Chapter 7 - Elias
The plane hums under me, steady and endless, like it’s dragging us back across the world on chains.
Ten hours in the air, two on the ground.
Everyone else looks half-dead already—hoodies pulled over eyes, headphones in, neck pillows strangling them like bad fashion choices.
Even Cole’s quiet, which should be a sign of the apocalypse.
But me? I can’t sit still.
It’s not the booze—I didn’t get any more after last night.
Cole made damn sure of that, barking a laugh every time I tried to snag another drink, telling me I’d “embarrass myself worse than I already did.” Bastard smirked the whole time like he was protecting me from myself, and maybe he was, but I still want to punch him in his perfect Hollywood teeth.
No, it’s not alcohol. It’s worse.
It’s him.
Damian fucking Kade. Sitting next to me. Again.
Long legs crammed into the aisle seat, shoulders too broad for the row, hair falling forward like he didn’t even bother taming it after the shower. His eyes aren’t on me, thank Christ—they’re on his phone, screen glow against the shadow of his jaw. He looks calm. Like last night didn’t happen.
Like he didn’t peel me open on that rooftop and watch me spill every “yes, sir” like it was the only word I’d ever learned.
My head spins every time I replay it. Him asking, me blurting answers before my brain could catch up. Hat trick? Yes, sir. Bleed for me? Yes, sir. Kiss you? Yes, sir. Bend you over in front of everyone? Yes, sir.
I said it. Out loud. To his face.
And now I’m stuck next to him on a fucking plane, replaying every single word until my brain short-circuits.
My knee’s bouncing again, tray table rattling.
I clamp my hands down on my thighs, breathing through my nose, trying to look like I’m not completely losing my shit.
Tyler’s two rows up, muttering to himself about turbulence and mortality.
Cole’s one row behind, probably already drafting a post about “rookie innocence lost at the hands of haunted whiskey.” Mats is slumped across the aisle, pretending to sleep but definitely watching everything.
And me? I can feel the heat of him beside me like gravity. Every time he shifts, the brush of his arm against mine makes my skin crawl tight. Every time he breathes, I swear I can hear it through the engines.
I keep trying to think of anything else. Stats. Plays. The way Shaw’s lip split under his fists. How my wrists still ache under the tape he wound around them with those careful hands.
But it always circles back.
My throat goes tight, face heating like the cabin’s on fire. I glance sideways before I can stop myself. He’s still scrolling, calm as stone, one hand steady on his thigh, veins cut under tan skin, fingers flexing now and then like he’s holding back violence even in sleep.
I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood. If I don’t do something, I’m going to combust right here, thirty thousand feet in the air.
So I do what I always do. I open my mouth.
“Hey, Captain.” My voice cracks around the word, and I try to smooth it into a grin. “If I start calling you Daddy too, you gonna bench me, or is that extra credit?”
The words come out reckless, loud enough that Mats across the aisle cracks one eye open. Cole snorts behind me, mutters, “Christ, curls,” under his breath. Tyler twists in his seat two rows up, blinking back like he’s wondering if he heard me right.
Damian doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t even put his phone down.
But his hand shifts—slow, deliberate—and lands heavy on my knee.
The bounce dies instantly. My throat locks, lungs forgetting how to work. My grin freezes sharp and stupid, because holy fuck.
He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t give me a single word. Just leaves his hand there, warm and solid, burning straight through denim like he’s pinning me to the seat without lifting a finger.
And I know.
I know exactly what that means.
My grin is frozen, my throat locked, every nerve in me buzzing like I just licked a socket.
He doesn’t look up from his phone. Doesn’t even twitch. Just leaves it there, pinning me in place like gravity itself.
And then—slow. Deliberate. He leans closer.
The cabin’s dim, most of the guys already dozing or pretending to. Mats has one eye open across the aisle, Tyler’s muttering into his hoodie, Cole’s humming something under his breath behind me. None of them are watching close enough. None of them see it.
But I do.
Damian’s hair falls forward, shadowing his scarred mouth, and suddenly he’s too close, his voice low enough that it scrapes against the shell of my ear like a blade.
“Open your mouth again,” he murmurs, quiet, lethal, “and I’ll give you something to keep it busy.”
Every cell in me detonates.
My breath catches, my whole body jerks like I’ve been shocked, and holy fuck, I nearly moan. Right here. On a plane full of teammates. With Cole one row back and Mats literally watching me through his lashes.
I snap my jaw shut so hard my teeth clack. My lips part anyway, like they’re begging without my permission. My brain’s a white blur of yes, sir, yes, sir, yes, sir.
The worst part? He doesn’t even move after that. He just leans back, calm as ever, scrolling through whatever the hell’s on his phone like he didn’t just nuke me thirty thousand feet in the air.
His hand’s still on my knee. Fingers flex once, lazy, like a reminder. Like punctuation. Like proof he owns the silence now.
And me?
I’m gone.
My chest is heaving, my thighs trembling, my skin burning, and every single time I think about opening my mouth again, I remember his voice—low, promising—and I swallow the words back down whole.
The hum of the engines is steady, the team is quiet, the flight stretches endless ahead of us.
Two hours I’ve sat like this—frozen solid, not daring to move a muscle.
Damian’s hand heavy on my knee the entire time, like stone welded into place, veins carved under skin, warm and absolutely unshakable.
My thighs ache from holding still. My chest burns from holding breath I never let out.
My brain hasn’t shut up once—replaying last night, replaying his whisper, replaying every yes, sir that crawled out of me.
And then the seatbelt sign dings on.
The captain’s voice crackles overhead, steady. “Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats and fasten your seatbelts. We’re expecting some turbulence.”
The cabin stirs. Mats yawns across the aisle and clicks his buckle.
Cole groans behind me like he’s starring in a soap opera, muttering something about “death in the skies.” Viktor just grunts and tightens his belt like it’s a punishment.
Tyler’s two rows up whispering what sounds like the Lord’s Prayer into his hoodie.
Damian pockets his phone.
He lifts his hand from my knee. My skin feels hollow without it, like gravity itself just gave up on me. He scans the row, the aisle, the team. Making sure they’re all strapped in, sitting down, secure. Captain mode. The kind of authority no one questions, not even Cole with his mouth running 24/7.
And then the first jolt hits.
The plane shudders hard, bouncing under us like a puck off the crossbar. My stomach drops to my shoes, the tray table rattling, overhead bins creaking loud enough to make the hair on my arms stand up. Someone curses three rows back. The lights flicker once, dim, steady again.
My pulse spikes.
“Normal,” Damian says, low, calm, not even glancing at me. Just a simple word, thrown even into the air like it can anchor the whole fucking plane.
But then the second hit comes. Harder.
The whole aircraft bucks sideways, bodies jerking in their seats, a bottle clattering off a tray table behind me. The overhead lights flash, the engines groan. The air pressure itself feels like it’s closing in on my ribs.
I can’t breathe.
It’s not the hit—it’s the memories. The way the walls rattle, the way my lungs burn, the way the ceiling feels too close, too heavy.
I’m twelve again in a shitty car that skidded off black ice on a back road, my brother screaming, my head smacking glass, the world spinning.
I’m fifteen again, trapped in a broken elevator at school, chest heaving until I puked on my shoes. I’m—
“Mercer.”
My name, sharp. Low. Right beside me.
I snap my head sideways. He’s there. Damian. Calm as a mountain in a storm. One mismatched eye gleaming pale blue, the other near black in the dim light. Both burning steady into me.
My throat’s tight, breath shallow, heart pounding like it’s trying to break out of me.
“I—I can’t—” I rasp. My hands clutch the armrests, knuckles white, nails biting plastic. My whole body’s trembling, vibrating like the plane itself.
Another hit. The cabin jolts, people gasping, Cole swearing loud behind me. Tyler actually yelps two rows up.
I’m shaking apart.
Damian doesn’t move for a second. Just watches me. Measures it. Then—slow, deliberate—his hand comes down heavy on my thigh again. This time higher. Closer to my hip.
The weight of it pins me. Grounds me. His voice follows, low enough that it slices through the roar of the engines, through the creak of metal, through the pounding in my head.
“Breathe, pup.”
My throat locks.
The plane rattles again, overhead bins shaking, lights flickering once more. Someone curses, another muttering “fuckfuckfuck” like a prayer.
Damian’s hand squeezes, fingers curling into my thigh, steady, firm. “In.”
I suck in a breath, broken, like I’m drowning.
“Out.”
I shudder, let it out in a rush that cracks my chest.
“In.”
I obey before my head can argue.
“Out.”
My ribs loosen. Just a fraction.
He keeps going, relentless. Like my panic is just another shift he’s coaching me through. His hand stays heavy on my thigh, squeezing every time I jolt, anchoring me every time the plane bucks.