Chapter 5 - Blood, Sweat, and Oil
The next three weeks became a grueling marathon of grease, caffeine, and exhaustion. They towed The Phantom back to Harbor View at midnight, hiding her in the deepest, enclosed dry-dock bay.
During the day, they ran the boatyard, fixing tourists' jet skis and fishermen's outboards to keep up appearances. But at night, the real work began.
The entire boatyard crew—Marco, the mechanics, the painters—found out what Elias was planning. Instead of calling him crazy, they rallied. These were men and women who had been pushed around by the billionaires of Miami for decades. The idea of Elias Vance sticking it to Marcus Thorne ignited a fire in their bellies.
"We need higher compression in the cylinders if we’re going to compete with Thorne’s turbines," Marco said one night, wiping grease from his forehead at 3:00 AM.
"Bore them out," Elias ordered. "We run high-octane aviation fuel. It’ll burn hot, but it’ll give us the thrust we need."
Sarah became the electrical mastermind. She completely rewired the archaic dashboard, installing modern GPS tracking and a digital telemetry system. She worked until her fingers bled, driven by the looming deadline. Every time she felt like collapsing, she looked at the foreclosure notice pinned to the wall.
They stripped The Phantom down to her bare bones, removing every ounce of unnecessary weight. They polished the twin bronze propellers until they gleamed like gold. When they fired up the engines for the first time, the roar was deafening. It didn't sound like a modern boat; it sounded like a thunderstorm trapped in a metal cage. The entire dock vibrated.
Elias sat at the helm, his hands gripping the leather steering wheel. The arthritis in his knuckles flared with a sharp ache, but as the engines vibrated through his chest, he felt something he hadn't felt in twenty years.
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He felt young.
But their secret wasn't as safe as they thought. In a city built on money, loyalty was always for sale. And Marcus Thorne had very deep pockets.
