Chapter 162 #162

Chapter 162 #162
Chapter 162
~Third Person’s POV~
Chaos erupted instantly inside the penthouse suite.

The moment Tyler yelled that Dwayne wasn't in federal custody, Devian’s face transformed from arrogant calm into pure, furious anger. He slammed his hand down onto an alarm button under the marble counter.

"Get her!" Devian roared.

Shailyn scrambled backward, trying to reach the heavy double doors, but Tyler lunged across the floor like a wild animal. He wrapped a thick arm around her neck, violently yanking her back against his chest. Shailyn gasped, clutching at his arm as he pressed the warm, blood-stained steel barrel of his handgun directly against her temple.

"Don't move, bitch!" Tyler spat in her ear, his breath smelling of sweat and gunpowder.

BANG! BANG!

Glass shattered throughout the penthouse as Detective Miller’s tactical team breached the outer balcony, flashbang grenades exploding in blinding white light.

"Police! Nobody move!" Miller screamed over the chaos.

"Cover the exit!" Devian ordered his armed guards, pulling a small silver transmitter from his coat. "We're going to the roof!"

Tyler dragged a kicking, struggling Shailyn toward the private rooftop elevator while Devian’s hired mercenaries opened fire on the tactical officers, turning the luxurious apartment into a warzone.

Within two minutes, a black, unmarked helicopter roared to life on the penthouse helipad. Tyler shoved Shailyn roughly onto the metal floor of the cabin. Devian jumped in right behind them, pulling the door shut as the helicopter lifted off into the stormy night sky, heading straight toward their fortified harbor warehouse.

In the surveillance van below, Dwayne watched the helicopter vanish into the heavy rain clouds.

"Dwayne, wait!" Luke shouted, trying to grab his arm. "You're injured! You have broken ribs!"

"I don't care!" Dwayne snarled, his eyes burning with pure, unyielding fury. He ripped the medical tape off his arm, grabbed a heavy tactical vest from Miller’s supply rack, and strapped it tightly over his chest. Pain shot through his side, but he barely felt it.

"We tracked the chopper's signal," Detective Miller said, pulling up a GPS map on his dash console. "They're heading to Pier 42, an old, closed industrial harbor warehouse. It's heavily fortified."

"I'm going with you," Dwayne demanded, racking the slide of a tactical pistol. "I am bringing my wife home, or I am dying on that dock tonight."

Miller looked into Dwayne’s eyes, saw the lethal determination, and nodded once. "Lock and load. We move now."

Inside the damp, iron-walled hideout at Pier 42, Shailyn was tied to a wooden chair in the center of a massive room filled with industrial shipping crates. Rain slammed violently against the corrugated metal roof.

Tyler paced back and forth in front of her, pointing his gun at her chest. His eyes were wide and bloodshot.

"Let me put a bullet in her right now, Devian!" Tyler yelled over the sound of the storm. "End this! Dwayne killed my future, so I'm taking his!"

"Shut up, you idiot!" Devian snapped, wiping rain from his sleek black suit. He walked up to Shailyn, reaching out a hand to forcibly lift her chin so she was forced to look at him. "Killing her is too easy. My obsession with your daughter in law runs far deeper than your petty revenge, Tyler. I want Dwayne to watch her belong to me before I put him in the ground."

"Touch me again and my husband will tear your throat out," Shailyn spat, glaring into Devian’s eyes without a flinch.

Devian smiled darkly. "We shall see."

Suddenly, every light inside the massive harbor warehouse killed at once, plunging the entire facility into total darkness.

Silenced gunshots echoed through the dark shadows as Miller’s elite unit breached the outer gates, cutting the main power generators. Screams from Devian’s mercenaries broke out in the distance as tactical lasers cut through the gloom.

Outside the main entrance, Dwayne stepped past the fallen gate, hearing Tyler’s raspy voice echo loudly over the warehouse's internal loudspeaker system:

"Come out, Dwayne! Come watch your wife choose who lives!"

Dwayne didn't hesitate. He charged straight into the darkness.

Inside the central floor, the gunfight raged among the steel shipping containers.

Dwayne moved like a phantom through the shadows, driven by pure instinct. Suddenly, a heavy shadow lunged out from behind a red crate, slamming a thick steel pipe across Dwayne’s shoulder.

Dwayne hit the concrete floor hard, his gun sliding away into the dark.

Tyler stepped into the dim beam of an emergency floodlight, pulling a long hunting knife from his belt. "Look at you," Tyler sneered, his face twisted in psychotic glee. "The golden boy. I'm going to carve you up like meat."

Tyler lunged forward, thrusting the blade downward.

Dwayne caught Tyler’s wrist inches from his chest. Pain flared sharply in Dwayne’s broken ribs, but his rage completely overpowered the physical injury. With a guttural roar, Dwayne smashed his forehead directly into Tyler’s nose.

CRACK!

Tyler stumbled back, blood spurting from his face. Dwayne scrambled to his feet, driving a heavy right hook into Tyler’s jaw, followed by a vicious knee to his chest. Tyler screamed in fury, tackling Dwayne back against a second-story glass window overlooking the harbor below.

The two men wrestled violently against the glass, hands locked around each other's throats.

"I should have killed you years ago!" Tyler choked out.

"You lost the moment you touched my family!" Dwayne growled back.

Gathering every ounce of remaining strength in his body, Dwayne drove his shoulder into Tyler’s chest, lifting him off his feet and crashing both of them against the glass pane.

CRASH!

The heavy glass shattered into a thousand shards. Tyler slipped over the ledge, his hands clawing wildly at the air as he plunged forty feet down, slamming onto the concrete docks below with a sickening thud.

Tyler lay completely still in the rain. His reign of terror was finally over.

Dwayne gasped for air, leaning against the broken window frame before turning around to search for Shailyn.

Near the back exit of the warehouse, Devian was violently dragging a struggling Shailyn toward a high-speed getaway boat docked at the water's edge.

"Let go of me!" Shailyn screamed, kicking back hard against his shins.

"Move!" Devian shouted, shaking her violently.

Despite being pregnant and exhausted, Shailyn refused to give up. As Devian raised his gun to shoot the lock off the dock gate, Shailyn grabbed a heavy iron flare casing off a nearby wall hook and slammed it with all her strength straight into the side of Devian’s face.

Devian shrieked in pain, stumbling backward as the metal struck his eye and cheek, leaving a deep, bloody burn across his face. He dropped his grip on her.

"Shai!" Dwayne’s voice roared across the dock as he sprinted toward them through the rain.

Devian staggered, his face bleeding and burned, his vision blurred with rage. Seeing Dwayne running toward them, Devian’s mind snapped completely. He raised his handgun with both trembling hands, aiming the barrel straight at Dwayne’s chest.

"If I can't have her, neither of us will!" Devian screamed into the wind.

And then... a gunshot went off.