Chapter 13 - Blood in the Water
The luxurious ballroom instantly descended into absolute chaos. Every assassin, mercenary, and cartel enforcer in the room turned their greedy eyes toward us. Ten million dollars was enough money to make lifelong allies turn their guns on you without a second thought.
“Move!” I roared, grabbing Clara’s hand and shoving our way through the dense crowd of panicked socialites.
A barrage of suppressed gunfire shattered the crystal chandeliers above us. Glass rained down like deadly hail. I drew my concealed pistol from my tuxedo jacket and fired three rapid shots into a heavily tattooed mercenary who was lunging at Clara with a combat knife. He dropped to the carpet, blood pooling into the expensive fibers.
Clara didn't panic. She moved with the lethal grace of a trained killer, drawing the throwing knives from her thigh holsters. With a flick of her wrists, two silver flashes sailed through the dimly lit room, catching two approaching gunmen directly in their throats.
We sprinted toward the kitchen corridors, kicking open the double doors and barricading them with a heavy stainless-steel prep table. I could hear the shouting and boots pounding against the deck outside. We were trapped on a yacht in the middle of the ocean with hundreds of armed killers hunting us.
“The tracker,” Clara gasped, pulling out her encrypted phone. “The Russian lieutenant is heading for the lower maintenance deck. He’s abandoning ship.”
“If he’s my father’s man, he has a private extraction waiting,” I deduced quickly. “That’s our only way off this floating death trap.”
We navigated the narrow, steam-filled corridors of the ship’s bowels, engaging in brutal, close-quarters combat with anyone who got in our way. I ran out of ammunition in my primary magazine and had to resort to hand-to-hand combat, shattering a man’s jaw with the butt of my empty gun to clear our path.
When we finally breached the lower maintenance deck, we saw the Russian lieutenant aggressively powering up a small, high-speed stealth boat suspended over the dark ocean water.
I didn't give him a chance to draw his weapon. I tackled him hard onto the grated metal floor, pressing my forearm against his windpipe while Clara quickly disarmed him, tossing his automatic rifle into the churning water below.
“You’re going to tell me exactly where Dominic Hale is hiding,” I snarled, applying more pressure to his throat.
The Russian choked, spitting blood into my face. “He is everywhere, Bennett. He built this city. You are just renting it.”
Before I could interrogate him further, the reinforced steel doors of the maintenance deck blew open with a deafening explosion. Smoke poured into the room, and five heavily armed tactical operators stepped through, their laser sights cutting through the haze and locking directly onto my chest.
I braced myself for the end, pulling Clara close to shield her.
But the operators didn't fire at us. Instead, they turned their weapons on the pursuing mercenaries spilling out of the stairwells, cutting them down in a precise hail of bullets.
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The leader of the tactical team pulled off his helmet, revealing a familiar face. It was Marcus, my former underboss. His shoulder was heavily scarred from where Clara had stabbed him months ago, but his eyes were filled with desperate determination.
“You really need to stop getting invited to these parties, boss,” Marcus smirked, offering me a hand up. “Get in the boat. We have a lot to talk about.”
