Chapter 8 - A Kingdom Made of Ash
The offshore Atlantic was a violent, churning abyss under the midnight rain.
The high-performance tactical boat tore through the four-foot swells like a black missile, its twin engines muffled by underwater exhaust baffles that kept the roar to a low, rhythmic growl. Spray crashed over the reinforced Plexiglas windshield, freezing and relentless, but Dominic stood at the helm with his boots locked into the floor mounts, his knuckles white against the wheel.
Beside him, Sadi held onto the grab bar, her night-vision goggles resting on her forehead. In the rear, Marco and Silvio checked their gear alongside four of Dominic’s most trusted personal operators—men who had sworn oaths not to the family, but to Dominic himself.
“Target in sight,” Marco called out over the encrypted tactical headsets, pointing toward the black horizon. “Three miles out. She’s running dark. No navigation lights.”
Through the rain-streaked gloom, the silhouette of Don Lucian’s mega-yacht, the *Siren*, appeared like an ominous floating fortress. Two hundred feet of sleek, multi-deck steel, cutting through the swells at a steady crawl. On the upper decks, sweep-lights occasionally flashed across the churning water, scanning for coastal patrol cutters.
“They’re watching the surface,” Dominic said through the comms. “Marco, prep the grappling mortars. We hit the stern blind spot. Under the swim platform. Sadi, the moment we breach the main deck, you stay on my hip. Marco and Silvio take the bridge and kill the engines. No one touches the radio. No distress calls.”
“And Paulie?” Silvio asked from the back, his fingers caressing the twin barrels of his shotgun.
“Paulie belongs to me,” Dominic said.
The black boat closed the distance at sixty knots, skipping across the tops of the whitecaps like a thrown stone. As they entered the yacht’s radar shadow, Dominic cut the throttles. The boat settled deep into the water, sliding silently into the foaming wake directly beneath the towering, flared stern of the mega-yacht.
*THWUMP. THWUMP.*
Two pneumatic grappling hooks shot from the bow of the interceptor, trailing ultra-strong Kevlar lines that clamped onto the stainless-steel railings of the *Siren*’s private deck with dull metallic thuds.
Dominic didn't wait. He hooked his ascender to the line and kicked off the bow.
He scaled the vertical transom in five seconds flat, clearing the railing with his suppressed M4 leveled before his feet even hit the teak deck.
A guard in a wet slicker was standing by the stern lounge, lighting a cigarette against the wind. Dominic fired two suppressed rounds through the side of his skull. The man collapsed onto the cushioned lounger without making a sound, his cigarette hissing as it rolled into a pool of rainwater.
Dominic signaled down. Seconds later, Sadi, Marco, and Silvio vaulted over the teak rail, followed by the four operators.
“Bridge is through the port corridor,” Marco whispered. “Master stateroom is below deck, salon level.”
“Move,” Dominic ordered.
The assault was executed with terrifying, surgical silence. Marco and his team peeled off toward the upper bridge deck like shadows. Dominic, Sadi, and Silvio moved through the heavy glass sliding doors into the main salon.
The interior of the yacht was a sickening display of obscene, blood-soaked wealth: Italian marble floors, gold-leaf paneling, and plush leather sofas. Sitting around a glass poker table in the center of the grand salon were four of Don Lucian’s senior lieutenants, counting stacks of banded federal currency.
The moment the glass doors slid open, they looked up in shock.
They never reached their weapons. Dominic and Silvio opened fire simultaneously.
The salon erupted into chaos. The suppressed rattle of Dominic’s carbine tore through the first two men, pitching them over the table in an explosion of flying banknotes and shattered champagne flutes. Silvio’s shotgun roared, obliterating the third man against the marble fireplace. The fourth man dove behind the wet bar, reaching for an Uzi.
Sadi didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, leveled her Beretta with both hands, and fired three rounds through the thin veneer of the bar counter. A heavy thud sounded from behind the wood, followed by a dark, widening pool of crimson leaking out across the white carpet.
Dominic looked at her. Her face was stone. Her hands were rock-steady.
Suddenly, a door at the far end of the salon flew open.
May you like
Paulie stepped into the room, wearing an expensive silk shirt, holding a glass of scotch in one hand. When his eyes locked onto Dominic standing among the corpses, the glass slipped from his fingers, shattering violently against the floor.
***
