Chapter 4 - The Wrath of Julian Vance
The heavy glass French doors of the mansion’s grand ballroom didn’t just open—they blasted apart as Julian Vance, CEO of the Vance Conglomerate and Lily’s father, charged through.
Julian had been inside on an emergency international conference call when he heard the splash and the screams. Seeing his brother dripping wet by the pool and his daughter crying frantically was enough. But hearing his mother scream that his daughter deserved *far worse* triggered an ancient, primal switch in his brain.
Julian was thirty-six, built with the cold, imposing frame of an elite collegiate rower, dressed in a sharp black tuxedo. The sight of his mother advancing on his terrified, soaked child turned his vision red.
He moved across the fifty feet of marble terrace not like a businessman, but like a predator unleashed from a cage. The guests scrambled out of his path, knocking over chairs and crystal tables.
"Julian!" Eleanor noticed him approaching and immediately tried to twist her narrative, her voice shifting into a shrill, manipulative whine. "Julian, your bastard child just ruined my custom Cha—"
She never finished the sentence.
Julian arrived like an artillery shell. Without slowing down, without uttering a single word of warning, his right arm whipped through the air.
*CRACK!*
The open-handed slap struck Eleanor across the left cheek with sickening velocity. The sheer kinetic force of the blow snapped her head sideways, spraying spit, makeup, and an earring across the tiles.
Before the matriarch could recover or scream, Julian’s left hand struck back in a savage reverse backhand.
*CLAP!*
The second strike caught her flush on the jaw. Eleanor’s knees buckled. Her diamond hairpins came loose, her platinum hair exploding into a disheveled rat’s nest. A stream of bright crimson instantly burst from her split lip, trickling down over her chin.
"Julian... what...?" she gasped, stumbling backward, her eyes finally registering genuine, paralyzing terror as she looked into the face of her eldest son.
Julian’s face was devoid of humanity. It was the face of a man ready to kill.
"You touch my daughter?" Julian’s voice was a guttural, demonic rasp.
He didn't give her time to breathe. He stepped into her space, his large hands clamping onto the shoulders of her stained ivory gown with enough force to tear the silk seams. He lifted her nearly off her feet, dragging her backward two steps toward the ledge of the pool.
"Julian, no! I'm your mother!" Eleanor wailed, clawing frantically at his iron wrists.
"You're nothing," Julian snarled.
With a brutal, full-body heave, Julian shoved Eleanor backward off the edge.
*KABOOM!*
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The matriarch hit the deep end of the pool flat on her back. The impact was deafening. The fifty-thousand-dollar silk gown immediately saturated with hundreds of gallons of water, dragging her heavy, gasping body under like an anchor of wet lead.
***
