Chapter 6 - The Storm Hits
The drive to Terminal Four should have taken twelve minutes.
It took seven.
When I arrived at the commercial docks, the sky above the industrial harbor was stained an angry, glowing orange. Thick, acrid black smoke billowed from the roof of Warehouse C, carrying the stench of burning diesel and melted rubber. Three fireboats were already spraying high-pressure arcs of seawater onto the blaze, while my men, armed with automatic rifles, patrolled the perimeter with tactical precision.
Viktor sprinted toward my vehicle the moment I stepped out onto the wet asphalt. His face was streaked with soot, a tactical vest strapped over his broad chest.
“Status!” I demanded over the roar of the diesel pumps.
“The fire is contained to the secondary storage,” Viktor shouted back. “The supply barge is secured. No casualties—the initial radio report was false, boss! The cigarette boat fired two flares into the storage yard and sped north toward the open ocean before we could even return fire!”
I froze.
The air in my lungs turned to ice.
*No casualties.*
*Flares into secondary storage.*
*A cigarette boat that didn't stay to fight.*
A cold, sickening dread dropped like an anvil into the pit of my stomach.
“It’s a decoy,” I whispered.
Viktor blinked, confused. “What?”
“The fire. The radio report. The gunshots.” My voice shook with a terrifying realization. “They didn't want the docks, Viktor. They wanted *me* out of the house!”
I tore my satellite phone from my pocket and dialed the Star Island estate direct line.
It rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then, the line went dead. No voicemail. Just a harsh, screeching tone indicating that the fiber-optic communication cables had been severed.
“Get in the truck!” I roared at Viktor, sprinting back toward the SUV. “Mobilize Team Alpha! Delgado is at Star Island!”
***
Twelve minutes earlier, on Star Island, the rain had returned in a violent, torrential deluge.
Grace sat in the rocking chair inside Noah’s bedroom, her hands tightly folded in her lap. Noah was still asleep, his breathing soft and rhythmic, oblivious to the storm raging outside the hurricane-proof windows.
Suddenly, the lights flickered.
Once. Twice.
Then, the entire mansion plunged into pitch-black darkness.
Grace stood up immediately, her heart hammering against her ribs. The backup generator should have kicked on within three seconds. It didn't. That meant someone had manually cut the fuel lines in the utility shed behind the garden.
From downstairs came a sound that chilled Grace to her very marrow: the sharp, muffled *phut-phut-phut* of suppressed gunfire, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the marble floor.
The security perimeter had been breached.
Grace didn't panic. Over the past three years, living in the home of Miami’s most dangerous man, Alexander had forced her to memorize the estate’s defense protocols.
*“If the power dies and you hear gunfire,”* Alexander’s voice echoed in her memory, *“do not hide under a bed. Do not try to run for the lawn. Go straight to the wine cellar panic room.”*
Grace moved swiftly across the dark nursery. She scooped Noah into her arms, wrapping him tightly in his woolen blanket. Noah stirred, rubbing his sleepy eyes, his little voice whimpering in the dark. “Mama Grace? Why is it dark?”
“Shh, baby,” Grace whispered urgently against his ear, pressing her palm over his mouth. “We’re playing a game. The quietest game in the world. You have to be a little mouse, okay? Not a single peep.”
Noah nodded against her chest, sensing the absolute terror vibrating through her body.
Grace slipped out of the nursery into the long, dark corridor. The second floor was silent, save for the muffled patter of rain against the roof. But down in the grand foyer, flashlight beams were slicing through the blackness like white blades.
“Clear the kitchen!” a harsh, accented voice barked from the stairs. “Delgado wants the boy alive. The woman is fair game. Shoot on sight!”
Grace held her breath, creeping down the secondary service staircase behind the pantry. The narrow, carpeted steps led directly to the basement level where the reinforced wine cellar was located.
She reached the basement corridor without being spotted. At the end of the hall stood the heavy steel door disguised as an antique wine rack. To open it, she needed to enter the biometric code on the hidden keypad behind a decorative cask.
She reached out with trembling fingers, peeling back the fake wooden stave.
The keypad glowed faint green.
She punched in the numbers: *0-8-1-9*. The date of Noah’s birth.
A hydraulic hiss echoed through the basement corridor as the heavy steel bolts disengaged.
“There she is!” a voice screamed from the top of the service stairs.
Grace didn't look back. She shoved the heavy door open, scrambled inside with Noah, and slammed the steel slab shut just as a hail of bullets tore through the drywall of the corridor, sending clouds of white plaster dust exploding into the air.
The heavy lock clicked into place with a resounding, metallic clunk.
Inside the panic room, the air was cool and filtered. Emergency strip lighting glowed along the baseboards.
Grace sank to the reinforced floor, clutching Noah to her chest, her entire body shaking violently as she listened to the muffled, frustrated shouting of Delgado’s men slamming against the three-inch-thick ballistic steel door from the outside.
They were safe. For now.
Then, from the emergency comms speaker mounted on the wall, an intercom channel crackled to life.
A woman’s voice, cold and dripping with venom, echoed through the small steel room.
“Hello, Grace.”
Grace’s blood ran cold.
May you like
Vanessa Hart was in the house.
***
