Chapter 9 - the blood bond
Before Victor could squeeze the trigger, Clara let out a terrified scream.
That split second of distraction was all Dominic needed.
Dominic dropped low, lunging forward with explosive speed. He tackled Victor around the waist, slamming the traitorous mercenary through the cabin’s glass partition onto the steel bridge deck outside.
Glass shattered into a glittering shower around them as both men tumbled across the wet metal floor.
"Shoot him!" Victor roared to his mercenaries.
The two armed guards raised their rifles, but Elena screamed, stepping into the doorway and firing three rapid rounds from her snub-nosed revolver.
The first mercenary took two bullets to the chest, stumbling backward off the catwalk into the darkness below. The second mercenary ducked behind a steel bulkhead, returning fire and chewing up the doorframe with automatic rounds.
"Clara, get down!" Elena yelled, pulling her daughter beneath the heavy steel chart table.
Out on the catwalk, Victor swung his suppressed pistol toward Dominic’s head, but Dominic’s massive hand clamped onto the slide, forcing the chamber out of battery. Dominic drove a vicious elbow into Victor’s ribs, followed by a headbutt that sent Victor staggering backward into the ship’s radar mast.
Victor spat blood onto the deck, pulling a combat knife from his tactical vest with a wicked grin. "You're an old dog, Dominic! Your era is over!"
Victor slashed forward, the blade cutting through the sleeve of Dominic’s coat, grazing his forearm.
Dominic didn't even flinch at the pain. He stepped inside the knife’s arc, caught Victor’s wrist with his left hand, and snapped the joint backward over his shoulder. The knife clattered onto the deck.
Dominic followed through with a devastating uppercut that lifted Victor off his feet, sending him crashing hard against the bridge railing.
Dominic grabbed Victor by the throat, bending him backward over the cold, churning Atlantic water forty feet below.
"Who paid you in Corfu?" Dominic roared over the scream of the wind.
Victor gasped for air, his face turning purple, but he choked out a bloody laugh. "You... you think it was Julian? You think it was the Moretti family?"
"Give me the name, or you feed the sharks," Dominic growled.
"It was your brother!" Victor choked out. "Marcus Valerio! Marcus is the one who wanted the empire!"
Dominic’s entire body went rigid.
Marcus. His younger brother, who had supposedly drowned in a car accident in Lake Como twelve years ago.
Before Dominic could process the revelation, a heavy metallic clang echoed from the dock below.
The second mercenary had managed to release the ship’s primary mooring winches. The massive cargo freighter began drifting away from Pier 9, caught in the powerful, outward-surging harbor current.
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And from the dark waters of the bay, two high-speed tactical speedboats were roaring toward the ship, their mounted searchlights cutting through the rain.
***
