5. Adriana
ADRIANA
The plane is moving beneath me, engines roaring as we taxi toward the runway. I can feel the vibration in my bones, in every nerve ending in my body that's screaming at me that this is wrong, that this is all wrong. I need to get off this plane right now before it's too late.
But it's already too late.
The door is closed, and we're moving, picking up speed. In seconds we'll be in the air, and there will be no going back, no way to undo whatever the fuck just happened. No way to explain to Gio why I'm not in my room when he comes looking for me in the morning.
Oh God. Gio.
My stomach lurches, bile rising in my throat, and I have to swallow hard to keep from vomiting right here on the pristine cream carpet of this private jet that belongs to—who?
Who does this belong to? Who is this man sitting across from me?
The boy I loved ten years ago didn't have tattoos crawling up his neck or scars cutting through his eyebrow or that hard look on his face as he watches the runway taxiing by and then turns to look at me.
"Adriana." His voice is calm, like he's talking to a spooked animal. Like he thinks if he just keeps his tone level and soothing, I'll stop panicking. "I need you to breathe."
"Don't tell me to breathe." My voice comes out shrill, and I can hear the edge of hysteria in it, but I can't stop it. "Don't tell me to do anything. You—you just—what did you do?"
"I got you out." He steps toward me, and for a second all I can think is that his eyes are so blue.
For a moment, I'm eighteen again, and he's twenty, and we're in the garden, and he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
"I got you and Matteo out of that house. You're safe now."
"Safe?" I feel like I'm struggling to draw air into my lungs.
This person in front of me is Lachlan… and it's not.
It's the boy I loved behind a mask of an entirely different man, and I can't calm down.
I don't understand what's happening, and if Gio comes after us…
. "You think I'm safe? You think kidnapping me and my son in the middle of the night makes us safe? "
"I didn't kidnap you—"
"Then what the fuck do you call it?" I have to grab the back of the seat to keep from falling. "You broke into my home, you took me and my son without asking, without explaining, without giving me any choice in the matter—"
"You didn't have a choice in that house either." His voice is harder now, an edge creeping in that makes something cold slide down my spine. "You were a prisoner there, Adriana. You and Matteo both."
"That's not—" I can't finish the sentence, because it is true. I was a prisoner. I have been for ten years, ever since the night I watched Lachlan disappear into the darkness and told myself it was the right choice, the only choice that would keep him alive.
And now he's here. He's here, and he's not the boy I remember.
He's not the sweet teenager with the crooked smile and gentle hands who used to kiss me like I was something worth protecting.
This man is dangerous. Violent. I saw the way he moved through the house, an echo of every other man I've ever known all my life.
Who are you?
The question burns in my throat, but I can't ask it because I'm not sure I want to know the answer. I don't know if I can handle knowing what the last ten years have done to him—what he's become in the time we've been apart.
"You need to take us back." My hands are shaking so badly I have to clench them into fists to hide it. "Right now. Turn the plane around and take us back before—"
"Before what?" He takes another step closer, almost as if he can't help himself, and suddenly the space between us feels too small.
I can smell him—leather and gunpowder and that scent of his skin that suddenly drags me back into the host of memories that I try to keep buried.
I don't recognize this man, but God, he still smells like Lachlan.
It makes my chest ache with a longing so intense it's almost painful.
"Before Gio realizes you're gone? Before he comes after you?"
"Yes!" The word explodes out of me. "Yes, exactly that. You don't understand—you don't know what he'll do—"
"I know exactly what he'll do." Lachlan's voice turns cold, and there's something in his eyes that makes me take a step back.
"I know your family has been keeping you prisoner for ten years.
" He stops, his jaw clenching, and I see his hands curl into fists at his sides.
"I know what he's been doing to you, Adriana. I saw the photos."
My breath stops for an instant, and I feel dizzy.
No no no no no. I don't want Lachlan to know any of this.
I don't want him to know how much I've changed, what I've suffered, what I've had to do and become to keep my son safe.
How I've had to cower and crawl and obey.
I want him to remember me the way I was that last night, breathless and young and believing everything was going to be okay.
Or, if not that, then the last time he saw me, frightened but still brave enough to get him free so he could live.
I'm not that girl any longer. And I don't think he's that boy, either. Looking at him now, I feel sure of it.
Which means there's nothing left for us. The pain that thought brings crashes through me so heavily that for a moment I can't think. I can't bear any more of it.
"You—" The shame of him knowing about those pictures feels almost as painful as the grief for what we've lost. "You had no right to take us—"
"I had every right." He takes a step toward me, and I take another step back, darting between a row of seats to try to keep some distance between us.
The closer he gets, the more impossible it is for me to think at all.
"You're mine, Adriana. You've always been mine.
And I'm not letting you go back to that house, back to a man who treats you like property—"
"I'm not yours." The words come out as a whisper, barely audible over the roar of the engines as the plane lifts off the ground. "I haven't been yours for ten years. You don't get to just—just show up and decide—"
"Mama?"
The small voice cuts through my panic and my fear and my rage, and I spin around to see Matteo standing in the aisle, his face pale and tear-streaked and his eyes wide with confusion and terror.
My heart shatters into a thousand pieces at the sight of it.
This is my fault, all my fault; I should have fought harder…
should have done something to stop this from happening… .
"Baby." I turn my back on Lachlan and go to him immediately, crossing the space between us and dropping to my knees in front of him, my hands coming up to cup his face and wipe away his tears. "It's okay. Everything's okay."
But it's not okay. Nothing is okay. And he knows it—I can see it in his eyes, the way he's looking at me like he doesn't understand what's happening. His whole world has just been turned upside down, and he's waiting for me to fix it, to make it make sense.
"Who is he?" Matteo's voice is small and frightened. He's looking past me at Lachlan—at this stranger who just tore us out of our home in the middle of the night. "Why did he take us?"
"I—" I don't know how to answer that. I have no idea what to say that won't make this worse and terrify him more than he already is. "He's—he's someone I used to know. A long time ago."
"Is he going to hurt us?"
"No." I pull Matteo against me, wrapping my arms around him and holding him tight. "No, baby. He's not going to hurt us."
"Then why are you scared?"
Because I don't know who he is anymore. Because the boy I loved is gone and in his place is a man I don't recognize. Because I'm terrified of what Gio will do when he finds out we're gone. Because I'm terrified of what will happen if he catches us. Because I'm terrified of everything.
But I can't say any of that. I can't let Matteo see how close I am to falling apart completely.
"I'm not scared," I lie, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. "I'm just—I'm just confused. But it's going to be okay. I promise." I lead him to the back of the jet, several seats down. "Just stay here, okay? I need to talk to Lachlan, but it's going to be okay."
He nods, and I walk back down the aisle, feeling like I'm shaking from the inside out.
"Adriana." Lachlan's voice is softer now. "I know this is hard. I know you're scared. But I need you to trust me—"
"Trust you? You want me to trust you? You, who just broke into my home and kidnapped me and my son? Who I haven't seen in ten years?"
Lachlan stares at me, his expression unreadable. For a long moment neither of us speaks, and I can feel the weight of everything unsaid pressing down on us, suffocating us. "I came back for you," he finally says, his voice low and rough. "I told you I would, and I did."
"Ten years too late." I see him flinch when I say it, but he holds my gaze, his jaw tight and his face resolute. "Ten years, Lachlan. Do you have any idea what the last ten years have been like? Do you have any idea what I've had to do to survive, to keep Matteo safe?"
"I know." His hands are clenched at his sides again. "I know, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner. But I'm here now, and I'm not letting you go back to that life. I'm not letting Gio—"