We listen when something feels off. And his tone feels off.
I don’t turn around. I don’t answer.
The hum of the plane fills the space between us, metal vibrating, air rushing somewhere far above. I can feel him recalibrating behind me, reading the silence, adjusting his footing. He knows I’m hiding something.
I know he is too.
The quiet stretches, thick and charged, a fragile bubble swelling with everything we aren’t saying. It presses in on my ears, my chest, until it feels like the wrong move will shatter it into something lethal.
Then we move.
Both of us rise at the same time, smooth and controlled, guns coming up in mirror-perfect synchronization. Mine clears my backpack without a sound. His is one of the biker’s pistols, already an extension of his hand.
Straight arms. Steady aim.
No hesitation and no wasted motion.
I keep my face calm, my breathing even. I don’t speak. I don’t need to.
The one with something to cover up always does first.
Alejandro exhales slowly, measured, like he’s the calmest man in the world.
“Saint,” he says, level and deliberate. “Let’s not get carried away.”
I don’t move.
My gun stays fixed on him, unwavering, the weight familiar in my hand. His remains trained on me, the space between us tight and humming, like the plane itself is holding its breath along with us.
Seconds pass. Maybe more. Time gets strange when the stakes are this high.
He speaks again, slower this time, like he’s learned something from my silence.
“Why did you know about this second flight to Dubai?”
I don’t answer. I don’t give him anything more than a blink.
So I let him do what men like him always do when faced with a void.
He fills it.
“You were going to ditch me, weren’t you?”
Silence.
“Was that the plan before the airport?”
Still nothing. I watch his throat work as he swallows, his eyes narrowing just slightly as he turns the question over in his head. I can see the calculation happening in real time, gears grinding as he tries to reverse engineer the moment everything shifted.
“Something changed at the airport,” he says finally.
It’s framed like a statement, butit’s a probe. Less guessing than walking himself through an interrogation he didn’t plan on conducting.
His gaze sharpens. “What changed, Saint?”
I consider my answer carefully. We’re locked in a standoff thirty thousand feet in the air, tucked into the underbelly of a plane we shouldn’t exist on, surrounded by fuel, metal, and the very real possibility of mutual destruction. This isn’t the place for truths that can’t be controlled.
So, I give him one that can.
