Chapter 3 - The Viper on the Edge
Maya helped Clara sit upright on the second step of the pool stairs, water pouring off both of them in heavy torrents.
Clara’s pale-blue gown was plastered transparently to her skin, accentuating the swollen contour of her eight-month pregnancy.
Her skin was ghostly white, her lips tinged with violet from shock, and her entire frame shook with violent, uncontrollable tremors.
Maya wiped the wet hair from her own eyes, breathing heavily, but never loosening her protective grip on Clara’s arm.
Suddenly, a shadow loomed directly over the shallow end, blotting out the ambient glow of the rooftop lanterns.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!” a shrill, hysterical voice commanded from above.
Maya looked up and locked eyes with Victoria, who was advancing down the pool apron like an enraged predator.
The older woman’s crimson dress rustled violently around her legs, her manicured fingers curled into claw-like fists.
Her elegant face had twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated venom, stripped bare of all high-society grace.
Maya instantly recognized that look; it was the rabid desperation of a killer whose crime had been violently interrupted.
The paralegal’s jaw clenched with sudden, crystal-clear comprehension.
This had never been an accidental fall or a tragic loss of balance.
The woman in red had shoved this helpless, pregnant mother into the depths with the deliberate intention of watching her die.
A surge of righteous fury ignited in Maya’s veins, incinerating every ounce of her personal exhaustion.
She stood up on the submerged stairs, stepping directly in front of Clara to shield the shivering woman with her own body.
“Back off!” Maya ordered, her voice cutting through the rooftop breeze like a steel blade.
“Shut your mouth and step aside, you little parasite!” Victoria snarled, rushing down the two dry steps leading to the water’s edge.
“You don’t belong here, and you have no idea what you’ve just interfered with!”
Victoria reached down, her red-lacquered nails aiming straight for Clara’s wet hair in an attempt to drag her backward.
Maya slapped the blonde woman’s hand away with a loud, resounding crack that echoed across the water.
Victoria hissed in pain and recoiled for half a second before her eyes went entirely wild with madness.
“I told you to get out of my way!” Victoria shrieked, raising her right leg to drive the steel heel of her stiletto into Maya’s collarbone.
Maya braced herself to take the blow, refusing to give an inch of ground that would expose the weeping mother behind her.
Clara screamed from the water, weakly curling her body inward to shield her unborn infant from the impending violence.
“Victoria, please, no more!” Clara begged, her voice cracking into hoarse whispers.
Victoria’s heel was halfway through its lethal arc, aimed directly at Maya’s neck, when the heavy glass doors of the terrace shattered backward.
A thunderous roar tore through the penthouse perimeter, so loud and ferocious that it silenced the howling wind.
“DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH MY WIFE!”
The voice was a deafening tidal wave of pure masculine fury that paralyzed the entire rooftop in an instant.
Victoria froze mid-strike, her foot hovering awkwardly in the air as terror replaced her manic rage.
Maya looked toward the terrace entryway and saw a towering, broad-shouldered man storming across the patio.
He was thirty-three, impeccably dressed in a tailored navy-blue tuxedo that was now rumpled with haste.
His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his silk tie loosened, and his face was distorted by raw, incandescent anguish.
This was Marcus, Clara’s husband and Victoria’s younger brother.
He took in the entire horrifying tableau within a fraction of a second: his pregnant wife half-submerged and shivering in the pool.
The soaked young woman standing defensively in front of her.
And his own sister, rearing back to strike them both with murderous intent.
Marcus moved with terrifying, unstoppable speed, his dress shoes eating up the distance between the glass doors and the water.
Victoria opened her mouth to construct a lie, raising both hands in a theatrical gesture of innocence.
“Marcus, wait, she fell, I was trying to—”
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Marcus didn’t let her finish the fabrication.
He closed the remaining distance and lowered his shoulder, striking his sister with the force of a battering ram.
