Chapter 59 - Bloodline Severed
Emma did not look at the console. She looked directly into Lily’s eyes.
"Lily," Emma said softly, her voice completely calm despite the gun pointed at her child. "What is rule number one?"
Lily stopped sobbing. Her breathing hitched, her eyes widening as she recognized the phrase Emma had taught her during those long, quiet nights in the Scottish Highlands.
*When the storm hits, you drop.*
Before Vance could react to Emma’s words, Lily kicked her legs violently upward, tipping the heavy swivel chair backward with all her weight. The sudden motion threw Vance off balance, the barrel of his revolver jerking toward the ceiling as he reflexively fired.
The bullet shattered the overhead crystal chandelier, raining glass down across the salon.
In that fraction of a second, Emma surged forward like an uncoiled spring. She closed the distance before Vance could level the weapon again, her hand slamming upward into his wrist, twisting with brutal, joint-snapping force. The revolver flew from his grasp, clattering across the slick marble floor.
Daniel dove into the room, tackling the remaining armed guard against the wall and disarming him with a savage series of close-quarters strikes.
Vance stumbled back, his aristocratic composure shattering into feral rage. He drew a serrated combat knife from beneath his coat, slashing wildly at Emma’s face. Emma leaned back just enough to avoid the blade, feeling the steel graze the fabric of her collar. She stepped inside his guard, driving an elbow brutally into his jaw, followed by a crushing knee to his solar plexus.
Vance gasped, choking on his own blood, but lunged again, tackling Emma to the floor. The two wrestled across the pitching salon as a massive rogue wave struck *The Leviathan* broadside.
The yacht tilted violently at a forty-degree angle. Furniture, glass, and steel cases slid across the room. Vance lost his grip, sliding toward the shattered glass doors leading out to the rear deck.
Emma scrambled to her feet, drawing a concealed backup blade from her combat boot. She threw herself onto Vance, pinning his arm to the teak deck just as the yacht righted itself with a sickening groan.
"It's over, Vance," Emma hissed, the blade pressed against his jugular. "Call off your network. Tell them the Laurents are dead, or die right now."
Vance coughed, a grotesque, bloody laugh bubbling from his lips. "You... you still don't see it, do you, girl?"
With his free hand, he slapped a hidden red toggle switch mounted beneath the deck rim.
May you like
Deep inside the hull of *The Leviathan*, a series of muffled, synchronized detonations echoed through the steel.
***
