Chapter 9 - Fire on the Canal
A deafening roar split the night sky—not from our cutter, but from the industrial fuel depot three hundred yards down the canal bank.
The Castellano family hadn't survived four decades in Seattle by relying on public locks without insurance.
A series of controlled secondary charges tore through the abandoned fuel storage tanks owned by a Moretti shell company along the shoreline.
An enormous wall of bright orange flame shot two hundred feet into the air, turning the night sky into brilliant daylight.
The shockwave rolled across the water, rattling the concrete towers of the locks and knocking three of the riflemen clean off the catwalks into the freezing water below.
Sirens throughout the Ballard district began wailing instantly, an ear-splitting chorus of emergency response units racing toward the massive explosion.
“Dante, now!” Luca roared.
Dante didn't back down.
He shoved both throttles forward, engaging the emergency secondary drive.
The twin turbines screamed with raw hydraulic power.
The reinforced steel bow of the cutter slammed directly into the submerged iron barrier of the lock chamber.
The impact tossed us across the cabin floor, but the reinforced military hull shattered the rusted mechanical gate.
The boat surged forward through the breach, riding the sudden torrent of water as the canal flooded outward toward the Puget Sound.
Gunfire rained down again from the surviving shooters on the high towers, but the cutter was already moving at forty knots, leaving a foaming white wake in the darkness.
Luca kicked open the wheelhouse hatch, stepped onto the rain-swept deck with an assault rifle, and fired a rapid, disciplined burst upward into the catwalk spotlights.
The halogen bulbs shattered into darkness one by one.
A scream echoed from the tower as Jake’s megaphone clattered onto the concrete below.
Within two minutes, the burning locks and the wailing sirens faded into the dense wall of Pacific ocean fog.
The black cutter slipped into the deep, turbulent waters of the Sound, vanishing completely from the radar screens of the city.
Luca stepped back down into the cabin, soaking wet, his rifle lowered, the barrel smoking in the cold air.
He walked directly over to where I sat huddled with Emma on the bunk.
He knelt down on both knees before us, completely disregarding the puddle of seawater pooling around his tactical boots.
He didn't look at the rifle in his hands.
He reached out with a scarred, steady thumb and wiped a streak of soot from Emma’s small, tear-stained cheek.
“It is over, little bird,” he whispered, his voice trembling with a rare, raw tenderness that broke through his monolithic exterior.
“The fire cannot touch you here.”
Emma stopped crying, her wide hazel eyes staring into his face.
Slowly, tentatively, her tiny fingers reached out and touched the gold signet ring on his finger.
“Are you the king from Mama’s story?” she asked in a frail, raspy voice.
Luca’s throat moved as he swallowed heavily.
“No,” he murmured, his voice thick with an emotion he couldn't hide.
“I am just the soldier your grandfather sent to bring you home.”
He stood up, turning to face me.
My body was shaking uncontrollably from the aftermath of the adrenaline, the throbbing pain in my splinted leg returning with agonizing intensity.
“Where are we going, Luca?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“We cannot run forever.”
“We are not running,” Luca said, his eyes hardening into flint.
“We are going to Port Angeles, where my deep-water freight vessels are anchored.”
“We are putting you and Emma on a private cutter to Vancouver within three hours.”
“And what about you?”
Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out the manila envelope Jake had left in South Seattle.
“I am returning to Pier 54.”
“Jake and Moretti think they have pushed me into the sea.”
“They think I am fleeing the federal warrant.”
“At dawn, their ships will attempt to dock at the automated terminal to unload their contraband before the Coast Guard cordons off the coast.”
He looked toward Dante at the helm.
“They are walking straight into a slaughterhouse.”
“Luca, no!” I cried, attempting to push myself up from the bunk.
“Jake is a monster! He will kill you!”
Luca stepped close, his tall frame leaning over me, his hand reaching out to gently cup the side of my face.
His touch was warm, firm, and astonishingly protective.
“He stole eighteen months of your life, Ava.”
“He made you carry coffee on broken bones.”
“He made Thomas Carter’s granddaughter sleep in a food pantry.”
May you like
His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, sending an electric shiver through my entire nervous system.
“Nobody takes from what belongs to me and lives to see the sunrise.”
