Chapter 26 BETH
BETH
Zaghan was a monster.
A loud crash, then screams.
I jolted awake to these distinct sounds, my heart hammering in my chest, pulse loud in my ears.
At first I was confused, couldn’t remember where I was or what I was doing there.
The surface beneath me had felt soft and silky, a blanket draped over me, plush pillows surrounding me. And I felt weightless, like I was floating.
Then I looked around the tiny room, adrenaline pulsing in my veins. It looked like a cabin with tiny multiple windows, floating through the clouds.
Clouds.
The private jet. I was in a private jet, flying back to Braemont.
Our car had been in perfect condition. The soldiers or whoever was responsible for the repairs even went out of their way to fill the tank up with gas. It would have been enough for our journey back home, nothing but a smooth ride to Braemont, unless we decided to make a stop at another city.
But then there was that thing with a different desire, a different plan. He said he was heading to Braemont too, but with the private jet. So he sent Kenzo’s car ahead and asked us to fly with him.
I ended up falling asleep the second we slipped into the jet. The reality ahead of me, I was afraid to confront. I was…exhausted, drained physically and emotionally. A lot was happening, a lot I couldn’t wrap my head around. So I just…slept.
It hadn’t been up to five minutes since I dozed off on one of the chairs. I wondered who carried me to this room.
More screams. More cries. They slipped into my thoughts, and my anxiety returned, my stomach twisting.
Wait, what exactly was going on out there?
I flipped the blanket off, my feet hitting the floor just as the door to the cabin slid open.
Kenzo stumbled in, his bluish-grey eyes wide with horror, his body trembling.
The sight alone made panic spread through me like wildfire.
“What’s happening?” I asked, my voice shaking. I felt sick, like I was about to pass out from the twisted fear of the unknown.
I fumbled with the oversized slippers I found by the tiny bed, my mind immediately jumping to the worst—we were crashing. We were about to die.
Cold sweat beaded on my skin at that horrific thought. I didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not exploding mid-air, my body scattered in tiny pieces. They would be lucky if they could gather some parts to bury.
“Are we dying?” For some reason, that was the only thing my mind kept looping back to the more seconds Kenzo wasted on not telling me what was happening.
“Someone needs to fucking stop that psycho.” His voice trembled, panic woven into each word.
“Psycho?” I asked. “Who?”
He didn’t reply. He gripped my wrist instead, yanking me toward the door. We practically raced through the tiny meeting room and dining area, then finally, we arrived where the commotion was. And I stopped dead in my tracks, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Zaghan stood at the open jet door, fingers wrapped around a flight attendant’s throat. The prettiest of the two. Nina Dovetsky was her name. She dangled in the air, feet kicking, her mouth opened in a silent, desperate plea.
Terror choked me. What was happening before my eyes? Was I still asleep and this was one of my nightmares?
The second attendant, Masha Mackintosh, shook like a leaf, eyes glossy with horror. The assistant pilot stood frozen, torn between acting and self-preservation.
One of Zaghan’s guards watched, sunglasses on, arms crossed…doing nothing.
What?
My gaze snapped back to him. A thick vein pulsed along his neck, another branching into a Y at his temple. His sneer was razor-sharp, his expression murderous.
“Calla–Zaghan!” A choked, broken shrill vibrated, and time seemed to freeze . Everywhere went death quiet, you could almost hear a feather move through the wind.
When his attention drew sharply to me, his eyes held no softness, no emotion. They were cold, deadly, and lethal. He looked crazed, dark and depraved. He looked like death itself.
“Go back to bed!” he grounded out, and my feet staggered backward at the power his words carried. “Now!”
“Let her go,” I said, fear etched into every word. “Please.”
“I said, go back to bed!”
“No!” I choked out, my head shaking rapidly. Was he actually going to throw a whole human being down a moving plane? How crazy was this guy? What kind of a monster was standing before me?
“Elizabeth–”
“–Please.” I cut him off. “Let her go, please. I’m begging you.”
His eyes shifted from me to the woman, and his jaw clenched.
An invisible hand of the clock began to tick, the air filled with tension, breaths bated, lips trembling…
and he finally did it; he stepped backward, dragging her along before tossing her across the floor.
A series of coughs echoed from Nina’s throat, eyes red, cheeks lined with tears.
Her team members rushed to her, grabbing her quickly and moving her into another cabinet.
“Zaghan–” My words caught in my throat as he bounded to me, and in a fleeting second, faster than a blink of an eye, he had me pinned against a wall, his long fingers wrapping around my neck.
“What the fuck, man?!” Kenzo yelled, panic and anger leaping into his tone. From the corner of my currently burning eyes, I saw him surge forward in defense, but before he could even attempt anything, a soldier’s hand was locked around his arm, grounding him.
“I am letting you off with a warning.” His voice was raspy and harsh, his hot breath which smelt like coffee, hitting my face, while talons dug into my neck. “Never in your life, interfere with my business again, got it?”
I didn’t even know how to answer that. I was scared for myself and for Kenzo. And I was trembling, my tongue too fucking heavy to speak.
“Answer me!” he growled, his heavy weight crushing me against the wall. “Do. You. Get it?”
“Mhmm.” I nodded, the corners of my eyes burning with tears.
“I did not catch that.”
“Y-yes,” I choked out. “I’m–I’m sorry.”
His cold eyes stared at me for what felt like forever, and with a huff, he finally let go.
Desperately, like I was trapped under water, I fought for air back into my lungs, my chest burning. My back slid down the wall, butt hitting the floor.
Through the curve of my lashes, I saw him walk away, more like cavort. Anger radiated off him; in the trembling of his fingers, in the bold veins at the corners of his neck, and in his steps.
He disappeared behind the drawn curtain, and the sound of the bedroom door being pulled shut echoed. Two seconds later, I heard a loud crash. I had spotted a wine glass earlier while Kenzo was dragging me out of the room. I had a feeling that was what caused that sound.
“Arsehole,” Kenzo cussed at the soldier who held him captive. “Fuck you!”
Then he dashed to me, crouching down. “Are you okay?” he asked softly, tucking my hair behind my ear.
“Yeah.” My voice was raspy, my weight resting on him as he grabbed me gently and hoisted me to my feet. He walked us to the leather chair and sat me down.
“Beth.” The tone of his voice passed the message before he said the next words. “We need to get out of here.”
“No,” I said outrightly, and he jumped to his feet, eyes narrowing down at me.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I don’t know, maybe because we can’t fly out of the jet in motion.” I said in a rather snarky tone. “Otherwise, we might not make it from jumping fifty thousand feet off the surface of the earth.”
This was probably not a good time for sarcasm to be thrown around. This was alarming and indeed, I should be gone.
‘He was just angry,’ a voice in my head said. ‘He would never hurt you.’
“I told you.” Kenzo sat back down. “I told you I didn’t trust him. I told you I had a bad feeling. Now look, he almost threw a woman off a plane.” He looked at me for validation of his point. “Beth, he almost killed a woman. You are aware, right?”
“You were here,” I said instead, ignoring his question without meaning to. “What happened?”
“Are you for real?” he deadpanned. “Does it matter what she did?”
“Just tell me what she did,” I pressed, almost desperately.
“She touched him,” he answered, while keeping a skeptical eye on me. “He had dozed off, she came with wine, poured it in his glass and then she started touching him. Popped his first button and then his eyes snapped open, and before I could even blink, she was dangling off the jet.”
“What?” My mouth hung open, my mind reeling. “Just like that?”
“Yes.” He gave an affirmative nod. “Just like that, Beth.”
“That’s…“ I couldn’t put my thoughts together. “That’s insane, right?”
He wanted to throw a woman off the jet just because she touched him? I mean, touching someone without their permission was inappropriate and weird but giving the person instant death sentence was just too much?
He was going to kill someone? Would he have actually killed her? Zaghan had the capacity to kill a human without blinking?
Should I be scared of this man more than I already was?
???
“You are really going to wear it?” Kenzo’s voice was tight, unsettled and slightly irritated.
I shrugged, hooking the gold chain around my neck, admiring how the tiny, ruby-green pendant caught the light. “It’s just a necklace.”
“What?” he whispered, perturbed. I could feel his stare on me, sharp as a blade, heavy with questions he hadn’t asked yet. I had been avoiding this conversation since we arrived, but the weight of it loomed between us, thickening the air.
The private jet had landed on the rooftop of Right Angle Hotel and Suites, a place that, judging by the way the staff bowed and scrambled to accommodate him, the Raskovs likely owned.
He didn’t speak a word to me during the ride to my house. His eyes had been locked on his iPad, fingers flying over the keys like nothing else in the world mattered.
And yet, less than an hour later, one of his men had shown up at my door, silent and unreadable. He had handed me the small, pristine box without a word, his expression cold enough to freeze the air between us.