Chapter 7 - The Final Stand
Panicked, Vittorio didn't surrender. He grabbed a machine pistol from a mercenary’s hands and began firing wildly into the rain, sprinting toward the cabin of his yacht to cut the mooring lines.
"Get down, Claire!" Lorenzo bellowed.
The pier descended into total chaos. The federal officers returned fire, bullets ripping through the wooden docks and shattering the glass windows of the yacht. Two mercenaries fell immediately, while the other two dropped their weapons and raised their hands in surrender.
Vittorio managed to sever the front mooring line with a heavy knife, the yacht beginning to drift backward into the strong current of the river.
"He's escaping!" I shouted, watching the gap between the boat and the pier widen to six feet.
Lorenzo didn't hesitate. He took a running leap across the icy water, landing hard on the wet fiberglass deck of the yacht.
The boat lurched violently. Vittorio spun around, raising his gun, but Lorenzo tackled him with brute force, sending both men crashing into the steering console.
I ran to the edge of the pier, clutching the strap of my tote bag, my heart in my throat as I watched the two men struggle on the deck of the drifting vessel.
Vittorio managed to get his hands around Lorenzo's throat, pressing him back against the low metal guardrail. "You should have stayed out of this, boy!"
"Lorenzo!" I screamed.
Without thinking about my size, my safety, or common sense, I grabbed a heavy iron boat hook hanging from a piling on the pier, leaped across the four-foot gap onto the stern of the boat, and swung the wooden pole with everything I had.
CLANG!
The heavy iron end of the hook struck Vittorio straight across his shoulder blades. He howled in pain, his grip breaking on Lorenzo's throat.
Lorenzo didn't waste the opening. He delivered a devastating right hook straight to Vittorio's jaw, sending his uncle flying backward over the low railing.
With a massive splash, Vittorio hit the freezing, dark waters of the Chicago River.
Lorenzo slumped against the console, gasping for air, rain washing the blood from a cut above his eye. He looked up at me, standing on the deck in my soaked uniform, holding the boat hook like a spear, breathing heavily.
For a long second, neither of us said anything over the sound of the blaring sirens and the rushing rain.
Then Lorenzo let out a low, breathy laugh. "You... are unbelievable, Claire."
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"I told you," I gasped, wiping wet hair from my eyes. "I have a very high tolerance for intimidation."
The police cutter pulled alongside the yacht, officers swarming the deck to secure the boat and drag a half-drowned, coughing Vittorio Moretti out of the freezing river in handcuffs.
