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.

*00:15... 00:14... 00:13...*

The subterranean air turned violently cold as the first hairline fractures tore across the cavern ceiling. A fine mist sprayed into the basin, instantly soaking their clothes. The roar of Lake Michigan pushing against hundreds of feet of subterranean bedrock sounded like an approaching locomotive.

"We don't negotiate with ghosts," Vincent said, his eyes locking onto his mother's.

"Then you die as memories," Helena said flatly, turning on her heel and raising two fingers.

Her guards opened fire. Suppressed rounds cracked through the cavern, chewing through the concrete platform where Emma and Vincent stood. Vincent tackled Emma behind an industrial pressure tank as high-caliber rounds ricocheted off the steel surface, showering them in sparks.

"Vincent!" Emma yelled over the deafening crescendo of groaning metal. "If that water breaches, the downward suction will pull us straight into the intake turbines!"

"We take the gangway!" Vincent shouted back, pulling a fragmentation grenade from his tactical vest. "Helena wants your blood alive. Her men have kill orders on me, but they will hesitate if you charge forward. Stay on my heels!"

"Not behind you," Emma said, her eyes flashing with fierce resolve. "Beside you."

*00:05... 00:04... 00:03...*

Vincent pulled the pin and hurled the grenade toward the base of the gangway. The blast erupted in a deafening concussive wave, tossing two of Helena’s guards off the iron stairs and into the empty ballast trench below.

*00:00.*

A sound like thunder ripped through the subterranean vault. At the far eastern bulkhead, four massive storm sluices ruptured under hydraulic release. A wall of black, freezing water twenty feet high smashed into the dry dock with cataclysmic force. The air rushed out of the silo in a hurricane-force gale, knocking the breath from Emma’s lungs.

"Move!" Vincent roared, grabbing Emma’s arm as the torrent slammed into the lower floor.

The water rose with terrifying speed—ankle-deep, knee-deep, then waist-deep in a matter of heartbeats. The dry dock was transforming into an underwater tomb. Across the churning foam, Helena disappeared through the heavy titanium hatch of the submarine’s conning tower.

Two guards remained on the upper platform, raising their rifles to seal the hatch from the outside. Emma fired two precise rounds through the mist; both targets dropped, their bodies swallowed instantly by the rising vortex.

"The gangway is collapsing!" Emma screamed as the iron supports buckled under the weight of the surging lake.