Chapter 7 - Blood in the Water
The heavy wooden door didn't just open—it exploded inward, splintered by a heavy breaching charge that blew the brass hinges clean out of the frame.
Before the smoke and dust could even clear, Trevino moved. Two rapid, muffled thuds echoed through the room as his suppressed pistol found its targets in the hallway. Two men in black tactical gear collapsed backward into the corridor, lifeless before they hit the floor.
"Move! Through the back exit!" Trevino barked, grabbing Norma by the shoulder and hauling her toward a private elevator concealed behind a revolving bookshelf.
Norma clutched the shotgun in one hand and cradled the whimpering puppy tightly against her chest with the other, sprinting behind Trevino as bullets ricocheted off the steel doorframes around them.
They piled into the private elevator just as a third gunman appeared at the end of the hall, leveling an assault rifle. Trevino fired twice through the closing doors, dropping the attacker before the heavy steel panels locked shut with a definitive clack.
The elevator descended rapidly, plunging deep beneath the warehouse level into a subterranean concrete loading bay that opened directly onto a private boat slip. Bobbing gently in the dark water was a high-speed intercepter rib boat equipped with twin outboard engines.
"Get in," Trevino ordered, holding the boat steady against the dock.
Norma scrambled aboard, sliding into the cushioned aft seat and pulling Bruno protectively beneath her canvas jacket. Trevino leaped in behind her, slamming the ignition toggle. The twin engines roared to life with a deep, throaty growl that vibrated through the concrete arches.
"Where are we going?" Norma shouted over the deafening engine roar as the boat shot out of the subterranean slip into the open, churning waters of the harbor.
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"Away from the docks," Trevino replied, his eyes scanning the dark, rain-swept channel ahead. "Moretti thinks he can burn my empire to the ground tonight. He doesn't realize I've been waiting for him to step out into the open."
The boat surged forward, cutting through the towering Atlantic waves like a knife. Spray lashed across Norma’s face, cold and biting, but for the first time since she had pulled that tiny puppy out of the surf, she didn't feel like a nobody. She felt the raw, dangerous pulse of a world she had never asked to enter—and deep down, beneath the fear and the chaos, she knew there was no turning back.
