Chapter 7 - The Miami Hustle
The next three days were a blur of absolute desperation. Harbor View Marine Repair transformed into a military triage unit.
The invisible workers of Miami—the guys who scrubbed the billionaire’s decks, the women who stitched the custom upholstery, the mechanics who tuned the luxury yachts—descended upon the boatyard. Word had spread about Thorne’s cowardly attack. And the working class was angry.
A welder from a rival yard down the street showed up with his rig. "Heard you need a miracle on an engine block," he told Elias. He worked for fourteen hours straight, micro-welding the cracked V8 block until it was stronger than before.
Sarah scavenged parts from a junkyard, rewiring the navigation system with salvaged screens and raw copper wire. She looked like a war survivor, covered in grease and soot, surviving entirely on Cuban espresso.
Elias didn't sleep. He popped painkillers like candy, wrapping his bruised ribs tightly with athletic tape. He directed the chaos, ensuring every bolt was torqued, every line was bled.
On the evening of the race, The Phantom looked different. She wasn't perfectly polished anymore. Her hull was a patchwork of raw fiberglass repairs and mismatched black primer. Her windshield was a piece of salvaged lexan. She looked like a scarred, battle-hardened street fighter.
She looked terrifying.
As the sun began to set, casting long golden shadows over the water, Elias climbed into the pilot's seat. He strapped himself into the five-point harness. Sarah climbed into the navigator's seat beside him, pulling a crash helmet over her head.
"You don't have to do this, Sarah," Elias yelled over the idling engines. "It's going to be brutal."
May you like
"I'm your spotter, Uncle Eli," Sarah yelled back, flipping the GPS screen on. "We started this together. We finish it together."
Elias nodded. He slammed the dual throttles forward. The Phantom roared to life, violently backing out of the dry-dock and turning its sharp nose toward the open ocean. It was time to hunt.
