Chapter 2 - The Uncle’s Bloodline Instinct
Two tables away, Lucas Vance, Eleanor’s younger son and a former Navy combat rescue swimmer, had been setting down his scotch.
His brain processed the violence before the sound of the splash even finished echoing off the glass walls of the mansion. He saw his mother’s hands fully extended. He saw the cold, murderous sneer on her face. He saw the empty ledge where his little niece had been standing a microsecond prior.
Lucas didn’t strip his Tom Ford tuxedo. He didn’t kick off his dress shoes.
With a roar that ripped from the bottom of his lungs, Lucas propelled himself over the dining table, shattering plates, sends silver clattering into the air, and launched his six-foot-two frame through the air in a flat, desperate dive.
He hit the water like a missile.
Beneath the surface, the pool was a silent, terrifying nightmare. The pool lights illuminated clouds of bubbles and drifting white lace. Down at the bottom, sinking rapidly toward the drain, Lily was twisting, her tiny lungs spasming as chlorinated water rushed into her airway. Her eyes were wide, bulging in sheer underwater panic, tiny bubbles escaping her lips.
Lucas kicked his legs furiously, fighting the heavy, waterlogged fabric of his tailored suit. His lungs burned, but his eyes stayed locked on the descending speck of white. He reached out, his muscular arm extending to its absolute limit, fingers straining.
Six feet down. Eight feet down.
He grabbed the hem of her dress. With a violent yank, he pulled her into his chest, wrapping his left arm securely around her frail, shivering ribcage. He planted his polished shoes against the blue tiles of the pool floor and kicked off with every ounce of explosive power he possessed.
They broke the surface with a violent gasp.
Lucas inhaled greedily, wiping the chlorinated sting from his eyes while holding Lily’s head high against his shoulder. The toddler was sputtering, vomiting water and bile, choking in ragged, terrified wheezes, her tiny fingernails digging desperately into Lucas’s soaked tuxedo lapel.
"Breathe, Lily! Cough it out! Uncle’s got you!" Lucas yelled, his voice raw, swimming toward the shallow edge with powerful strokes.
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He reached the underwater steps and rose from the water like a drenched sea god, his eyes wild and burning with absolute fury. But as he stood on the shallow shelf, clutching the weeping child, he looked up at the pool deck—and what he saw made his blood run sub-zero.
***
