“If I cannot rule Chicago, Moretti, no one will,” Dmitry replied coldly.
“The Sovereign Council has already authorized the erasure of the American asset portfolio.
In three minutes, the auxiliary reactor will go critical, vaporizing the waterfront and creating a tsunami that will wash the entire downtown district into the lake.
I have an escape pod in the forward torpedo bay.
You two have four minutes of air.”
With a final sneer, Dmitry turned away from the observation window and disappeared into the forward compartment, locking the secondary blast doors behind him.
“Vincent, the reactor manual vents!”
Emma pointed toward a massive bronze wheel mounted above the central reactor core, sealed behind a cage of interlocking steel gears.
“My grandmother’s signet ring—the inner band has a hexagonal key profile!
It’s designed to override the manual lockout!”
Chapter 129 – The Bloodline Lock
The floor of the submarine tilted violently at an eight-degree angle as the aft ballast tanks began taking on water.
In the corridor outside, the sound of tearing metal signaled that the exterior mooring clamps holding the vessel to Moretti Tower’s foundation were beginning to shear under hundreds of tons of strain.
Vincent wedged the crowbar into the outer grating surrounding the reactor wheel, throwing his entire weight against it.
With a scream of bending iron, the protective mesh tore free.
Emma lunged forward, sliding her gold signet ring from her finger and thrusting its engraved face directly into the hexagonal recess at the center of the wheel.
A sharp mechanical click echoed through the chamber.
The gears unlocked, but the wheel itself was rusted tight by half a century of mineral buildup from the damp lake air.
“Together!”
Vincent commanded, grabbing one spoke of the heavy wheel while Emma seized the other.
They threw their combined strength against the frozen valve.
Vincent’s injured arm flared with blinding pain, blood soaking through his bandage and dripping onto the iron floor, but his jaw remained clenched in absolute fury.
Emma strained beside him, every muscle burning as the crimson emergency lights cast long, frantic shadows across their faces.
With a deafening crack, the rust broke.
The wheel began to turn, one rotation, two rotations, venting a plume of superheated steam through an external exhaust tube that ran directly into the deep lake water outside.
The rising pitch of the reactor’s cooling pumps suddenly dropped into a low, stable hum.
Reactor stabilization initiated.
Auto-destruct aborted, the automated voice intoned.
“We stopped the meltdown,” Emma gasped, leaning against the warm casing of the reactor.
Chapter 130 – The Duel on the Bridge
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.
Chapter 131 – The Shadow on Lake Michigan
