Everyone watched Victoria raise her hand against a helpless elderly woman, but only one waitress dared to stop her—and seconds later, Chicago’s most powerful billionaire walked straight toward them.

Charging through the unlocked blast doors, Vincent and Emma sprinted toward the submarine’s bridge. The angle of the deck was growing steeper with every second, forcing them to haul themselves forward using the overhead handrails. Water was already pouring into the lower bilges, sloshing through the floor grates in freezing, knee-deep torrents.

They burst into the bridge compartment just as Dmitry Sterling was reaching for the primary flood-gate override lever to complete the sinking sequence.

Hearing their approach, Dmitry spun around, raising a tactical pistol. Vincent tackled him before he could squeeze the trigger, both men crashing into the steel navigation table with bone-crushing force. Dmitry’s gun went skittering across the slick metal deck, disappearing into the dark water pooling around the command consoles.

Dmitry pulled a serrated combat knife from his chest rig, slashing wildly at Vincent’s throat. Vincent leaned back, dodging the lethal arc by inches, and drove a vicious left hook directly into Dmitry’s jaw, snapping his head back. Dmitry recovered quickly, lunging forward with a desperate, animal snarl, tackling Vincent into the shattered glass of a radar screen.

Emma rushed toward the ballast control board, her eyes scanning the sea of Cyrillic switches. Her hands moved rapidly across the levers, matching them to the emergency diagrams she had memorized. "Vincent! The high-pressure air tanks require two manual pulls on the starboard bulkhead! I can't reach both simultaneously!"

Dmitry kicked Vincent away with a desperate burst of strength, scrambling toward Emma with his knife raised. "You will not save this city, you filthy waitress!"

Before Dmitry could reach her, Vincent lunged from behind, wrapping his arm around Dmitry’s neck in a vicious sleeper hold, driving him backward into the deck. Dmitry thrashed, stabbing his blade backward into Vincent’s thigh, but Vincent only tightened his grip, his eyes burning with lethal determination.

"She’s not just a waitress, Dmitry," Vincent growled into his ear, twisting with lethal leverage until a sickening snap echoed through the compartment. "She’s the heir to everything you tried to steal."

Dmitry went limp, his knife clattering uselessly against the metal floor.