PART 2
The cabin erupted into cheers and applause for the woman in 3B.
I sat frozen, the blood roaring in my ears so loudly it drowned out the engine hum. Seat 3B. First class.
My hands began to shake as I looked down at Leo. My seven-year-old boy was staring at the floor, clutching his toy airplane so tightly his knuckles were white. The crooked drawing—BEST PILOT EVER—sat sticking out of the front pocket of his backpack.
“Mom?” Leo whispered, his voice cracking. “Who is Chloe?”
I couldn’t answer him. My throat felt like it was filled with broken glass.
I unbuckled my seatbelt, my instincts as a mother completely overriding the fear that had paralyzed me moments before. “Stay right here, Leo,” I said, trying to keep my voice flat and steady. “Keep your headphones on.”
I stood up and began walking down the narrow aisle toward the front of the aircraft. Passengers were still turning toward first class, smiling and looking for the lucky woman. As I reached row three, I saw her: Chloe Ruiz, a strikingly attractive twenty-something woman wearing a sparkling diamond engagement ring, blushing as she accepted congratulations from a flight attendant.
She wasn’t just a stranger. I recognized her face from the administrative office at Luca’s airline base—the woman he had claimed was just a “new flight operations coordinator.”
I didn’t stop in first class. I walked straight to the front galley, right up to the armored cockpit door.
A flight attendant stepped in front of me, raising a hand. “Ma’am, you need to return to your seat immediately, we’re preparing for departure—”
“Tell Captain Luca Vance that his wife, Jessi Sterling, is standing outside this door,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a razor-sharp edge that made the attendant freeze in her tracks. “And tell him his seven-year-old son is sitting in seat 28E with a drawing he made for him.”
The attendant’s face drained of color. She looked from my cold, stone-still expression to the cockpit door, then stepped to the interphone and pressed the chime button.
