Chapter 7 - THE STORM AT SEA
The cool, salt-laden air hit them like a physical blow as they emerged from the cliffside tunnel onto a hidden wooden dock. The night sky above was a chaotic canvas of churning black clouds and jagged flashes of lightning, portending a violent Mediterranean storm.
Rocking gently against the wooden pylons was a sleek, matte-black interceptor speedboat, its twin high-performance engines idling with a low, mechanical growl.
"Get in the passenger seat," Dante commanded, opening the hatch and practically lifting Viola into the reinforced leather bucket seat. He strapped her in with professional, ruthless speed before leaping into the captain's chair.
Before the door could even fully latch, the crack of gunfire echoed from the cliff above them. A volley of bullets sparked off the rocks near the dock, spraying splintered wood into the water.
"Hold on!" Dante roared.
He slammed the throttles forward. The interceptor leaped off the water like a startled beast, throwing Viola back against her seat with crushing G-force. The twin engines screamed as the boat cut through the churning whitecaps, shooting out of the hidden cove into the open, raging sea just as a massive explosion lit up the cliffside behind them, obliterating the exit tunnel in a wall of fire and debris.
Viola squeezed her eyes shut, her hands gripping the armrests until her fingers went numb. The violent pitching of the boat, the deafening roar of the thunder and the engines, and the freezing sea spray crashing over the bow combined into a sensory nightmare.
And yet, beside her, Dante was a statue of absolute control. One hand gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled precision while the other managed the throttle, navigating the treacherous, storm-tossed waters in pitch darkness as if he had memorized every wave by heart.
"Are we going to die?" she shouted over the roar of the wind, her voice cracking with raw terror.
"Not today," Dante shouted back, turning his head slightly toward her. In the flashing strobe of lightning, she caught the fierce, unyielding glint in his eyes. "And definitely not before you finish explaining to me how you managed to isolate a neurotoxin with a single sniff!"
Despite the mortal peril, a hysterical, breathless laugh escaped Viola's lips. "You're insane!"
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"Takes one to know one!" he yelled back, spinning the wheel hard to port as a massive wave crashed over the bow, sending a torrent of saltwater across the cockpit.
They raced through the storm for over an hour, cutting across the dark waters toward an undisclosed destination on the southern coast, fleeing an empire that was burning down behind them.
