Chapter 34 - The Mother’s Vow
Beneath the deck in the engine trench, the roar of the explosion rattled the steel ribs of the ship, lifting the vessel slightly before slamming it down into the trough of a massive wave.
Clara buried her face in my shoulder, sobbing quietly. "Mommy, is Silas okay?"
"Silas is the strongest man in the world, sweetheart," I whispered, holding her with one arm while my right hand leveled the semi-automatic pistol at the hatch. "Stay behind the generator. Whatever happens, you do not come out."
Suddenly, the steel hatch groaned. The heavy external locking wheel began to rotate.
*Clank. Clank.*
It wasn't Silas’s knock. There were no three slow taps, no two fast ones. It was the screech of a battery-powered hydraulic cutter grinding through the hardened pins.
My breath caught in my throat. Every drop of blood in my body went cold, then ignited with pure, primal fury. I wasn't just a waitress who had spent years wiping tables and counting pennies to buy school shoes. I was the woman who had watched Silas Marcone tear apart an entire criminal syndicate to give us peace. If the shadows thought they could take my child, they would learn what a mother’s vengeance tasted like.
The hatch was kicked inward with a deafening metallic clang.
A tactical operative in black carbon armor stepped through the smoke, his rifle raised. The instant his boot touched the diamond-plate floor, I didn't hesitate. I didn't scream. I squeezed the trigger.
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
The heavy nine-millimeter rounds caught the operative in the unarmored seam between his tactical collar and helmet. Blood sprayed across the white paint of the bulkhead, and the operative crashed backward down the companionway steps, dead before he hit the grating.
Before I could celebrate, a second shadow loomed in the doorway. A gloved hand gripped the barrel of my gun, ripping it violently from my grip with military efficiency. I was slammed against the steel locker, my breath knocked out of me.
"A feisty governess," sneered Colonel Gabriel Ward, stepping into the compartment with a smoking scar across his cheek from Silas's earlier blast. Behind him, Silas was fighting two operatives on the ladder above, the sound of savage hand-to-hand combat echoing off the iron. "Lord Thorne will find a use for you in the European labor compounds, Miss Vance."
Ward reached down toward Clara, who screamed in terror.
"Don't touch her!" I lunged forward, grabbing a heavy steel wrench from the maintenance bench, and swung it with all the force in my body into Ward's knee.
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The metal met bone with a sickening crunch. Ward bellowed in agony, dropping to one knee. In that split second, Silas dropped through the hatchway like an avenging demon, his combat knife flashing in the dim light.
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