BURIED AT SEA: My Billionaire Mother-in-Law Threw Me Overboard to Kill My Unborn Baby—Until Her 9-Year-Old Grandson Made Her Pay!

Clara screamed as she was violently jerked backward onto the wet teak deck.

Eleanor stood over her, an image straight out of a nightmare. Her nose was broken and crooked, pouring dark crimson blood into her mouth and down her trench coat. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and burning with homicidal insanity. The .38 revolver was gone, but in her hand, she gripped a heavy brass fire-axe pulled from the bulkhead emergency station.

"Did you really think... you could run from me?!" Eleanor gasped, raising the heavy axe with both hands above Clara’s exposed, pregnant belly. "This ends now! The Sterling bloodline dies with you!"

Inside the tender, Toby screamed, clawing at the hatch door, but Eleanor kicked the heavy fiberglass door shut, latching the external dog to trap the boy inside.

"Toby! NO!" Clara cried out, clawing at the deck, trying desperately to roll over to protect her child.

Eleanor raised the axe higher, her muscles corded with insane fury. "Die, you little bitch!"

*BANG!*

A sharp, crackling gunshot rang out above the roar of the gale.

Eleanor’s body jerked. A dark red rose bloomed on the shoulder of her dark trench coat. The heavy brass axe slipped from her grasp, clattering loudly across the deck and sliding harmlessly over the side into the churning ocean.

Eleanor staggered backward, clutching her bleeding shoulder, a look of stunned disbelief washing over her bloody face.

Standing at the top of the promenade stairs was Marcus.

He was barely standing. His uniform was torn, his left arm hung limp at his side, and dark blood was soaking through his tactical vest where a shotgun pellet had gouged his side. But his right hand was steady as stone, his Glock smoking in the rain.

Behind him, Captain Vance was nowhere to be seen—left unconscious or dying in the flooded bowels of the sinking vessel.

"Step away from the boat, Eleanor," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a register of cold, absolute finality.

Eleanor looked at Marcus, then looked at the rising water that was already sloshing over the edges of the main deck. The yacht was dying. The stern was dropping fast, the bow lifting toward the stormy heavens like a sinking monolith.

"You’re too late, Marcus..." Eleanor laughed, a wet, choking sound as she backed toward the hydraulic release panel. "You think you’re saving them? If I trip this manual jettison without the stabilizers engaged, the tender will flip upside down in the sea! They’ll drown inside an iron coffin!"

Eleanor lunged her bloody hand toward the yellow emergency jettison lever.

Suddenly, a searing, catastrophic pain tore through Clara’s abdomen. It wasn't the impact of the fall. It was internal, sharp, and terrifyingly rhythmic.

A warm gush of fluid soaked Clara’s trousers.

Her water had broken.

The intense shock, the physical trauma, and the freezing ocean had forced her body into precipitous, violent labor.

"Marcus!" Clara cried out, clutching her belly as a massive contraction ripped through her core, stealing the breath from her lungs. "The baby... oh God, the baby is coming!"

Eleanor paused, her hand hovering over the release lever. A demonic sneer twisted her bloody lips as she heard Clara’s agonized cries. "How wonderful! A delivery at sea! Let’s see if your little bastard can swim before it even breathes!"