7. OLIVIA
OLIVIA
Iwasn’t a thief. Not officially.
My job wasn’t to steal anything. It was to pour drinks, assist passengers, and help with the luggage.
I was a flight attendant, and that was exactly what I intended to be.
But first, I needed to get myself back into order. Madoc’s reaction to my appearance had made me paranoid. He definitely knew what Jax and I had done. He was like a bloodhound, sniffing out the faintest whiff of vulnerability.
I booked it to the bathroom for a quick refresh. I straightened my ponytail, adjusted my scarf so it hid the stubble rash from Jax.
You will not let them distract you.
You will not let Jax give you all those warm, gushy feelings.
You will not let Madoc mess with your head.
You will not. You will not. You will not.
Priorities restored, I set my plan into motion and went to find Julie. I hadn’t seen her since take-off. I assumed she was upstairs, working the upper economy with Lucille. Instead, I found her alone in lower economy, pushing the beverage trolley with a furious expression.
Judging from her appearance, her patience had frayed to a mere thread. She was noticeably disheveled, her dark ponytail limp, hair frizzy around her temples. Her uniform was creased, like mine, but I suspected for very different reasons.
“Oh, thank god!” She exclaimed when she saw me. She was midway through pouring coffee.
“Need some help?” I asked her.
“That would be great.” Forcing a smile, she handed the coffee to a man who was arguing loudly on his phone. He didn’t even thank her.
Julie rolled her eyes. “I’ve been thoroughly disenchanted by this supersized hell chamber.”
I hitched onto the other side of the trolley and started restocking the condiments from the drawer. My eyes flicked to the row numbers. We were at six. That gave me another six rows until I reached Peter Vincelli. Plenty of time to come up with a convincing lie.
Like a new protocol about unrestrained luggage. Or a complaint from a nearby passenger, or even a random safety check.
He wouldn’t buy any of them. But maybe it would force his hand.
Question was: would that same hand snap my neck as soon as my back was turned?
No. Not out in the open. Not with a plane full of witnesses. He was trying to stay under the radar, just like me.
“Lucille has me running laps like a greyhound,” Julie complained as she cracked open a soda, using the ring on her finger to flick the tab. Smooth.
Julie slammed the cup down hard enough to make the trolley rattle.
“I’ve known women like her my whole life,” she went on, clearly pent up. “Entitled, pretentious—can you pass me the sugar?”
I did, my eyes darting to the row number.
We were at nine. Three rows left.
“She actually used the line, 'I thought girls like you were supposed to be intelligent?' Like, are you kidding me right now?”
“She’s a bitch,” I agreed, smiling distractedly as I dropped a tea bag into a paper cup and handing it to a frizzy-haired woman. She gave me a short, dismissive look, her fingers flying over her keyboard. Lawyers, I thought with an eyeroll.
Row ten.
The back of my neck prickled. Approaching a lion with my back turned probably wasn’t the smartest idea. Subtly, I bent down to open the utensil compartment, shooting a glance behind me.
Peter was mid-conversation with a woman sitting directly across the aisle. She was clearly enraptured with him, her laptop screen gone dark. I couldn’t see the briefcase.
Rising, I shot Julie what I hoped was a commiserating smile as we shuffled down the remaining two rows.
Don’t screw this up.
I swore I felt Madoc’s gaze from his seat on the other side of the cabin. I knew he had eyes on the mark. Would he step in if things got dicey? Would he use that stupid broken pen to save me? Or would he sit back and enjoy the show?
Anything was possible with him. He was an infuriating enigma who made no secret of his dislike for me.
Snippets of the conversation reached me as I crossed the final distance.
“…two types of people, the ones who starve and the ones who feed on watching…”
Jesus.
The worst part was Peter’s smile. It was blindingly charming, contradicting the creep factor. The woman was nodding along, like it all made perfect sense. A simple nudge and she’d wander willingly into the oven.
I came to a stop between them and plastered on a thousand-watt smile. “Anything to drink?”
The woman ordered a chai tea. She was older than me, around Molly’s age. In fact, she kind of reminded me of my sister. Molly had also been on the fast track to becoming a lawyer. She had a fellowship at Columbia and everything. Then a man like Peter Vincilli had come along and ruined her.
Anger stirred in my chest. I swallowed it down.
Peter was watching me.
Those unsettling, icy blue eyes were mapping every inch of my face, his smile never wavering. Him and Madoc would make a hell of an unstoppable duo. Both were equally unnerving.
“Nothing for me,” Peter said.
I nodded and smiled.
“But,” he added before I could initiate plan fake protocol, “maybe you can take this from me? I wouldn’t want it to slip off and hurt someone.”
He extended the briefcase toward me.
I blinked. Carefully, I reached out toward it, trying not to seem too eager.
He was giving me the briefcase.
He was giving me the briefcase, and I hadn’t even asked for it.
It had to be a test. Or, like, a weird trap. Nothing was ever this simple, especially from psychopaths like him.
As soon as my fingers brushed the briefcase, he pulled it back. I grabbed at empty air.
“Emily,” he mused, reading my name tag. “Funny. You don’t look like an Emily.”
Oh god, what did that mean?
Was he calling me out?
He held my eyes, unblinking, as if trying to hypnotize me. I suspected it was working. I had the overwhelming urge to drop and scurry to the nearest exit.
“Who do I look like?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.
His smile widened. “Trouble.”
My hand was still hovering awkwardly in the air between us.
“You’re wrong,” I said, my heart thumping into my throat. “I’m actually a very good girl.”
His eyes glimmered. “Why don’t I believe you?”
He was flirting with me. Or maybe it was an interrogation. I couldn’t tell the difference.
Julie was shooting me a weird look, no doubt baffled by the interaction. Men like Peter didn’t care that they had an audience. Hell, they probably preferred it. Peter was the star and the world was his stage. We were just his props.
Still smiling like an idiot, I reached out again. “Let me take that from you, sir.”
My fingers clenched on metal, and he released it to me without further ceremony. The woman with the chai latte had grown tired of being ignored. She leaned around me, saying: “Tell me again about that book you read. It sounds fascinating.”
“It is,” Peter agreed, completely unruffled. A still black lake.
Pretending to consider my options, I clicked my tongue and said: “You know what, this overhead is full. I’ll just pop it a bit further down.”
“You do that,” he said. His eyes remained sharp. “Take good care of it for me.”
Briefcase in hand, I resisted the urge to fly down the aisle like a bat out of hell.
I sent a quick alert to the crew, requesting assistance, and slipped into the business cabin bathroom. It was far enough that I hoped it wouldn’t rouse suspicion.
A moment later, there were three solid raps on the door.
Ryle burst in like a purple hurricane, slamming the door shut behind him. “You did it!” he cheered, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me. “You beautiful ball buster. How the hell did you do it?”
“I didn’t…He just gave it to me.”
“What?”
“I know.”
Ryle pursed his lips in thought. Then he shrugged and said: “Well, we better crack that bad boy open. It’s probably definitely not full of anthrax.”
I gave him a bewildered look, which made him grin again.
“You wear those hairpins I told you about?” he asked.
“Yep,” I said, digging through my hair. “They hurt like hell.”
Ryle slapped out his hand like a surgeon requesting a scalpel.
“How do you know how to do this?” I asked as he crouched down, peering hard into the keyhole. “I thought this only worked in movies.”
“My old man used to lock me up in places,” Ryle said, his tone casual like we were discussing the weather. I realized that was his thing. Casual trauma. Like it had no impact on him whatsoever.
As he jimmied the pins into the lock, he chatted with his usual gusto. “That Peter dude is pretty hot, huh? It should be a crime to look like that and be a total fucking creep.”
“Bundy was attractive.”
“True.” Ryle poked out his tongue in concentration. “Guess we can’t talk. We’re not exactly saints. You remember Callum? Big, beautiful, red head? Total bear energy. And Jax is stupid attractive, especially with that stupid new haircut. And Madoc—”
My hand slipped on the vanity.
Ryle paused, glancing at me with a skeptical look. “You don’t think Madoc’s hot?”
“I think he should be committed.”
“That’s not a no.”
“He’s a psychopath,” I said, refusing to glance at my reflection. At the lying liar. “I looked it up. He fits the bill.”
“Wouldn’t stop me,” Ryle said with a shrug. “The psychopath thing is just a sweetener. Like, obsessive devotion. Who doesn’t want that?”
“Me.”
“Girl. Please.”
I blushed and crossed my arms. “Just open the case, smart ass.”
“Right on it.” With a final click, the lid cracked open. We both froze, holding our breath. When nothing exploded or slithered out, Ryle cautiously lifted the lid all the way.
“Damn,” he said.
My shoulders deflated. “Damn,” I agreed sullenly.
The briefcase was empty. A decoy.
Which meant he’d hidden the prototype somewhere else.
And I needed to get a lot closer to him to find it.
Goodie.