Chapter 45 - The Salt-Stained Edge
The relief that surged through my veins was like a shock of pure adrenaline, burning through the paralyzing terror that had gripped my spine. Maeve was safe. The decoy bunker had done its job. Tyler’s private security chief, Marcus, had anticipated the perimeter compromise and moved our infant daughter onto the Coast Guard cutter before Thomas’s mercenaries could breach the outer gate.
Thomas saw the flicker in my eyes, and he knew instantly that his coup de grâce had failed.
With a feral roar, Thomas shoved Tyler off him, rolling across the slick concrete and bringing the gun up again. Tyler collided with a stack of industrial pallets, the heavy wood groaning under the impact. He rolled to his feet instantly, blood trickling from a split along his eyebrow, his breathing ragged.
"Denise, to the launch!" Thomas barked, backing away toward the water-facing bay doors where a twin-engine offshore speedboat rocked gently against the wooden pylons.
"Not this time," I snarled, swinging the iron winch bar with everything I had left.
The bar struck Denise across the forearms as she attempted to sprint past me, sending Julian’s stolen pocket watch and a leather satchel crashing onto the oil-stained planks. Denise shrieked, clutching her bruised arm and stumbling backward toward the edge of the pier.
"Shoot her, Thomas! Shoot the bitch!" Denise screamed, her composure entirely shattered, revealing the manic desperation of a woman who had lost her fortune, her husband, and her freedom.
Thomas fired twice. The first bullet ricocheted off the corrugated iron frame behind me with a deafening whine; the second tore through the flesh of my upper shoulder, a white-hot line of agony that spun me around and knocked me to my knees.
"Clara!" Tyler cried out.
He didn't care about the weapon anymore. Tyler closed the distance between himself and Thomas in two massive strides, slamming his biological father against the open doorway of the boathouse. The impact dislodged the semi-automatic from Thomas’s hand; the weapon clattered over the edge of the decking and vanished beneath the black, churning water of the harbor with a dull splash.
The two men crashed onto the wooden dock outside, rain beginning to lash down in relentless sheets. Tyler struck Thomas twice in the face, hard, brutal punches born of thirty years of lies, stolen identity, and the attempted murder of his child. Thomas groaned, his lip splitting, but the older man fought with the dirty, vicious efficiency of someone who had survived boarding school brawls and backroom betrayals. Thomas gouged his thumbs toward Tyler’s eyes, forcing Tyler to wrench his head back.
"You're my blood, Tyler!" Thomas wheezed, spitting blood onto the slick timber. "You're a Vanderberg! You're going to destroy our name for a middle-class nobody and a child born out of wedlock?"
"I'm not your blood," Tyler hissed, grabbing Thomas by the lapels of his sodden cashmere coat and hauling him up until his feet dangled over the edge of the dark, freezing bay. "I am Julian's son. He might have been a coward, and he might have kept his secrets, but he never tried to blow up a baby in her crib."
Behind them, the low rumble of a heavy marine diesel engine cut through the roar of the rain. Across the harbor, the searchlights of Coast Guard Cutter Bravo swept over the water, cutting through the darkness with blinding, incandescent beams. Sirens wailed in the distance, echoing off the concrete cliffs of the shipping terminal. Law enforcement was closing the perimeter.
Denise saw the lights and panicked. Forgetting Thomas, forgetting the satchel, she scrambled frantically into the cockpit of the speedboat tied to the slip, frantically slapping the ignition toggle.
"Thomas! Get in, you idiot!" she screamed.
Tyler hesitated for a fraction of a second, glancing back toward me as I pushed myself up from the floor, clutching my bleeding shoulder. That split-second distraction was all Thomas needed. Reaching into his boot, Thomas drew a compact ceramic diving knife and slashed upward, slicing across Tyler’s forearm.
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Tyler grunted, releasing his grip on the coat, and Thomas hurled himself onto the stern of the boat just as Denise hammered the twin throttles forward.
The boat surged into the chop, spray flying as the bow rose high into the night. But as they tore out into the open bay, the leather satchel Denise had dropped lay soaked and split open on the edge of the dock—its water-damaged contents spilling across the timber directly at my feet.
