Chapter 8 - The Ambush at the Locks
The vessel glided through the Montlake Cut, moving beneath the shadows of concrete highway overpasses where the searchlights of police patrol vehicles swept back and forth across the water.
Dante operated the engines on low-acoustic mode, the cutter sliding through the black water like an apparition beneath the beams of light.
Ahead lay the Ballard Locks—the narrow maritime bottleneck connecting the freshwater of the lake to the saltwater of Puget Sound.
If we cleared the locks, the vast, open channels of the Pacific Ocean lay ahead, where no local jurisdiction could easily track us.
Suddenly, the cabin’s tactical radio hissed with static.
A hoarse voice crackled over the secure channel.
“Castellano, this is Lock Master O’Rourke... do not enter chamber two... I repeat, do not enter chamber—”
The transmission was violently cut short by the sharp, concussive crack of a gunshot over the radio.
The speakers dissolved into hollow feedback.
Dante slammed the throttle into reverse, the turbines whining in protest as the cutter churned the dark water to a halt fifty yards before the concrete canal entrance.
“Searchlights on the catwalks!” Dante shouted from the helm.
Blinding white halogen beams erupted from the high concrete towers overlooking the lock chambers.
The glare flooded the vessel’s deck, turning the dark water into a blinding mirror.
Standing along the iron catwalks thirty feet above the water were at least eight armed men dressed in dark tactical gear, carrying automatic rifles.
They were not Seattle police officers.
They wore no badges, carried no radio mics on their shoulders, and their weapons were fitted with extended drum magazines.
Moretti’s private hit squads had taken the locks.
“Get down!” Luca roared, lunging across the small table and throwing his entire body over Emma and me as a deafening storm of automatic gunfire erupted from above.
Rounds of high-caliber ammunition slammed into the cutter’s reinforced hull with the terrifying sound of sledgehammers striking an iron drum.
The heavy ballistic glass of the cabin portholes cracked into intricate spiderweb patterns, but held against the barrage.
Emma woke with a piercing, terrified shriek, her small hands clawing at my shirt as dust and splinters rained down around us.
“Mama! Mama!”
“I have you, baby! I have you!” I screamed, pressing my face into her hair, shielding her body with my own as Luca held us both pinned against the floorboards.
Luca’s eyes were blazing with a cold, terrifying fire.
He rolled off us, drawing his Sig Sauer and pulling a second tactical weapon from a locked compartment beneath the table.
“Dr. Marchetti!” Luca barked.
The doctor was already on the deck, pressing his back against the steel bulkhead, his face pale but resolute.
“Keep them on the floor!”
Luca scrambled up the iron stairs toward the wheelhouse.
“Dante! Reverse thrust into the shadows of the railway trestle! Do not let them flank the starboard side!”
“Steering linkage is hit, Boss!” Dante yelled through the gunfire, fighting the helm as sparks sprayed from the dashboard console.
“We are drifting toward the concrete spillway!”
The cutter shuddered violently as it scraped against the jagged concrete wall of the canal.
Above us, the gunfire ceased for a brief second as the shooters reloaded their magazines.
In that terrifying lull, a voice boomed through an industrial megaphone mounted on the catwalk tower.
“Castellano!”
The voice was smooth, arrogant, and unmistakably familiar.
Jake Martinez.
The sound of his voice made my blood turn into liquid fire.
“We know you're in the hold, Luca!” Jake shouted, his words echoing across the cold concrete walls of the lock.
“Send the girl and the stuffed animal up on the deck, and we let you walk away to fight another day!”
“Refuse, and we drop two thermite charges through your engine hatch!”
“You have sixty seconds to decide if Ava’s brat is worth burning alive for!”
Emma was sobbing hysterically against my chest, her tiny fingers digging into the fabric of my apron.
Her chest was seizing again, the cold air and sheer terror constricting her fragile airways.
Luca stood at the base of the stairs, looking up through the cracked glass of the wheelhouse hatch.
He didn't look afraid.
He looked like an ancient warlord calculating the exact cost of an extermination.
He reached down, picked up a heavy black remote detonator from the console, and looked at Dante.
“Is the harbor patrol feed tapped?” Luca asked.
“Tapped and looped, Boss,” Dante gasped, wiping blood from a minor shrapnel cut on his forehead.
“Then Victor Moretti just committed an act of maritime terrorism on public infrastructure,” Luca whispered.
He turned his gaze back to me.
“Ava.”
I looked up through my tears, clutching Emma against my ribs.
“Do you trust me?”
The question was insane.
We were trapped in a sinking boat beneath an army of assassins led by the man who had ruined my life.
Yet when I looked into those amber eyes, I saw no hesitation, no deceit, and not a single shred of fear.
May you like
“With my daughter’s life,” I answered, the words tearing from my soul.
Luca pressed the red button on the remote detonator.
