Two days after my father-in-law died, my husband brought his mistress into our kitchen, / Chapter 54 / 80

Chapter 54 - The Coal Dock Ambush

The engine of the G-Wagon was running, its exhaust pluming into the freezing gale like gray smoke from a forge.

Two men stood outside the vehicle, leaning against the bull-bar. They were dressed in heavy, arctic-grade black parkas with thermal goggles pushed up onto the brims of their watch caps. Both held compact submachine guns slung across their chests, their gloved hands resting casually on the grips.

"Mercenaries," Marilyn murmured, stepping back behind the iron bulkhead. "Lucian didn't just track Julian's garage card. He anticipated Donald's contingency route. Donald always used the tugs when the roads were washed out."

"We can't get past them," Chloe whimpered, sinking down into the slush at Julian's feet. "We're going to freeze to death down here, or they're going to shoot us. Julian, do something!"

Julian looked at the floor, his jaw working uselessly. "What do you want me to do, Chloe? I don't have a weapon! I don't even have my coat!"

"Shut up," I snapped.

I looked at the layout of the dock. The old wooden coal trestle ran twenty feet above the timber pier, supported by heavy creosote-soaked pine pilings. The blizzard was blowing hard from the northeast, driving the lake effect snow directly into the windshield of the G-Wagon. The guards had their backs partially turned to the wind to keep the ice pellets out of their faces.

"Marilyn," I said, keeping my voice level. "Can you hit the radiator block from here?"

Marilyn squinted through the rusted gap in the door, measuring the distance. "Forty yards with a two-inch snub barrel in a forty-mile-an-hour crosswind? Not reliably. But I can hit the fuel reservoir on the external diesel generator mounted to the rear fender."

"Do it," I said. "When they move toward the blast, we sprint for the low rail along the tug’s stern. Silas’s boy is in that wheelhouse. If he hears gunfire, he’ll know we’re on the pier."

"And what about us?" Julian hissed, grabbing my sleeve. "Amanda, don't leave us behind."

I peeled his fingers off my coat one by one. The fabric tore with a dry rip. "You brought this to our door, Julian. You brought her into Donald's house. If you want to live, you run when we run. If you fall, I will not look back."

Marilyn leveled her revolver against the iron rim of the bulkhead door. She took a slow, deliberate breath, timing the gusting rhythm of the blizzard.

*Crack.*

The snub-nosed .38 spat a sharp tongue of flame.

Forty yards away, the auxiliary diesel tank on the G-Wagon erupted with a dull, concussive *whump*. A sheet of bright orange flame washed over the rear quarter of the vehicle, showering the snow in burning fuel.

Both guards shouted in German, instantly dropping into tactical stances and pivoting toward the flames, their weapons raised toward the industrial trestle above them, assuming the shot had come from an elevated sniper.

"Now!" Marilyn barked.

We broke from the shadows of the limestone tunnel into the screaming fury of the storm.

The cold hit like a physical fist, instantly numbing the skin around my eyes. I hunched over Ruby, wrapping both arms over my chest to seal out the freezing wind. My boots pounded against the frozen timber planks of the pier, slipping dangerously on patches of black ice.

Behind me, Chloe screamed.

I didn't turn around, but the sound of her body hitting the wood told me she had slipped. Julian cursed, his boots scrambling as he tried to drag her upright.

"Fire!" a harsh voice bellowed through the blizzard.

A burst of automatic fire tore through the wooden decking five feet to my left, kicking up geysers of frozen cedar splinters.

From the darkened wheelhouse of the *Eleanor V*, a heavy spotlight suddenly flared to life—a searing, five-million-candlepower beam of brilliant white light that struck the two mercenaries squarely in their optics, blinding them instantly.