Chapter 7 - The Flood Gates
A sharp click echoed through the dark, followed by the bright, steady beam of Julian’s tactical flashlight cutting through the damp gloom.
We were standing inside a massive, circular concrete chamber. The walls were covered in dark green algae and salt deposits, while four inches of freezing ocean water already covered the concrete floor. At the far end of the chamber lay a simple, rusted iron casket resting on a raised stone pedestal—the final resting place of Marco Corsini.
Thomas was slumped against the wall near the door, pale and gasping for air as he held a crumpled handkerchief over his shoulder wound.
"Let me look at that," I said, dropping to my knees in the cold water beside the old man. I unbuttoned my heavy coat and used my stun baton’s belt strap as a makeshift tourniquet, binding his upper arm tightly to slow the bleeding.
"Thank you, Miss Sadie," Thomas rasped, his eyes glassy with pain. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry I brought this evil to your door."
"Save your energy, Thomas," I said, working quickly. "We aren't dead yet."
Julian walked to the perimeter of the room, running his gloved hands along the thick concrete walls, inspecting the rising water level. The salt water was already creeping past our ankles.
"Doyle is right about one thing," Julian said calmly, his flashlight beam illuminating a heavy iron drainage grate near the ceiling. "This chamber was designed as a self-destruct mechanism for the dock contraband. When the harbor tide reaches its peak in forty minutes, the external pressure valves open automatically to prevent structural collapse of the pier. The room will completely fill with water."
"Then we open the door and fight our way out!" I insisted, standing up and splashing over to him.
"We can't open the door from the inside without triggering the hydraulic seals," Julian explained, turning to face me. "And even if we could, Doyle has three men with automatic weapons waiting in that hallway. The second that door opens, we get mowed down."
"So we just stand here and drown?" I shouted, my voice echoing off the curved concrete walls. "I didn't survive four years of soul-crushing medical debt and a mafia investigation just to die like a rat in a basement, Julian!"
Julian stared at me, a sudden, strange intensity flickering in his dark eyes. He stepped closer, reaching out to grasp both my shoulders with his large, warm hands.
"Look at me, Sadie," he commanded softly.
I looked up into his eyes, my chest heaving, my heart hammering like a drum.
"I am not going to let you die down here," Julian said, his voice terrifyingly absolute. "Do you understand me? You are the only good, untainted thing that has entered my life in twenty years. I brought you into this nightmare, and I will get you out of it."
"How?" I whispered, a tear slipping down my cheek. "There's no way out."
"There is one way," Julian said, turning his flashlight toward the floor beneath Marco Corsini's stone pedestal. "My grandfather built an emergency escape hatch beneath Marco's resting place. It leads directly to an underwater maintenance pipe that opens into the harbor two hundred yards off the pier."
"An underwater pipe?" I stammered. "As in... swimming under ocean water in pitch darkness?"
"It's a seventy-second swim," Julian said. "The water in the pipe is freezing, but the current flows outward toward the bay. If you hold your breath and follow the pipe, you will surface near the public marina."
"What about you?" I demanded, catching the subtle shift in his phrasing. "You said 'you', not 'us'."
Julian looked back toward the heavy bulkhead door, where the muffled sound of Doyle’s men using a blowtorch against the steel hinges was beginning to echo.
"The escape hatch can only be manually unlatched from inside this room," Julian revealed quietly. "Someone has to stay behind to hold the hydraulic lever down so the pipe valve stays open while you and Thomas swim through."
My heart completely shattered. "No. No! I am not leaving you here to die!"
"Sadie, listen to me—"
"NO!" I screamed, grabbing his dark vest with both hands, pulling him down to my eye level. "You don't get to play the tragic mob martyr, Julian Corsini! You don't get to buy off my debts, make me fall in love with your terrifyingly quiet self, and then drown in a concrete box!"
Julian went completely motionless. The silence between us stretched out, heavy and electric, broken only by the sloshing of the cold water rising past our calves.
"What did you just say?" Julian whispered, his breath warm against my lips.
May you like
I blinked, my face flushing hot despite the freezing air. "I... I said you don't get to drown."
"Before that," Julian pressed, his hands moving from my shoulders to frame my face, his thumb softly brushing across my trembling bottom lip. "Repeat what you said before that, Sadie."
