Chapter 9 - The Ambush and the Escape
The first thug—a broad-shouldered man with a grease-stained beanie—dove straight for Ethan, arms outstretched to tackle him to the floor.
Ethan didn't flinch. Growing up in the rough alleyways of the Ironworks district had taught him how to survive long before he ever picked up a dish sponge. As the man lunged, Ethan side-stepped with lightning speed, using the man's own forward momentum against him, and drove the heavy steel tire iron into the side of the thug's knee.
The man howled in pain, collapsing onto the oily concrete with a sickening crunch.
At the same moment, Rosa swung her tire iron with both hands like a professional softball hitter, striking the second attacker across the collarbone with a resounding CLANG. The man stumbled backward, gasping for air, clutching his shoulder in agony.
"Run! To the fence!" Rosa screamed, grabbing Ethan's sleeve.
Greg Vance's face twisted in pure rage. He raised his baseball bat and charged straight at Marianne, who was backing toward the rear exit while shielding the tablet against her chest.
"You're not leaving here alive, corporate bitch!" Greg roared, swinging the heavy ash bat with lethal force.
"Marianne, down!" Ethan shouted.
Ethan hurled himself through the air, tackling Greg Vance around the waist just as the bat whistled through the empty space where Marianne's head had been a fraction of a second earlier.
The impact slammed both Ethan and Greg onto the gravel outside the shed. The breath exploded from Ethan's lungs in a white plume of vapor. Greg was fifty pounds heavier and threw a brutal punch that caught Ethan across the left cheekbone, splitting his skin and sending stars bursting across his vision.
Ethan tasted blood in his mouth, but he refused to let go. He drove his elbow into Greg's ribs, scrambled to his feet, and scooped the leather binder off the dirt.
"Get in the car!" Marianne yelled from fifty yards away, where she had already sprinted through the gap in the fence and hit the remote starter on her SUV.
The engine roared to life with a throaty growl.
Ethan and Rosa sprinted through the maze of rusting shipping containers, their boots splashing through freezing mud puddles. Behind them, Greg Vance was screaming into a walkie-talkie, ordering the yard gate guards to block the exit.
A heavy flatbed tow truck suddenly pulled across the main gravel access road, blocking their path to the perimeter fence.
"They cut us off!" Rosa panted, her chest heaving.
"Follow me!" Ethan yelled.
Ethan spotted a narrow clearance between two stacked forty-foot sea crates. He squeezed through the tight gap, his jacket tearing on the sharp corrugated steel. Rosa scrambled right behind him. They emerged on the outer side of the perimeter fence, just ten feet from where Marianne had swung the Navigator onto the sidewalk, passenger doors flung wide open.
"Get in! Get in!" Marianne shouted.
Ethan and Rosa dove into the back seats, slamming the heavy doors shut.
Before they could even catch their breath, a black pickup truck barreled out of the industrial yard gate, tires smoking, accelerating straight toward them with high beams blazing.
"Hold on!" Marianne slammed the Navigator into drive, stomped the accelerator to the floor, and spun the heavy SUV onto the main river boulevard just as the pickup truck smashed into their rear bumper with a deafening metallic crunch.
The Navigator lurched sideways, tires screeching against the wet pavement, but the high-performance all-wheel-drive system gripped the asphalt. Marianne counter-steered with expert precision, straightened the vehicle, and accelerated toward downtown Silverwood at ninety miles per hour.
In the rearview mirror, the pursuing pickup truck tried to make the high-speed turn, lost traction on the wet streetcar tracks, and spun violently into a concrete bridge abutment in a shower of sparks and shattered fiberglass.
Inside the SUV, Ethan leaned back against the leather seat, panting heavily. Blood trickled down his split cheek, staining the collar of his pale blue dress shirt, but his arms remained locked around the leather binder like a vice.
Rosa wiped sweat from her forehead, letting out a wild, half-crazed laugh of pure adrenaline. "Remind me never to complain about the morning espresso rush ever again."
Marianne glanced at the digital dashboard clock.
**1:48 PM.**
Twelve minutes before the board of directors vote.
Marianne picked up her phone, connecting directly to Victor Hayes's private security line.
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"Victor," Marianne said, her voice shaking with adrenaline. "We have the original manifests. We have the Apex Logistics transaction slips. We have everything. Clear the boardroom security... we're coming in hot.
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