Chapter 29 - the freezing wake
The pressure in Clara's ears felt like a vice crushing her skull as Roman propelled them through the submerged conduit. Chunks of burning debris from the boathouse hissed through the black lake water above them, sinking like dying stars into the silt. Her lungs burned despite the small cylinder Roman had given her, the glacial chill of Lake Michigan sinking deep into her bones, numbing her fingers until she could barely hold his tactical vest.
Then, the underwater current spat them out into open water.
They broke the surface gasping, surrounded by midnight fog and towering swells. Fifty yards behind them, the historic Sterling boathouse had ceased to exist. In its place, a churning vortex of flaming timber and fractured limestone was swallowed by the dark water, illuminating the bluff in an eerie amber glow.
"Clara! Look at me!" Roman’s hands gripped her shoulders, keeping her chin above the freezing swell. Water streamed down his carved jaw, his eyes fierce and focused in the dark. "Are you hit? Did the blast clip you?"
"I’m whole," she gasped, her teeth clattering violently against the mouthpiece she spit out. "Roman... my mother... she pushed the button. She tried to drown us like stray animals."
"She tried," Roman said, his voice dropping into that chilling, lethal cadence that made the underworld fear him. "And that was her final mistake."
Out of the wall of fog, the deep rhythmic thrum of twin inboard diesel engines tore through the night. A low-profile, midnight-black interceptor craft cut through the chop, extinguishing its running lights the moment it closed the distance. Two armed operators in dark tactical gear leaned over the gunwale, extending carbon-fiber retrieval poles and hauling Roman and Clara over the rail within seconds.
"Boss," one of the men said, wrapping Clara in a heavy thermal foil blanket while handing Roman a dry sidearm and a glowing tablet. "The coast guard radar picked up an unflagged freighter clearing the breakwater six minutes ago. Transponder is dead. Registry belongs to a Panamanian shell company linked to the Sterling offshore portfolio."
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Roman dried his hands with brutal efficiency and chambered a round into the weapon. "Show me the course."
Clara stood wrapped in the foil blanket, her hair soaked, looking out toward the horizon where the distant fog concealed the monster who had birthed her.
