Chapter 9 - The Ghost Tower
The boat cut through the pitch-black waves, rain stinging their faces as the burning warehouse faded into the distance. Val stood at the helm, the engine roaring at full throttle. His knuckles were bone-white on the steering wheel, his face an emotionless mask of cold fury.
In the small cabin below deck, Sarah cleaned a fresh scrape on Mia’s cheek. The little girl was shivering, wrapped in dry canvas. “Is Silas with the angels now?” Mia asked in a tiny, fragile whisper.
Sarah paused, her fingers hesitating on the gauze. “Silas bought us time, sweetheart. He did his job.”
Val entered the cabin, soaking wet, his dark shirt clinging to his muscular frame. He dropped the drive Silas had given him onto the table. “Declan isn't holding an auction,” Val said, looking at Sarah. “I checked the frequency on this drive. It’s an ambush protocol. He invited all the city’s syndicate heads to the Grand Continental under the guise of dividing my territory.”
“To slaughter them all in one room,” Sarah finished, her gaze narrowing. “He consolidates total control by eliminating every rival at once.”
“And he will blame me for the massacre,” Val said. “He will tell the underworld that Val Moretti went mad and killed everyone to avenge his home.”
“Then we don't go through the front doors,” Sarah said, picking up Silas’s fallen sidearm and checking the chamber. “We take the rooftop.”
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Val stared at her in the dim cabin light. “You still haven't told me who trained you, Sarah.”
She looked up, meeting his piercing gaze without flinching. “The same man who trained Declan. Your father.”
