Chapter 2 - The Mid-Air Interrogation, the Hidden Syndicate Leak, and the Dangerous Alliance Forged Above the CloudsThe private jet banked sharply toward the south, away from the snowy peaks of the Rockies and toward the desolate desert flats of New Mexico.
Inside the cabin, the tension was thick enough to cut with a butcher’s knife. Renato’s security chief—a hulking, perpetually suspicious man named Marcus—stood near the cockpit partition, glaring at me as if I were a ticking explosive device wrapped in an oversized wool cardigan.
I sat across the table from Renato, my arms crossed tightly over my chest, staring down at my phone. It had no service. The screen was dark, reflecting my own pale, exhausted face.
“Your cousin Jenna,” Renato said suddenly, breaking the quiet.
I jerked my head up, my eyes flashing with defensive fire. “Leave my family out of this.”
“I don't threaten family, Miss Holt,” Renato replied evenly, picking up a silver pen and rolling it between his knuckles. “When my people intercepted the terminal feed this morning, we also checked who sent you that text message. A burner number routed through a server in downtown Denver. The same server that processed a sudden, untraceable wire transfer to your cousin’s apartment account three hours earlier.”
My blood ran cold. The phone slipped from my grip, clattering against the polished table.
“Jenna?” I breathed, the words tasting like ash. “No. She wouldn't... she calls me crying about rent every week, but she doesn't know anything about aviation freight or mafia frame-ups.”
“She doesn't need to know,” Renato noted coldly. “Desperate people are easily rented. Someone paid her rent for the next year in exchange for getting you to answer your phone at 4:30 a.m. and follow a specific sequence of terminal instructions.”
The betrayal hit me harder than the shock of the kidnapping. My own blood, the cousin I had starved myself to support, had sold my name to a syndicate chess game for a few months of paid rent. My grandmother’s warning echoed in my ears: Love without limits becomes slow disappearance.
I covered my face with my hands, a dry, humiliating sob catching in my throat. I had spent my entire life being the floor for everyone else, and the moment I tried to take a single day off to visit an adobe chapel, I had been stepped on so hard I broke.
A heavy, warm weight settled over my shoulders.
I looked up. Renato had draped his dark cashmere overcoat across my shivering frame. He was sitting closer now, his face stripped of the cold, untouchable corporate mask he wore for the world.
“Do not break down yet, Marin,” Renato murmured, his voice dropping into a husky, hypnotic register. “Anger is much more productive than grief.”
“I’m not angry,” I whispered, tears spilling over my lashes. “I’m just... so tired. I haven't slept in twenty-four hours, I’m wearing the wrong shoes, and I’m currently flying across the country with a man the FBI has spent a decade trying to indict.”
A faint, rare ghost of a smile touched the corners of Renato’s mouth. “The FBI’s accounting department lacks imagination. But to answer your concern—you are not going to jail, and your name will be cleared before sunset.”
“How?”
“Because whoever set this trap made one critical error,” Renato said, tapping the screen of his secure laptop. “They assumed I would panic, lock you in a holding room, and play straight into their federal complaint. Instead, I brought you with me. And while my digital forensics team back in Denver is currently tracing the exact IP address that funded your cousin’s rent, we are heading to a secure airstrip in Santa Fe where my primary rival is currently waiting to meet me.”
My eyes widened. “You’re using me as bait?”
“I am using you as proof that their trap failed,” Renato corrected firmly. “When we land, my associate will deliver the unedited security footage of you being forced down that service corridor by a hired dock worker. Once the authorities see the coercion, the frame-up dissolves. But to make it work, you have to play your part.”
May you like
“And what part is that?”
Renato leaned in close, his dark eyes burning with an intense, unyielding focus. “You stay by my side. You let them believe you are exactly what they planned for—my newest, most vulnerable liability. And when the dust settles, I will ensure nobody in this city ever asks you to be their floor again.”
