the wooden pallet, and turned the other operative’s sidearm against his companion before breaking his neck with a swift, sickening snap.
Seeing his unit slaughtered, Colonel Sterling scrambled into the remaining Suburban, reversing the heavy machine through the shattered security gate in a cloud of burning rubber and gravel.
"Fall back! Regroup at Fort Hamilton!" Sterling’s voice screamed over their tactical comms.
Silas sprinted after the fleeing vehicle, firing every remaining round from his stolen rifle through the rear windshield, but the armored glass held. The Suburban careened onto the coastal highway, disappearing into the dark rain that had begun to pelt the harbor.
Silas stood in the rain, drenched in water and gunpowder soot, chest heaving. Dockworkers slowly stepped out from behind the containers, cheering his name, but Silas didn't celebrate. He spun around, his eyes wild with terror, scanning the high catwalk.
"Elena! Clara!" he roared into the storm.
"Silas!" I called out from the iron stairs, carrying Clara in my arms.
The instant he saw us unharmed, the ruthless warlord melted away. He ran toward us, bounding up three stairs at a time, throwing his arms around both of us so hard that the breath left my lungs. He buried his face in our hair, shaking uncontrollably.
"I have you," he choked out, his voice cracking. "I have both of you."
"Hayes was a mole," I whispered against his ear, nodding toward the fallen customs chief below. "Sterling knows everything about our supply lines. We can't stay here, Silas."
Silas pulled back, his eyes clearing, hardening into two shards of black ice.
"You're right," he said, turning toward Matteo. "Matteo! Prep the yacht. We aren't hiding on the docks anymore."
"Where are we going, Boss?" Matteo asked, wiping rain and blood from his brow.
May you like
"We take the fight to them," Silas snarled. "We're going to Sterling’s deep-water black site."
***
