Chapter 6 - The Flight Risk
The ride to the private airfield was suffocatingly silent.
Roman sat across from me in the armored SUV, his eyes fixed on his phone.
I held Marco tightly against my chest, my mind racing with pure panic.
If I got on that plane to Italy, I would disappear forever.
Roman’s family compound in Sicily was a fortress where women went in and never came out.
I discreetly touched my pocket to ensure the burner phone was still there.
Dante had texted me the coordinates of a safe house, but I was currently trapped in a moving vault.
The SUV finally pulled onto the tarmac of the private airstrip.
A sleek Gulfstream jet was waiting, its engines already whining in the cold night air.
"Get out," Roman ordered, opening the heavy car door.
I stepped onto the asphalt, the freezing wind biting through my coat.
Roman’s guards began loading the luggage into the cargo hold.
I realized this was my only chance to create chaos.
As we walked toward the boarding stairs, I pretended to stumble on the uneven pavement.
I dropped my heavy diaper bag intentionally, spilling its contents across the tarmac.
"Pick it up," Roman snapped, annoyed by the delay.
I knelt down, fumbling in the dark to gather the bottles and blankets.
My hand brushed against a small, pressurized canister of emergency oxygen I had packed for Marco's breathing issues.
I discreetly twisted the valve completely open and rolled it under the SUV’s hot exhaust pipe.
"Hurry up, Elena," Roman growled, grabbing my arm violently.
Suddenly, a deafening explosion ripped through the cold night.
The pressurized canister blew out the back tires of the armored SUV, sending a massive fireball into the air.
The guards drew their weapons instantly, shouting about an ambush.
Roman shoved me toward the ground, pulling his own gun to scan the perimeter.
"Stay down!" he roared, firing a blind shot into the darkness.
In the confusion and the thick black smoke rolling off the burning tires, I didn't stay down.
I scrambled to my feet, clutching Marco to my chest, and ran.
I sprinted toward the chain-link fence bordering the airfield, my lungs burning with every breath.
I could hear Roman shouting my name furiously in the distance.
I reached the rusted access gate and slipped through the narrow gap.
I ran blindly into the surrounding woods, the darkness swallowing me completely.
Suddenly, a pair of headlights flashed directly in front of me, blinding my vision.
A black van slammed to a halt on the dirt road.
The side door slid open, and two men in tactical gear jumped out.
Before I could even scream, they grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me into the back of the van.
I scrambled backward, shielding Marco as the doors slammed shut.
A man was sitting in the shadows of the van, casually lighting a cigarette.
The lighter illuminated the sharp, cruel features of Dante Vescari.
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"Hello, Elena," Dante smiled through a cloud of smoke.
"You look terrible."
