13. The Sea Road
The Sea Road
Steve
The van reaches the dark quay with every soul still inside it.
That’s the only count that matters.
Nikolai sits behind me, giving directions in short, flat pieces that cut through the noise of the port.
Dimitry is in the passenger seat with his rifle low across his knees, watching through the windshield while I steer between stacked pallets, fuel tanks, and service vehicles that all look like places men can hide.
“Slow,” Nikolai says.
I ease off the accelerator.
Ahead, the water is almost black beyond the reach of the port lights. No dockworkers down here. No ferry passengers. No loud music from the waterfront bars. Just the low slap of water, rusted bollards, and enough shadow for Crew to bring the boat in without half the harbor noticing.
Good choice of pickup point.
Crew’s voice comes over comms. “I’m in position.”
I see the boat a second later, a dark shape holding close beyond the quay. Engine low. Bow angled toward us. Jan is aboard with Liberty, because my wife got shot less than twenty-four hours ago and still somehow found a way to be exactly where injured people need her.
I hate it.
But I love her for it.
Both truths sit badly while I swing the van around and stop with the side door facing the water.
“Unload,” I say.
The back opens immediately.
Cole moves first, lifting one woman down before she can try to manage the step herself.
Jax takes the next. Nikolai stays close to Solace as she helps the others understand where to go, her voice low and steady in English, Greek, and enough Arabic to make frightened eyes focus on her instead of the water.
Liberty is already at the boat rail, one hand out, her medical bag resting against the cabin bulkhead. “One at a time.”
Jan stands beside her, pale under the low light but upright, stubborn, and watching every woman like she can assess them by force of will.
“Jan,” I say into comms.
Her head lifts toward me. “Don’t start.”
Of course, she hears the warning before I give it.
I don’t have time to argue with the woman I married, so I keep moving.
The first rescued woman reaches the edge of the quay and freezes at the drop to the boat. I catch her elbow, quick but careful.
“Step where Liberty points,” I tell her. “I’ve got you.”
She moves because I don’t give her time to talk herself out of it. Liberty takes her from below, steadying her onto the deck while Jan directs the next woman forward.
“Next,” I say.
Another woman steps up.
Then another.
Some cry. Some don’t make a sound. One grips Solace’s hand until Nikolai gently separates their fingers and passes her to Liberty.
“Steve,” Dimitry says.
His tone shifts everything.
I look past the quay toward the main harbor.
Blue lights move between buildings.
Not police.
Port authority.
Dimitry’s gaze locks on the lead vehicle. “Economides.”
Captain Stavros Economides.
The bastard must have come back close enough to hear the facility call or seen the port feed change. Either way, he’s moving now, and he knows water better than most men on this dock.
A radio crackles from somewhere near the service road. Greek voices. Fast. Angry.
“Crew,” I say. “How long?”
“Too long if they get a boat in the channel.”
Nikolai turns toward the water, then toward the port authority lights. “Economides will not chase from land. He’ll cut us off outside the quay.”
“Then we leave before he gets the angle on us.”
I grab the last woman from Jax and pass her to Cole’s waiting hands. Solace climbs aboard after her, but Nikolai doesn’t follow immediately. He counts the boat the way I counted the van.
Nine women, including Solace.
Crew.
Jan.
Liberty.
Cole.
Jax.
Nikolai.
Too many people. Too little time.
“Go,” I tell him.
He steps onto the boat.
Dimitry follows, moving backward until both boots hit the deck, rifle still low, eyes on the road behind us.
The blue lights turn closer.
A port authority engine roars to life somewhere beyond the main quay.
Stavros Economides has finally joined the night.
And he’s bringing boats.
Mandra, Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2135 hours
The boat shifts beneath us as Crew pulls away from the quay.
He keeps the engine low at first, using the harbor noise to cover the movement while Liberty and Jan move the women off the exposed deck and into the cabin. Cole and Jax help them settle low wherever there’s space, quick and careful, hands visible, voices low.
Solace moves with them, pale and unsteady but still somehow at the center of everything. When one woman starts hyperventilating, Solace takes her face gently between both hands.
“Look at me,” she says in English, then repeats it in Greek, then Arabic. “Not the water. Me.”
The woman clings to her, shaking hard enough that Solace has to absorb half her weight, but her breathing starts to slow.
Good woman.
Useful woman.
Dangerous woman, in ways men like Petrakis never understand until too late.
Nikolai stays near Solace, one hand close enough to catch her if her legs give out but not touching unless she needs him. Jan points to the bench beside the cabin.
“Down there. Head supported. Liberty, I want eyes on her breathing.”
“I’ve got her,” Liberty says.
I help another woman away from the rail, keeping my grip firm without trapping her. Too many hands have forced these women in too many directions already. This needs to feel different, even when fast is the only mercy we have left.
“Nine women aboard,” Nikolai says.
“Including Solace?” I ask.
“Including Solace.”
I count anyway.
Nine.
Then our team plus the three women rescued yesterday.
Too many people for comfort, but comfort can get stuffed.
Dimitry stays near the stern, eyes still on the road. “Movement near the port authority office.”
What else would I expect?
Crew angles us away from the quay, and the gap opens fast.
A shout rises from the dock behind us.
Greek. Furious. Familiar enough from every bad night I’ve ever worked to know it means trouble.
Solace goes still beside Nikolai.
“Steve,” Jan says.
I turn toward the quay.
Headlights swing hard across the port road, racing toward us.
Giannis Petrakis has found the dock.
Mandra, Mytilene Port, Lesbos, Greece. 2145 hours
Crew already has us easing away from the quay when the 4WD appears.
The gap between boat and dock widens by the second, dark water opening beneath the hull as he keeps one hand on the throttle and the bow angled toward the harbor mouth.
A dark 4WD tears along the dock and brakes hard near the bollards.
The driver’s door swings open.
Giannis Petrakis steps out with a pistol in his hand.
For half a second, the port lights catch him clearly. Suit jacket open. One sleeve dark where he was hit last night. Face twisted, mouth moving, shouting something I don’t even hear let alone bother translating.
He raises the weapon toward the boat.
“Inside,” I snap.
Liberty and Jan are already moving. Women drop low and are pushed toward the cabin, guided down by hands that know the difference between urgent and rough.
Solace tries to help until Nikolai catches her around the waist and moves her behind cover without asking permission.
Giannis fires.
The first shot cracks across the harbor, the round punching into the water a few yards off our starboard side.
Then another.
And another.
Gunfire erupts in rapid succession, bullets snapping overhead and skipping across the black water as they chase us toward the harbor mouth.
“Go!” I bark.
Crew slams the throttle forward, and the boat surges ahead, the dock lights stretching into long ribbons across the water.
More rounds whip past, one striking the stern rail with a sharp metallic clang before ricocheting away. Another throws a spray of seawater over the transom.
Then the distance begins to win.
The shots fall farther behind us, swallowed by the darkness as we race toward open water.
“He's panicking,” Jax says, already turning toward the gunfire.
Giannis keeps firing anyway, chasing us with desperation instead of skill.
A round hits the rail with a sharp metallic crack.
Every operator on the boat shifts at once. Cole moves to the rear quarter. Jax takes the opposite side. Dimitry drops to one knee near the cabin line, rifle up. Nikolai puts himself between Solace and the dock, weapon already raised.
I key my comm.
“Take the shot.”
The rifles answer together.
The sound cuts across the water in a single brutal sequence, and Giannis Petrakis folds backward onto the dock, pistol skittering from his hand and disappearing beneath a coil of rope.
No speech.
No bargain.
No second chance.
He appeared near Solace and our route with a gun shooting randomly.
We took him out of play.
“Crew,” I say.
“Already on it.”
The boat surges away from the dock hard enough that everyone braces.
The quay slides back into shadow, Giannis is down and motionless beneath the port lights while shouts erupt behind him.
Then the harbor answers.
A siren blips once from the main channel.
Dimitry turns his head. “Port authority boat.”
There was never any doubt.
Stavros Economides has better timing than loyalty.
Blue lights cut across the water ahead, low and fast, angling toward our exit route.
A second boat swings out behind the first, engines rising above the slap of waves and the panicked noise from the dock.
Crew’s hands stay steady on the helm. “I can outrun them.”
“Not with this many aboard,” Nikolai says.
Crew’s jaw tightens. “I didn’t say comfortably.”
Jan’s voice comes from inside the cabin. “Comfort is not the priority.”
“Neither is tipping us over,” Liberty snaps from somewhere beside her.
The first port authority boat cuts across our path, close enough that its wake hits us sideways. Women cry out inside the cabin. I grab the rail and look toward Crew.
“Options.”
“Straight line, I win,” Crew says. “Tight turn, maybe. Standoff, we lose time.”
Nikolai steps beside me, eyes on the lead boat. “Or I stop them.”
I look at him.
His expression doesn’t change.
Not threat.
Assessment.
The port authority boat’s spotlight snaps on, washing the deck white. Someone shouts through a loudspeaker in Greek, ordering us to cut engines.
“Victor,” I say.
His voice comes back instantly. “You’re boxed if you stop. Grayson has their AIS ghosting, but visual contact is live.”
Grayson cuts in. “Second boat is swinging wider. They’re trying to funnel you back toward the quay.”
Crew doesn’t look away from the water. “I can outrun them if you give me a gap.”
Nikolai braces beside the rail, rifle ready but not raised. “I can give him one.”
I look at the lead boat cutting across our path, then at the women pressed low inside the cabin, Jan and Liberty crouched with them, keeping heads down.
Decision made.
“Warning shots only,” I say. “Across the bow. Make them choose self-preservation.”
Nikolai lifts the rifle with calm precision. “Understood.”
Crew holds course.
Nikolai fires twice.
Both shots strike the water directly across the bow of the lead boat, close enough to throw spray over the spotlight.
The boat veers hard.
The second hesitates.
“Gap,” Crew says.
“Take it,” I order.
Crew punches through before the space closes, engines opening beneath us as the dark water ahead becomes a road.
Mandra, Aegean Sea, Greece. 2200 hours
Open water comes with distance, not safety.
Crew keeps the boat hard and fast until the port lights shrink behind us and the last blue flash disappears against the curve of the harbor. Only then does he ease the throttle enough for people to breathe without fighting the deck beneath them.
I keep one hand on the rail and the other on the radio. “Victor, we’re clear of the harbor. A dozen women secure, including Solace. Petrakis is down. Economides disengaged after warning shots. We’re heading to the Santorini safe house.”
The night air is colder away from land, sharp with salt and engine fumes. Behind us, Lesbos is already turning into a broken line of lights.
Ahead, the Aegean opens black and wide, hiding the route Crew chose and the Santorini safe house waiting beyond it.
Victor’s face fills the laptop screen mounted near the helm, Adrian beside him and the rest of the team gathered close enough that I can see half of Blackstone HQ trying not to talk over each other.
Mercy leans into frame first. “Jax?”
Jax lifts two fingers from beside the cabin door. “I’m good.”
Her shoulders drop, just slightly.
Victor’s focus stays on me. “Status on Janice?”
“Working,” I say, and I hate every letter of it.
Jan is kneeling inside the cabin with Liberty, pale beneath the low cabin light while they move from woman to woman.
Water first. Then pulse checks, breathing, visible injuries, signs of shock.
Liberty handles the worst of it with clipped Army efficiency while Jan keeps her voice calm enough to make frightened women listen.
She’s in pain. I can see it in the way she holds herself between movements, the brief pause before she reaches too far, the careful breath she thinks no one notices.
I notice. Of course, I bloody notice.
“She should be resting,” I add.
Jan doesn’t look up. “He’s exaggerating.”
Liberty snorts. “He’s not.”
Victor’s expression sharpens. “Janice?”
“Stable,” she says, pressing a bottle of water into a woman’s shaking hands. “Annoyed. Useful.”
“That order concerns me,” Adrian murmurs.
Jan ignores him beautifully.
I love her stubbornness and hate it in equal measure. Mostly because it keeps saving people, and one of these days it might take more from her than I can stand to lose.
Victor nods once. “Proceed to Santorini. Grayson is scrubbing cameras and port feeds now. Faith is already pulling financial trails from the records Solace flagged.”
Solace looks up at her name. Exhausted, bruised, wrapped in someone’s jacket, and still alert.
“She has more,” Nikolai says quietly.
Victor’s gaze shifts. “Then she holds it until she’s safe.”
For once, no one argues.
I look toward the cabin.
Nine women huddle under blankets beneath the Greek stars, drinking water with both hands as if hydration is a miracle. The smugglers built a sea road for profit, secrecy, and human cargo.
Tonight, HAVEN stole it.
And turned it toward freedom.