Chapter 2 - The Breath of Defiance
A silver tray crashed onto the paving stones, sending crystal flutes dancing into shards.
Elena Vance, a twenty-two-year-old banquet maid from South Side Chicago, did not hesitate for a second.
She screamed at the armed guards to move their useless bodies and help their drowning master.
When not a single hitman stepped forward, she gathered her skirt in both hands and sprinted.
She launched herself through the air in a perfect, desperate dive, breaking the water with a sharp crack.
The chlorine stung her open eyes as the freezing liquid closed over her skull.
Her white apron and black uniform billowed around her like a tangled shroud.
She kicked her legs furiously, cutting through the turquoise haze toward the sinking titanium cage.
Dante was already drifting into the darkness, his head falling limp against his chest.
Elena reached him at the nine-foot mark, the water pressure hammering violently against her eardrums.
She grabbed his broad shoulders and shook him, trying to wake the fading spark in his eyes.
Dante cracked his heavy eyelids, staring into the determined brown eyes of a girl he barely recognized.
Elena wrapped both of her hands around the thick canvas seatbelt mechanism.
The steel latch was stubbornly jammed by the sheer weight of the motorized battery pulling downward.
Her fingernails tore against the cold metal, bleeding tiny ribbons of red into the water.
Her lungs screamed for air, her ribcage aching from the crushing urge to inhale.
She refused to let go, pressing her thumbs into the release spring with every ounce of strength left.
With a muffled metallic snap, the buckle finally gave way under her relentless force.
Elena hooked her slender arm under Dante’s broad armpit, anchoring his massive frame against her hip.
She kicked the heavy titanium frame with her boot, sending the dead weight tumbling to the pool floor.
With powerful, burning strokes of her legs, she fought the water column upward toward the light.
The surface seemed miles away, a shimmering ceiling of glass that refused to draw closer.
Dante’s dead weight dragged at her shoulders, threatening to pull both of them into the deep.
Elena bit the inside of her cheek, feeding on the pain to keep her kicking legs in motion.
Her head breached the surface first, gasping in a ragged, desperate mouthful of warm summer air.
She hauled Dante’s face out of the water, holding his slack jaw above the surface with her forearm.
He violently coughed up a mixture of pool water and bile, his chest heaving like a wounded beast.
Marcus, the loyal chief of security, finally snapped out of his trance and threw himself to his knees.
He gripped Dante by his drenched lapels and hauled his soaking frame onto the warm flagstones.
Elena scrambled out behind him, collapsing onto her hands and knees as she retched pool water.
The dozens of onlookers backed away in sheer terror, completely dumbfounded by what had just occurred.
Dante rolled onto his side, coughing uncontrollably until his lungs cleared the poison of the pool.
Victoria’s smug expression dissolved into a mask of pure, unadulterated panic.
The glass she was holding slipped from her manicured fingers, shattering between her red designer heels.
Dante pushed his upper body off the stone using his powerful, scarred forearms.
His wet black hair hung over his forehead like daggers as his furious gaze locked onto his wife.
He raised a soaking, trembling finger directly at the woman who had shared his bed for three years.
May you like
His voice tore through the courtyard with the fury of a waking demon, commanding his guards to seal the gates.
He roared that his treacherous wife had just attempted murder, and vowed she would never leave the estate alive.
