Chapter 8 - THE SIEGE OF THE BEACH HOUSE
The explosion at Marina Bay Storage lit up the southern Florida sky like a dying star, but Richard barely felt the concussive heat as he scrambled back into the tactical van.
"Get me on the radio to the safe house right now!" Richard yelled, grabbing the encrypted satellite handset from the dash. "Priority one! Code black!"
Static hissed across the frequency.
Then came the terrifying sound of automatic gunfire, breaking glass, and shouting voices over the comms channel.
"Base-actual, this is Team Alpha! We are compromised! Multiple hostiles breaching the perimeter from the beach side—"
The transmission cut off with a sickening burst of static and silence.
"Step on it!" Richard roared at the driver, shoving the van’s gearshift forward. "If anything happens to my family, I will burn Viktor Vance’s entire empire to ash!"
The van tore out of the storage yard, racing down the Overseas Highway toward the Keys at over ninety miles per hour, tires screeching around the darkened curves.
Forty-five minutes later, the vehicle slammed to a halt outside the beachfront safe house.
The scene was a war zone.
The front security gate had been blasted off its hinges. Two armored SUVs belonging to the private security detail sat riddled with bullet holes, their windows shattered. Inside the driveway, two masked mercenaries lay motionless in tactical gear.
Richard flung open the van door and sprinted toward the house, his gun drawn, heart hammering against his ribs like a sledgehammer.
He kicked open the splintered front door.
"Marina! Peter!"
The living room was in ruins. Lamps were smashed, glass covered the hardwood floor, and bullet casings littered the Persian rug.
There was no sign of Marina or Peter.
Just a single note pinned to the dining room table with a hunting knife.
May you like
Richard walked over with shaking hands and pulled the paper free. Written in bold, typed letters were the words:
“If you ever want to see your wife, your son, and your little homeless informant alive again, bring the entire Sterling Atlantic shipping fleet transfer deeds to Pier 54 at dawn. Come alone, or the bodies wash up in the Gulf.”
