Chapter 2 - The Tarmac and the Velvet Cage
“Excuse me?”
The words tore out of my throat before my brain could calculate the danger. My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird. I pulled Sophie closer, shielding her small body against my chest with both arms. Around us, the cabin had fallen into a tomb-like silence. The businessman across the aisle—the one who had sneered at my crying baby thirty minutes ago—was now staring straight ahead, his face pale gray, his hands visibly trembling against his armrests. Nobody dared make eye contact with Ethan Callahan.
Ethan didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his voice either. He reached up, casually closing the overhead vent with one gloved hand, before his dark gaze settled back on me.
“You’re shaking, Rachel,” he said, his baritone so low and smooth it sounded almost intimate. “You haven’t slept in thirty-six hours. You have about forty dollars left in your bank account, a carry-on with a broken wheel, and you’re walking straight into an ambush.”
My breath hitched. The air inside the cabin suddenly felt thick, suffocating. “How do you know my name? How do you know anything about my money?”
“I know the Morales family,” Ethan replied plainly, standing up. At six-foot-three, he towered over the aisle, his presence dominating the entire first-class cabin. The two security men stepped back instantly, hands folded, shoulders stiff. “And more importantly, I know who your sister is marrying in forty-eight hours.”
My mind raced through the hazy fog of exhaustion. Elena’s wedding. She had sent the invitation two months ago—an embossed gold card with an address in Gold Coast, Chicago. Elena had always run with the flashy crowd, climbing social ladders in real estate while I broke my back pulling sixteen-hour shifts at the diner in East L.A. Her fiancé was Julian Vane, an heir to an import-export logistics firm. Classy. Respectable. At least, that was what Elena told me on the phone during our rare, awkward ten-minute calls.
“Julian Vane is an accountant,” I stammered, scrambling to unbuckle my seatbelt with one hand while holding Sophie. “He works in corporate shipping. It has nothing to do with you.”
A dark, humorless shadow crossed Ethan’s jaw. “Julian Vane launders port transit logs for the Moretti Syndicate. And as of midnight, the Morettis believe Julian stole twelve million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds.” Ethan leaned down slightly, his voice dropping into a razor-thin whisper. “They don’t hit Julian at his office. They hit him where the family gathers. If you step through terminal three at O'Hare with that baby, you won’t even make it to a cab.”
The wheels slammed down against the tarmac of O'Hare International. The roar of reverse thrusters vibrated through the floorboards, but inside my chest, the roar was deafening.
Kidnapping. Mafia wars. Elena. My baby.
“I’m calling the police,” I whispered, my thumb instinctively hovering over my cracked phone screen.
“Go ahead,” Ethan said calmly, not even attempting to take the phone. “Officer Bradley is currently stationed at Gate B12. He’s been on the Moretti payroll since 2018. Officer Vance is at baggage claim. You want to hand your daughter over to men who shoot through car windows on the Kennedy Expressway just to send a message?”
The plane taxied off the main runway, turning toward a secluded private apron surrounded by high razor-wire fences and blacked-out SUVs. Rain was lashing against the oval windows, streaking the glass in cold gray ribbons.
“Why do you care?” I demanded, tears of sheer panic stinging my eyelids. “You’re Ethan Callahan. People don’t survive crossing you. Why would you lift a finger for a broke waitress and her kid on a commercial flight?”
Ethan paused. His fingers brushed against Sophie’s fleece blanket, gently tucking the edge around her tiny foot. For a fraction of a second, the lethal chill in his dark eyes cracked, revealing an abyss of old, buried grief.
May you like
“Because six months ago, I failed to protect someone who was also holding a child,” he said softly. His eyes locked onto mine, unyielding. “I don't make the same mistake twice. Now let’s move.”
The cabin door opened directly onto the wet tarmac. A burst of freezing Chicago air flooded the cabin. Before I could protest, one of his men took my battered diaper bag with immense care, while Ethan positioned his massive frame between Sophie and the biting wind, guiding me down the metal stairs into the waiting maw of a black armored Escalade.
