Chapter 8 - Trapped at Six Hundred Miles
"Stay back!" the flight attendant cried out, stumbling against the edge of a vacant seat.
The scarred man flashed a cold, humorless grin, pulling back his windbreaker to reveal the unmistakable outline of a heavy firearm holstered beneath his arm. "Quiet, sweetheart. We just want a brief word with the runaway and her little sister."
Gasps echoed through the awakening first-class cabin. The senator from Boston shrank back into his seat, pulling his blanket up to his chin as if it could act as armor. The sitcom actress let out a piercing shriek, covering her face with both hands.
Across the aisle, Maya stirred in her sleep, letting out a soft whimper. My body reacted entirely on instinct; I dove across the gap of my suite, throwing my arms over Maya’s sleeping form to shield her from view.
"Clara," the scarred man purred, stepping further into the luxurious cabin, his boots crunching softly on the thick carpet. "You really thought you could just hop a bird to Europe with our collateral and get away with it? Your old man owes us half a million dollars, sweetcheeks. And until he pays, you and the little one belong to us."
The terror was so absolute, so paralyzing, that I couldn't even draw a breath. My mind flashed back to the dark kitchen, the splintering wood of the door, and Maya crying in the corner. We had run six thousand miles across an ocean, thinking we were safe in the sky.
We were wrong. They had tracked our ticket purchases through the secondary passport registry. They had boarded the flight in New York using forged credentials or bribed gate agents.
We were trapped in a metal tube six miles above the Atlantic, and there was nowhere left to run.
The scarred man took another step forward, reaching out a large, calloused hand to grab the edge of our privacy partition.
*Clack.*
The sharp, metallic sound of a safety latch disengaging echoed like a gunshot through the cabin.
Bronson, the massive security guard, stepped out from the shadows of the galley. But before Bronson could move, Marcus Vance stepped into the path between the intruder and our suite.
Marcus didn't look scared. He didn't look surprised. He looked like an apex predator whose territory had just been breached by an amateur.
"You're standing in my aisle," Marcus said, his voice terrifyingly calm, cutting through the ambient hum of the jet engines like a butcher's knife.
The scarred man sneered, sizing Marcus up in his expensive suit. "Step aside, old man. This is family business, and you don't want any part of—"
May you like
Before the man could finish his sentence, Marcus moved with blinding, explosive speed.
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