Chapter Text
We should've never been on that plane.
I should’ve known that the moment Max and I stepped out of the limo onto the tarmac and saw Leandro men grouped in a circle near the private jet.
Dante Leandro II was at the head of them. The newly instated Don, he’d risen the ranks following the death of his father, the late Dante senior.
Whom my stepfather had put a successful hit on.
At the age of 35, Dante was fairly young for a don, though was no less commanding or formidable—doubly so when surrounded by members of his mob, as he was now.
I recognized each man one by one, one after another. Gio, his best friend and right hand man. Luca, his enforcer. And Adrian, the family's lawyer.
Halting in my tracks, I nudged Max, who was texting on his phone, to look up.
Max was a McCallahan: the Leandro family’s longest standing rival. He was also my stepbrother.
His dad, Liam McCallahan, married my mom a few years ago, but they’d dated on and off for ten years before finally tying the knot (my mom had turned down Liam’s proposal many times, but Liam wasn’t one to take no for an answer. No mobman really is.)
Anyway, I’d been 8 or so when they first came into my life. Around that time, Max was 18 and I hardly saw him because he’d gone overseas for college. But four years later, he'd moved back to New York and, seeing how his dad had apparently taken a pretty serious interest in my mom, decided he’d try and get to know the 12 year old girl sitting alone in the corner of all the parties his dad organized. That’s when our friendship really struck up.
Max became my anchor. Unlike me, he'd grown up rich, but he was still sympathetic enough to pity me for my troubles. He’d ask how I was adjusting to my new expensive private school his dad was paying for, gave me tips on how to deal with the pompous bullies, ruffled my hair when I amused him, wiped my tears when I cried after a difficult day. He’d buy me ice cream and bring home flowers just to see me smile. “Your stepbrother treats you like a princess,” my mom commented one day, and the nickname stuck. Princess.
Then when I was 15, mom and Liam were wed. After the wedding, we officially moved into Liam’s penthouse on the Upper East Side. By that point Max and I were inseparable.
Max was the cross between a Ken doll and GI Joe: pretty and rugged. The picture of masculinity, he had thoughtful blue eyes; the glossiest blond hair, always neatly styled; and a strong face that bottomed into a hard, rectangular jaw and clefted chin. In all the years I’d known him, he’d had at least a dozen girlfriends. He was the heir to McCallahan Corp. after all, and an aspiring governor on top of that. And at the rate he was going, he’d become one. He had the good looks, the ambition, and the drive to do it. Most importantly, he had the money.
At 30 now, he’d slowed down on the partying and was super serious about his career and upcoming campaign. He’d even proposed to his most recent girlfriend, Genevieve Vaughn, heiress to the Vaughn Hotels, because “a married man’s more respectable than a bachelor,” or so he claimed. Something about it proving how he was a man who could commit to things and see them through. I understood it, I guess, but it still didn’t change the way I felt about Genevieve, or Gen, as he called her. I couldn’t stand her or her clique. Snooty and vapid, the whole lot of them.
But Max was a good one. Despite his father’s hand in shady business deals, Max erred on the side of virtue more often than not. However, not unlike his father, he hated the Leandro family with every fiber of his being.
So when Max saw Dante and his men in the distance ahead, he tensed, his hand darting to the strap at his side.
The hatred was mutual and duly noted.
Before seeing us, Dante’s posture had been relaxed. One of his hands rested in his pocket while the other was raised to his face as he checked the time on a gleaming wristwatch. Every now and again he replied languidly to something one of his men said, but after a while, he seemed to grow bored of their conversation, and at that point glanced up and started surveying the area instead.
That was when he saw us. Then it was like the temperature dropped: there was an icy chill in the air as his eyes locked as if on a target. And realizing we were outnumbered, he smirked.
And his smirk did something to me, even though I shouldn’t admit it. It was just so suggestive. His was a raw, darkly sexy kind of allure. The kind that caused your mouth to go dry and your heart to skip beats.
His hair was a waving, raven’s black with errant pieces falling over a wide, smooth forehead. He had low-set brows, as thick and dark as the hair on his head. His deep-set eyes were a muted gray-blue, like the sky before a storm. At the corner of the left one was a distinct, heart-shaped mole. The nose was Roman, the lips firm and pink. A hard jaw connected in a broad, squared chin. And the body…
Dear god. Even under the tailored navy suit, his striking bulk was obvious. A black satin tie neatly fastened at his throat accentuated the thickness of it. His suitjacket stretched tightly from one shoulder to the other; the matching vest and crisp white shirt strained over the breadth of his chest. A flat abdomen tapered into a trim waist and legs curved with muscle.
A second later those powerful legs were carrying him over to us. As he approached, his gaze swept up and down the length of me.
I knew he was my family’s greatest enemy, but I couldn’t help the feelings he commanded in me with just a simple look. Just knowing I’d caught his attention filled me with a rush of excitement, and I shivered.
Max thrust his arm out, voice quiet but firm. “Ev, get behind me.”
Ev, short for Evelina. Or Evelina McCallahan-Kloss, to be more precise. The ‘McCallahan Princess.’
But despite my princesslike exterior, I wasn’t so pure and naive as one locked up in a tower.
All throughout high school, I’d dated a boy named Clark. The son of a luxury commercial real-estate tycoon, Clark was one of the few if not only men deemed ‘good enough’ by Liam and Max for me to date. He was handsome, beloved. He had these warm brown eyes, the kind you could stare forever into. He loved to party and was filthy, filthy rich. What girl wouldn’t be happy? And I was, for a time.
We’d both gone to the same college prep, where I was cheerleader at each and every one of his football games, and his own personal cheerleader off field as well. He’d been my everything: my entire life revolved around him and supporting his dreams. As cliche as it was, I even gave him my virginity on prom night.
I’d thought myself in love until I found out about the other woman.
Not long after giving him my virginity, I made the awful discovery that he was cheating on me. A text had come up on his car screen from Julie, a mutual acquaintance of ours. I wouldn’t have given it much notice if it weren’t for how fast he’d swiped it away. Then we argued about it, and he was approaching speeds of 120mph in his convertible, the wind whipping my hair into my mouth, so I let it go for the time being before he killed us both.
But I bided my time until later, when I was able to log into his laptop and view the messages there. And what I read sickened me to my stomach.
Julie: did u drop evelina off yet?
Clark: No, I’m still with her.
Julie: well hurry up. i’m lonely
And just then a picture sent through, in that very second, of her lewdly posed in lacy red lingerie, with the caption, waiting for u <3
In an instant my heart dropped and my throat closed up. Tell her off, I'd begged in my head, my whole world falling apart. Tell her to fuck right off, Clark, tell her to leave you alone.
But a second later Clark replied, Oh fuck. Give me a bit, and I lost my everloving shit.
I screenshotted the messages and sent them to myself before smashing his laptop on the marble floor. Then I ran down the grand staircase to the main kitchen, where he was sitting as one of his many maids was cutting him up some fruit. He was probably fucking her too.
His eyes widened when he'd seen what remained of his laptop in my hand. “Evelina, what—”
I threw it at him, but he ducked, managing to dodge it.
“How DARE you?” I seethed. “If you want to fuck Julie so bad, go be with her instead! We’re OVER.”
After that I stormed out of his house and never let him touch me again. But despite my every attempt to end the relationship, he wouldn’t leave me alone. He swore it was a mistake, the first and only he’d ever make. That he didn’t love her, would never love her, that she was just a slut, she’d been throwing herself at him for months, etc. I could’ve drowned in the roses he sent to my house in the following weeks. I couldn’t escape him. It didn’t matter how many phone numbers I blocked, or how often I told the gatekeeper not to let his car through. Clark was dogged to the point of derangement. So much so that after about a month of me avoiding him, his dad called Liam up to propose an engagement between us. Without even consulting me, Liam happily accepted, the dollar signs shining in his eyes.
Technically Clark and I were engaged, but if you asked me, we weren’t even dating. Clark still seemed to think we were, though. Every other week he showered me with designer gifts and mini-vacays that I took my friend Jessica on. I didn’t let the gifts and trips go to waste, even though I had no intention of ever taking Clark back. Reparations for damage, the way I saw it.
Anyway, that day in particular, I was actually dressed head to toe in Clark’s most recent gifts: a cropped cashmere cardigan over a white blouse and mini-skirt, all from Dior’s latest spring collection. The silk, pastel-pink bra and panty set underneath were Agent Provocateur; my purse and kitten heels were Miu Miu.
And as he rolled to a stop before us, Dante looked at me like he wanted to rip all of it right off and devour me whole.
His men flanked either side of him, just as dangerous and intimidating.
“Well, well.” He stuffed both hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels, looking between our faces. “What do we have here?”
”None of your business, Leandro,” Max snapped.
”It is my business, McCallahan, to tell you there’s only one jet flying out right now.”
“Yeah, for me. I’m going to England.”
“What a coincidence.” Dante’s smirk stretched even wider. There was absolutely no trace of mirth in it. “We’re also going to England. We were invited to the king's coronation.”
That was the exact reason we were going too. Liam, as one of the richest, most powerful men in America, had been invited to attend and wanted his son there with him to rub shoulders with the global elite.
“This must be a mistake.” Max shook his head in disbelief. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his hand slip from the gun in his waistband to unlock his phone instead. Tapping the screen, he pulled up the reservation and thrust it in front of Dante’s face as irrefutable evidence of our booking the jet first.
“I could pull out my phone and show you too, McCallahan,” Dante said dryly, without once glancing at the screen. “But why bother? We’re taking that jet either way.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Max spat out, turning away. “I’m just gonna have Dad send someone over.”
He grabbed my hand and steered me away. Once we were several paces out from the Leandros, he raised the phone up to his face, working his thumb quickly over the screen. A beat later, he pressed it to his ear.
“Hey, Dad? Oh—Callum. Hi. Yes. …Yes, I know. Where’s Dad?... Actually, it doesn’t matter. There's—Oh, really? Wow, that’s great. But listen, Cal, there’s some trouble with the jet to England. ...What? No, no we haven’t. What are you talking about? No…it’s for 12 PM. What? God, are you serious? Cal, I thought it said PM. Hold on.”
He yanked the phone from his ear and pulled up the email again, scrolling quickly. I stood up on my tiptoes, leaning over his arm to read it. Sure enough, it read that the reservation was for 12 AM, not 12 PM. A red-eye flight. And we had missed it.
Sighing, Max brought the phone back to his ear. “Alright, change of plans. We’ll be in around 6:30, and we’ll head straight to the dinner from the airport. I know, I know. We’ll make it, don’t worry. Let Dad know. OK. Thanks, Cal. ’Bye.”
He hung up and proceeded to spend the next 5 minutes panic-checking the app for other flights until the pilot appeared just then, exiting the hangar out onto the tarmac. Though I’d been here dozens of times, I didn’t recognize him. He must have been on the Leandro payroll.
Dante’s mocking smile was unmistakable as we approached him again.
“Aw, Daddy took the PJ and left without you?” He made a frowny face, brows knitting together and lips pouting. “That’s too bad. Guess you won’t be attending that coronation after all.”
“Get out of my way, Leandro. I’m boarding that plane.” And Max stepped forward as if to prove it.
“Yeah?” Dante stepped forward as well, blocking his path. “Is that what you’re gonna do?”
The sun beat down on us, causing my head to ache and my skin to break out in sweat, but it was nothing compared to the heat being generated by the two men standing toe-to-toe in front of me now, fists clenched at their sides, swollen chests almost touching.
Before I even knew what I was doing, I stepped between them, placing either hand on their abdomens to push them apart.
“Please, stop!”
Bad mistake.
Bad, bad, bad mistake.
Because as soon as I stepped in Dante Leandro’s path, I absorbed all of his wicked attention. Looming above, he had to bend his neck and angle his head to properly stare down at me. When our gazes collided, my breath caught. A predatory gleam leapt in his eyes, like he was a hungry wolf and I was the little rabbit whose feet moved faster than her brain.
The way he looked at me was downright lascivious. He was all but undressing me with his eyes. His heated gaze consumed and overpowered mine with such intensity that I had to look away.
“Mmm. On second thought,” he said, “why don’t you fly with us after all?”
He stepped aside, gesturing toward the air stairs.
I could feel Max’s body go rigid beneath my hand. I slipped my hand from where it was resting on his abdomen and looked up at him. “We have to, Max. It’s the last flight out where we can make it in time.”
Max's jaw clenched. “I’m so sorry, Ev.”
“Don’t be. I’ll be fine as long as you’re with me.” And to reassure him, I beamed at him my brightest smile.
“Ugh,” Dante emitted a noise of disgust. “You should aim to please a worthier man.”
Max shot a glare at him. “Don’t speak to her, Leandro. And don’t try it with me, either. From now until the flight lands, consider us in a ceasefire, and remember that we’ll be stuck in the sky together.”
“She sits on my lap,” Dante said.
“No,” Max replied in the same breath, roughly.
“Then we’ll be taking off without you.”
Dante turned to board the plane. His men already had.
“Wait!” I cried.
“Evelina, no,” Max tried to stop me.
But I got the words out anyway, because I knew how important being at tonight’s dinner was for Max’s budding political career. And if indulging Dante Leandro for the duration of one flight was all I had to do to ensure Max’s attendance there, then I wouldn’t hesitate to do it.
“I won’t sit on your lap,” I started out, trying to keep my voice even, “but I’ll sit next to you and keep you company the whole flight. In exchange, we call a truce.”
“She’s a better deal broker than you are, McCallahan!” Dante mocked dryly. Then his head dipped down, his lips brushing against my ear as he added in a throaty voice, “Truce, baby, but you’d better keep me very. Good. Company.”
And—I couldn’t help it!—my heart sped up at the sensual, carressing tone; the cool purr of his voice at my ear; the possibilities of what ‘company’ could mean.
Max would hate me if he knew.
I flushed, trying to conceal my excitement as Dante followed me up the stairs, prowling behind me. With a hand on the small of my back, he guided me towards the back of the plane, where the rest of his men were already seated.
Though I should probably never admit it, I knew a fair bit about each one of them. Some of that information was acquired by overhearing snatches of conversation here and there, most of it negative, from Liam and other McCallahan mobsters. Most of it I’d acquired by conducting my own research via Internet searches.
The man sitting across the aisle from Dante, for example, was his best friend and right hand man, Gio. He was the most well-groomed of the group, with highlighted hair; flawless tan skin; and a delicate face narrowing into a fine-tipped chin. Under thin, tapering brows, his eyes were a bright hazel, feline in their slight uptilt. His nose was straight and dainty, the lips beneath quick to curve up into a smile. With his dimpled cheek, slim-fit suits, and pretty boy looks, he’d been affectionately dubbed “The Charmer.” And he was. He’d charmed his way into a multitude of elite circles, from prominent politicians to billionaire businessmen to high-profile celebrities. Just last weekend I saw on Entertainment News that he was partying in Bora Bora with that one A-list pop star and her DJ boyfriend. There were also rumors that while there he’d cozied up with the lead actress from that new superhero movie. But he was pictured with a new woman on his arm every month. When he wasn’t in New York, he was in Southern Italy, where he had been born and raised. You could still hear the European accent in his voice.
Next to him sat Luca, or ‘Luc’ as he was called, the enforcer and youngest of the Leandro men. In contrast to his pale, wintry skin and piercing blue eyes, his hair was as black and sleek. His expression was always stern—I’d never seen him smile, never heard him talk. All the lines and angles of his face were severe, his nose looked as if it had been broken and reset a number of times; and every inch of him was hard and bursting with muscle. He’d only bothered with a couple of the buttons of his white shirt, and half of his sculpted chest was exposed, bringing attention to the thin, black cross tattooed over his sternum. Unlike the others, he didn’t wear a suit jacket but had on some sort of tactical leather harness, black and strapped across his chest and waist. It was loaded with what appeared to be several rounds of ammunition. A handgun rested in the holster at his side, and an assault rifle was slung across his back. If that weren’t enough proof of how dangerous he was, he had scars all over his body. It was said he’d grown up in the slums of the Bronx.
And finally, adjacent to Luc was Adrian, the Leandro family lawyer and bookkeeper, responsible for all of their accounts. In his 40s, he was the oldest present: there were little crinkles around his elongated, yellow-green eyes, the pair of which lent him an almost serpentine look. Undercutting his mature, professional vibe was a slew of tattoos that covered his neck and hands. His hair was a warm brown color, mostly pushed back, though through raking a hand over it enough times, a few textured pieces had managed to fall forward into his face. A gold wedding band glinted on his finger. He had three sons if I recalled correctly—the youngest one was around my age, we’d gone to the same college prep and I’d seen him around campus, but we’d never had a class together. And to think here I was now, on a plane with his dad…
Dante’s voice broke me out of my thoughts.
“Want a glass, baby?”
Startled, I shot him a quick glance. He was holding an uncorked bottle of wine in one hand, poising it over an empty glass between us.
“She’s not old enough,” interjected Max, choosing a seat directly across from us so that he could keep a close eye. “She’s only 19.”
“19! Piccolina,” said Gio, reaching across Dante to take my hand in his. A blast of his strong, heady cologne infiltrated my senses as he bent down to drop a kiss on my hand. “I am Gio. It is nice to meet you.”
Adrian stuck his hand out robotically. “Adrian Delvecchio, attorney at law,” he sighed. I slipped my hand out of Gio’s to shake his.
He jutted his chin towards the silent, brooding hulk of a young man next to him. “This is Luc. He’s a man of a few words.”
Luc’s eyes narrowed at me, and he dipped his chin ever so subtly in a brief nod.
The introductions weren’t needed, as I knew their names already, but once they were over, we lapsed into a silence so awkward I couldn’t help fidgeting in my seat. Dante and his friends started a conversation with each other about sports betting. Max’s thumbs flew over his phone screen, tapping out a text to Gen, probably.
The engine roared up and soon the jet started moving down the taxiway. Not long after, it turned onto the final road, picked up speed, and took off.
Three hours later, we were well underway and over the ocean. Things had been relatively peaceful thus far. The seatbelt light was off, and the Leandro men, after having a few glasses of wine each, were puffing away at their cigarettes. All of them smoked, so the entire cabin was steeped in a tobacco-smelling haze. Max had spent the last few hours trying to get his laptop to connect to the onboard Wi-Fi to no avail. As for me, I was rifling through my purse for a strawberry fruit candy. Yes, the grandma ones. They were addicting.
My hand bumped past the several items making up the contents of my purse: gum, a tampon, tissues, my phone, a perfume roller, lip balm, credit cards, a couple of wrapped lollipops, and—oh, my god, I’d forgotten to take it out when I’d switched bags—the freaking dildo Jessica had forced on me as a gift after I told her Clark and I weren’t having sex anymore!
Heat spread across my chest and licked up my neck. I hoped that neither Dante nor Max, who were closest to me, noticed the blush that had me suddenly red all over.
This was all stupid Clark’s fault! I wouldn’t let him touch me, but it was because of him that I couldn’t bring myself to sleep with another man, either. It felt wrong to, like Clark and I were still in a relationship somehow, and I couldn’t do to him what he’d done to me. Either that or I was just scared of getting hurt again.
So yes, dildo. They didn’t hurt your feelings. The day Jessica gifted me with it, I’d laughed and scolded her. But later I’d gone home and tested it out, more out of curiosity than anything really. It was firm, flesh-colored, and veiny—basically a cock, but silicone and without the superfluous attachment that was the rest of a man. I’d tried to put it inside but it was too big, so instead I pressed it against my clit and rubbed myself on it until I came, thinking of some mysterious man shoving my legs apart and grinding forcefully on me.
A mysterious man who maybe looked suspiciously a lot like Dante Leandro…
I coughed and continued rooting through my bag. My fingers finally found a piece of candy at the bottom of the bag. I drew it out, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth just as Max got up.
“This is ridiculous,” he said, snapping his laptop shut. “I haven’t been able to get any work done.” Looking at me, he added, “I’m going to go have a word the pilot. I’ll be right back.”
I nodded, and he left, striding down the aisle to knock on the cockpit’s door. A moment later, the door opened, and Max stepped in.
As soon as the cockpit door closed behind him, Dante wasted no time taking advantage of his brief absence. Cigarette smoke curled around me as he closed in, his voice rough and sensual as he praised, “You suck that so good, baby. How’s it taste?”
I glided the piece of candy across my teeth to the other cheek, angling my head away as I ignored him.
But he wasn’t relenting. “Is it as sweet as your little pussy?”
Now that I couldn’t ignore even if I tried my hardest. I choked, then cracked pre-emptively down on the candy, even though I’d meant to savor it for a while.
Ow. My teeth.
No sooner had I recovered from choking than Dante draped his arm across my lap. I scrambled to push it off, but then he gripped my bare thigh hard, his pinky finger teasing the hem of my miniskirt.
I gasped. “Stop that!”
“Don’t act like it doesn’t make you wet, slut,” he growled, low.
I gasped again, ready to tell him off even as a zing shot through my core, but just then Max returned, and I’d rather he not know what had transpired while he was gone, because if he did, this fragile truce we’d so carefully called would snap in a second, and chaos would erupt.
I succeeded in pushing Dante’s hand off just as Max looked up from his phone. I met his look with a tight smile to show nothing was wrong or out of place, like Dante hadn’t just been sexually aggressive with me a second ago.
“The pilot said the signal’s usually bad over this patch of the Pacific,” Max sighed, sitting back down across from us. “I really hope we get some soon. I have some work I need to get done before tonight.”
I was relieved he was back. The dark, tense atmosphere created by Dante breathing down my neck cleared, and a shaky peace was temporarily restored.
“You two do not look alike,” Gio observed just then, looking at us. “But you are siblings, yes?”
“Step,” Max and I corrected in unison.
Stubbing his cigarette out in an ash tray, Adrian followed up by asking, “Why do they call you the McCallahan princess, then?”
“Liam practically raised me,” I explained. “He's been with my mom since I was a kid.”
“So you do not share McCallahan blood at all?” inquired Gio.
“Probably shares McCallahan sperm though,” replied Dante, crudely, before I could respond.
At this remark, Gio burst into laughter which Adrian joined into as well. Out of the corner of my eye I even saw Luc, who hadn’t uttered a single word this whole time, crack the faintest hint of a smirk!
“Keep your vile comments to yourself,” Max raged, shooting out of his seat to loom over Dante.
Dante crushed his cigarette out and shot up too. “Or what,” he spat.
Then Luc jumped up, quick as lightning, and waited for a single word from Dante. As if overeager to hit something, his fists opened and closed at his sides, the knuckles cracking.
“We had a deal!” I cried, clutching Dante’s forearm. “You agreed to a truce!”
“Leandros never hold up their end of the deal, Evelina,” Max sneered, eyes still pinning Dante’s.
“Well, you’ll hold up this one!” I rushed out, desperately pulling at the sleeve of Dante’s suit jacket, trying to get his attention on me instead of Max.
“I’m finding it hard to,” Dante replied, slanting a sinful look down at me. “Convince me, baby.”
“H-how?”
His eyes flashed. “You can start by taking off your top and showing me those tits.”
All of a sudden, Max’s phone burst into sound, playing the tinny chime of his ringtone, breaking the stunned silence that had frozen all of us in place at Dante’s unhinged order. For whatever reason, the sound of it defused the situation.
Max hesitated, eyes falling to the phone screen. It was lit up with the caller ID ‘Dad.’
Signal at last.
Grabbing the phone, he jabbed his finger on the answer button, lifted the phone to his ear, and said, “Dad, I’ve been trying to reach you this whole—...”
Then he stopped, and we all heard it.
Liam’s frantic, nonstop, and nearly unintelligible shouts on the other side of the line.
We all saw Max’s face drop further and further, paling into a sick, ghostly pallor as the meaning of his dad's words sank in.
“Oh, god…” slipped tremulously from Max’s mouth, and I knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.
“Fuck, what the fuck is it, McCallahan?” An uncharacteristic panic edged Dante's tone.
“The plane’s…” Max whispered, unable to get the words out. His eyes widened in primitive fear.
“What?!” Several voices overlapped.
The phone dropped from Max's hand, clattering on the floor.
Dante’s face darkened as he understood. “This is a fucking set-up, isn't it,” he uttered hoarsely, fury gathering. “ISN'T IT?!” he roared so loud it flung me out of my dissociative state. “I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU, MCCALLAHAN!”
But Max was no longer in front of him—he was flying down the aisle to pound at the cockpit’s door.
My heart plummeted from my chest to my stomach, blazing a path of fire all the way through.
“CALL OFF!” Max shouted as he pounded the door down like a madman. “THE LEANDRO HIT IS OFF!”
Oh my god.
Hearing this confirmation, the Leandro men flew into action. They barreled down the aisle after Max, one by one, shouting wildly over each other.
Time seemed to slow as I stood frozen at the back of the plane. I stood frozen as Dante grabbed Max by the collar and whopped him hard in the face. I stood frozen as Max went down and Dante fell over him, possessed by vengeance as he swung violently over and over again. I stood frozen as Adrian clutched his heart and stared down at them, eyes wide with terror. I stood frozen as Gio fell backwards, reeling in shock.
Luc was bashing against the door now. Repeatedly striking with powerful kicks that seemed to shudder the plane’s entire interior. Then he switched to smashing his body against the door, once, twice, three times before it finally broke down, the wood splintering under his brute force. A gunshot sounded shortly thereafter.
In a daze, I looked to my right, out at the view through the nearby window.
A blue ocean sparkled, the world tilted, and then I flew off of my feet.
𖣂𖣂𖣂
We should have never been on that plane.
The plane was never going to make it to England. It was never going to make it anywhere at all because Liam had ensured it never would.
It was supposed to go down with the Leandros on it, not us. We were supposed to have departed on the midnight flight; we were supposed to have been in England by now.
All of this came to me with such startling clarity as the plane nosedived and I slammed so hard into the ceiling I thought my skull cracked; as that fucking lunatic of a pilot whom I’d never seen before slumped over the controls, a bullet through his head; as Luc bent over him to grasp the wheel so tightly that veins burst over his skin and his muscles trembled.
“Evelina!”
Breaking through the haze of my likely concussion, Max’s cry sounded as if muffled in the distance. I tried to find him but my vision was too blurry at first.
I stumbled toward the sound of his voice.
Then I saw him.
There he was—pinned against the wall near the cockpit, reaching for me. The Leandro men excluding Luc had climbed their way to the front row seats and strapped themselves in. If Max and I had the slightest shot at survival, we’d have to do the same.
Max’s arm shook with the strain of overextension.
I extended my own, reaching for him.
His hand closed around mine with almost enough force to break it before he yanked me into his chest. I’d just crashed into his body when I was flung out again, launched toward an empty seat in the front row.
Gravity would have made it impossible to remain there if it weren’t for the fact that Dante reacted quickly, strapping me in.
“Max!” I screamed, but it was too late.
We jerked forward violently as the plane crashed into the ocean with a god awful sound, glass shattering everywhere, metal denting in, the engine exploding.
Water surged in with the force to break bones. The plane sank with a haunting groan, like the sound of someone dying.
The sound is me, I thought. I’m dying.
Then I blacked out.