“Is it?”
“I boarded the plane hours ago.”
“And they knew you were on it.”
I shook my head.
“No one knew my flight details.”
“Someone did.”
His daughter stirred at the tension in his body. Immediately, his entire posture changed. The feared man vanished. The father remained.
He lowered his voice.
“Three days ago, someone tried to take her from a house outside London. Her nanny was killed. The woman who normally fed her was injured. We left without preparation because staying would have been worse.”
I looked again at the sleeping infant.
The failed bottle.
The weakened cries.
The fear in his face.
“You had no formula she would take?”
“We had formula. We had bottles. She refused both.”
“And her mother?”
A silence passed through the cabin.
Nikolai’s jaw tightened.
“Dead.”
The single word carried weight.
Not grief exactly.
Something colder.
Something unfinished.
I looked toward the sedan outside. It remained dark and still.
“You think whoever followed you saw me help her.”
“I know they did.”
“How?”
He nodded at the man nearest him.
The bodyguard pulled a tablet from inside his coat and tapped the screen.
A grainy photograph appeared.
Me.
Standing beside Nikolai’s seat.
The image had been taken through the jet’s window before departure in London.
Another photograph showed me entering the private section behind the divider.
My stomach turned.
“That doesn’t prove anything.”
“To you, no.”
“To anyone.”
“To men who have spent months trying to identify my daughter’s vulnerabilities, it proves enough.”
I stared at the photographs.
“Who took these?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You said the car followed us.”
“The people in that car are not the only people interested.”
His calmness frightened me more than anger would have.
I turned toward the open door again.
The sedan’s headlights came back on.
It began moving.
Slowly.
Not toward the airfield entrance.
Toward the access road leading closer to the runway.
The guard at the door spoke for the first time.
“Boss.”
Nikolai’s gaze sharpened.
A second later, the floodlights went out.
Darkness swallowed the aircraft.
Someone grabbed my arm.
I screamed and twisted, but the grip tightened.
“Down,” a voice ordered.
Gunfire cracked outside.
The sound was not like it was in movies. It was harder, flatter, more mechanical. The jet’s windows burst inward in a storm of glass.
Nikolai turned his body over the baby.
One of his men drove me to the floor between the seats.
Bullets tore through leather.
A flight attendant screamed from the rear.
Then the cabin lights flashed red.
Emergency illumination painted everyone in blood-colored shadows.
The guard covering me drew a gun and fired through the broken window.
Nikolai was shouting in Russian.
His men moved with terrifying precision.
One returned fire.
Another dragged a metal panel over the open doorway.
The third pulled Nikolai toward the rear of the jet.
But he resisted.
“Elena.”
His eyes found mine through the darkness.
The baby began crying again.
This time, the sound cut through everything.
Nikolai pointed toward me.
“Bring her.”
The guard hauled me upright.
“What?”
“Move.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
A bullet struck the wall inches from my head.
The argument ended.
We ran.
At the rear of the cabin, one of the flight attendants opened a narrow maintenance hatch I had not noticed before. Cold air rushed inside.
Metal stairs led down into darkness beneath the jet.
Nikolai descended first, one arm wrapped around his daughter. I followed because the man behind me gave me no choice.
The smell of fuel filled my lungs.
We emerged beneath the aircraft.
Gunshots echoed across the airfield.
Black SUVs swerved between hangars. Men fired from behind vehicles. Somewhere to my left, tires screamed. The police cars near the service building were gone.
Or they had never been police.
A hand pressed against the back of my neck.
“Keep your head down.”
I recognized the guard from the cabin.
He was younger than the others, perhaps early thirties, with pale eyes and a scar across his chin.
“What’s your name?” I gasped as we ran.
He looked at me as though the question was insane.
“Roman.”
We reached an armored SUV positioned beneath the jet’s wing.
The rear door opened.
Nikolai climbed in.
Roman pushed me after him.
I landed across black leather seats, my shoulder striking the floor. A second later, Roman slammed the door and shouted at the driver.
The vehicle accelerated before I could sit up.
The baby was screaming.
Nikolai held her close, but his attention was divided between her and the chaos outside. Through the reinforced windows, I saw muzzle flashes in the darkness.
One of the SUVs behind us erupted into flames.
The explosion lit Nikolai’s face.
He did not flinch.
I did.
The baby’s cries sharpened.
Her tiny body trembled.
Nikolai looked at me.
The command in his eyes was unmistakable.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“You don’t get to order me.”
“She needs you.”
“So you can keep me prisoner?”
“So she stays alive.”
The vehicle swerved violently. I struck the door.
Nikolai caught me with one hand.
His grip was strong enough to bruise.
For a moment, our faces were inches apart.
His eyes were nearly black.
“Do you think I wanted this?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you want.”
“Neither do I.”
Something about the answer silenced me.
The baby let out a broken, breathless cry.
My body responded before my pride could.
Again.
I hated that.
I hated how quickly instinct overpowered thought.
“Give her to me.”
Nikolai hesitated.
Then he passed his daughter into my arms.
Her name, I realized, had never been spoken.
“What is she called?”
He watched me unbutton the top of my blouse beneath the cover of his coat.
“Sofia.”
The name pierced straight through me.
One of my sons would have been named Samuel. The other, Jonah.
Names mattered after death.
Sometimes more than they did in life.
I looked down at the baby.
“Sofia,” I whispered.
She rooted weakly against me.
When she latched, the world disappeared.
Not entirely.
Gunfire still sounded in the distance. The SUV still raced through the night. Men still shouted into radios.
But inside that moving armored box, there was only the small weight of her body against mine.
Warm.
Trusting.
Alive.
Nikolai sat across from us.
His hands were empty now.
I saw blood on one cuff.
“Are you hurt?”
He glanced down.
“No.”
“That’s blood.”
“Not mine.”
The answer should have terrified me.
Instead, I felt numb.
I looked out the window.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To my home.”
“I’m not staying there.”
“You are tonight.”
“And tomorrow?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether the people who attacked us know who you are.”
“They already know my face.”
“Your name is more valuable.”
“They can find my name.”
“Yes.”
His honesty made my skin crawl.
“How?”
He leaned back.
“Passenger records. Immigration records. Employment history. Security footage. Your life is not hidden, Elena.”
“Neither was yours.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“My life is built to survive being seen.”
“And mine isn’t.”
“No.”
Sofia’s fingers curled against my skin.
I lowered my voice.
“Then let me go to the police.”
“The police will ask why armed men attacked a private aircraft. They will ask why you were aboard. They will search your home. Your history. Your husband’s death.”
I looked at him sharply.
“What does Daniel have to do with this?”
“Perhaps nothing.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because his accident wasn’t an accident.”
The words seemed to remove all air from the vehicle.
I stared at him.
He held my gaze.
“No.”
“Your husband died when his car crossed the center line outside Cambridge.”
“I know how he died.”
“The steering mechanism had been tampered with.”
“That isn’t true.”
“The official report said mechanical failure.”
“It said he lost control in heavy rain.”
“The report you were given said that.”
My arms tightened around Sofia.
She made a soft sound of protest, and I forced myself to relax.
“You’re lying.”
“I have no reason to.”
“You’re trying to frighten me into staying.”
“I don’t need to frighten you into staying. The men outside already did that.”
“Then prove it.”
He reached inside his coat.
Roman reacted instantly from the front seat, half turning with his gun raised.
Nikolai did not look at him.
Roman lowered the weapon.
From his inner pocket, Nikolai removed a folded sheet of paper.
He handed it to me.
It was a copy of an automotive inspection report.
Daniel Carter.
