“No,” Blake said. “But we can make them think we can.” He gestured toward the nearest floodlight.
She shifted, braced the rifle. One shot burst the lamp into sparks. Darkness swallowed half the deck.
Gunfire ripped up from the pier, rounds pinging off the hull. Vivian dropped, fired three controlled bursts toward the gangway, then rolled to cover as Blake shifted to the stern and returned fire.
The rhythm came back fast—move, aim, fire, breathe.
The radio flared again, Maddox cutting through the chaos. “Vivian. Stand down. That’s an order.”
Her muscles locked. The words hit bone-deep—years of training and loyalty compressed into a single command.
“You’re protecting him,” Maddox continued, voice rough, threaded with something like grief. “You’re becoming exactly what you swore you wouldn’t. Your father’s daughter.”
The accusation hit harder than the bullets.
“Viv,” Blake snapped, sharp enough to break the spell. “Stay with me.”
She blinked, vision clearing. Men below were repositioning, two breaking toward starboard, using the hull as cover. Maddox moved with them, shouting orders she couldn’t hear.
“Vivian!” His voice lifted again, louder now, cutting through the storm without the loudspeaker. “I’m giving you a chance. Surrender, and we can fix this.”
Fix this. The same words he’d always used when the body count was wrong and the op went sideways. We can fix this. As if guilt could be filed and forgotten.
Blake crouched beside her. “Look at their formation. Flankers, hooks, advance team at the ramp. This isn’t negotiation. It’s extraction.”
“Extraction of who?” she demanded. “Us or them?”
“Both,” Blake said. “You as the trophy. Me as the corpse.”
A sharp metallic clank echoed across the deck. Grappling hooks bit into the railing. Lines went taut. Dark shapes began to climb.
“Here they come,” Blake said, swinging his rifle.
Vivian fired, dropping one climber, jolting another off the hull with a well-timed shot. A wave did the rest, ripping him into the dark.
“Fall back. Control room,” Blake shouted.
They ran low across the slick deck, bullets sparking off steel. They dove through the ragged opening blown out by the earlier blast. Vivian hit the floor hard and slid behind a console, breath tearing in her chest.
“Port side,” Blake called. “Keep them off the glass.”
She braced her rifle on the window frame. Three shapes. Then four. She fired until one fell and the others dropped below the lip of the hull.
Rain poured through the broken doorway, flooding the floor. Blake reloaded in a smooth, practiced motion.
“They’re not pushing,” he said. “They’re waiting.”
“For what?” she asked, though she already knew.
“For Maddox,” Blake said. “For whatever he promised them.”
Vivian’s gaze dragged back to the pier. The floodlights were gone now, shattered or cut. Only SUV headlamps and pulsing hazard lights strobed red across the waves. In the middle of it all stood Maddox, dark coat snapping like a flag.
He grabbed one of his men by the collar and slammed him against a truck when he balked at an order.
“That’s not control,” Blake said quietly, following her line of sight. “That’s desperation.”
Hope flickered—small and reckless. Then the ship shuddered. A low, gut-deep groan rolled through the hull. Metal screamed.
