Chapter 2 - The Secret in the Cargo HoldThe air inside the partitioned first-class cabin felt suddenly heavy, trapped between the hum of the jet engines and the suffocating silence of men who lived their lives in the shadows.
Vincent Moretti didn't take his eyes off me. He slowly lowered the tiny black tracking device onto the polished mahogany tray table, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle ticked violently along his cheek.
“Explain,” he commanded, not unkindly, but with an unyielding authority that demanded compliance.
I swallowed hard, glancing back toward the curtain where my little sister Maya was still asleep in row fourteen. I couldn't tell him everything—not about our mother running from the FBI, not about the men in black sedans who had parked outside our apartment building two nights before we fled. But I had to say enough to keep him from treating me like a threat.
“My mother had one,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the drone of the engines.
Vincent’s eyebrows drew together. “A tracker?”
“Under the kitchen table,” I nodded, my fingers twisting the hem of my sweater. “She found it three weeks ago. She told me never to touch it, never to talk about it, and if anyone ever asked about our house, to pretend we were ordinary. But she looked at it the same way you’re looking at that one right now. Like she was already dead.”
One of the guards standing near the cockpit door shifted nervously, exchanging a dark look with his partner. “Boss, could be a tail. Could be the Chicago crew trying to send a message before we even touch down at O'Hare.”
“No,” Vincent said, shaking his head slowly. He looked back at his son, who had finally cried himself into an exhausted, twitching slumber against the plush pillows. “The Chicago crew is sloppy. This is corporate. This is intelligence-grade tech. Someone wanted to know every single movement of my heir before he even turned six months old.”
He turned his full, piercing attention back to me. “What’s your name again, kid?”
“Leah Vance,” I lied smoothly, using my mother’s maiden name just in case the emergency cash in my sock wasn't enough to hide our tracks. “Me and my little sister are going to Chicago to stay with our aunt because our parents… because our mom had to go away for work.”
Vincent’s gaze sharpened, cutting straight through my amateur deception. He didn't believe a single word about an aunt in Chicago, but he was too polite—or too intrigued—to call me out on it right away.
“Well, Leah Vance,” Vincent said quietly, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You just saved my son from a very bad morning. In my world, people who save my family don't walk away empty-handed. But more importantly... you seem to know a lot about how people hide things.”
“I know how to keep my head down,” I muttered, looking down at my sneakers.
Just then, the cockpit door unlocked, and the senior captain stepped out into the first-class aisle, looking alarmed as he saw the heavy security blockade.
“Mr. Moretti, air traffic control just relayed an encrypted priority ping from ground operations,” the pilot reported, his voice tight with professional anxiety. “We have an unscheduled query regarding your manifest. Someone on the ground in New York flagged your private security detail.”
Vincent stood up to his full, towering height, towering over the pilot by half a foot. The polite, exhausted father vanished entirely in a fraction of a second, replaced by the apex predator who ruled the eastern seaboard.
“Tell ground operations that my flight plan is secure, and if anyone else tries to ping our transponder, my legal team will dismantle their airline before dinner,” Vincent snarled. Then, he looked down at me. “Leah. Get your sister and your bags. You’re moving up.”
“Moving up where?” I asked, confused.
“First class,” Vincent said, turning toward his guards. “Move their things. From this moment on, nobody touches those two girls without my express permission. Understand?”
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Before I could protest, one of the burly guards was already walking back past the curtain toward row fourteen to retrieve Maya and our battered canvas suitcase.
I stood there in the center of the cabin, realizing with a sinking feeling in my stomach that by opening my mouth and trying to save a mafia boss’s baby, I had just tied my fate directly to the most dangerous man in America.
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