I take the window seat across from the small conference table. Outside, the tarmac glows gold under floodlights. Inside, the world is soft, expensive, insulated, an illusion of safety wrapped in luxury.
Stephano moves through it like it was built for him, which it probably was. He doesn’t need to check his balance or his position; the jet, the men, the noise of engines, they all pivot around him naturally. He tosses his jacket over a chair, opens the bar, and pours two fingers of whiskey into a cut glass. It catches the light and paints his hand in amber.
When he looks at me, there’s a spark of pride, like he’s pleased that I see this world through his eyes. I let my fingertips trail across the leather armrest. It’s smooth, cold at first, then warms under my skin. I can’t help but smile. "You really don’t domodest, do you?"
He grins, a flash of white and danger. "No point in owning a kingdom if it doesn’t feel like one."
The engines rise to a steady roar; the cabin tilts; city lights fall away beneath us. For a heartbeat, everything that matters fits inside this perfect, impossible machine: the sound of power, the man who wields it, and me, the woman he’s still trying to figure out how to keep.
Gianluigi is strapped into the forward seat, mouth bleeding where I snapped it open with a palm in another quick temper flare, more for show than need, after we got out of the Suburban. He glares at me like a dog who still thinks he might be invited back in.
Sasha sits opposite him; his face is made for winter. Ettoro leans against the galley with his arms folded, too calm. The kind of calm that smells like petrol before a fire. Stephano stands with his back to the door, fingers closed around the whiskey as if it were a detonator. He doesn’t look at me; he looks at Gianluigi the way men look at problems they mean to enjoy solving.
"You know how this goes," he tells him. "Sing or sleep."
He laughs, a sound like a man trying to sell you poison. "You’ll kill me anyway."
"Not yet," I answer for Stephano. "But I can make you wish I would."
Sasha takes a soft pouch from under his jacket—nothing complicated—and presses a cold coin of metal to his palm. It’s a cheap thing, a reminder: we make men talk; we don’t have to be elegant about it. Gianluigi spits more blood, his eyes on Stephano in defiance.
"How long have you been spying on me for my father?" Stephano wants to know.
Gianluigi stares out the window, where the tarmac quickly becomes a blurred object as the jet engines whine and we move faster.
Sasha leans forward, ever so nonchalantly; the coin glints in a sunray that is there and gone in an instant as the plane lifts. Just like that, he cuts a line on Gianluigi's wrist, ragged and painful. "One time I met a man who refused to answer my boss's questions," Sasha makes another cut, and Gianluigi winces back. "I peeled his skin off, little by little, with this." He holds the coin up for Gianluigi to peruse. One side is raggedly sharp, the other honed, precise as a scalpel. He flips the coin, and before he catches it, he says in his deep voice, "Heads, a cut on the cheek; tails, I'll cut into your cock."
Beads of sweat run down Gianluigi's face and neck. His eyes are glued to the coin that vanishes in Sasha's palm. Stephano puts his drink down and crosses his arms, very interested in Sasha's techniques.
"What do you know?" Sasha looks up from the coin, still hidden, before, quicker than a snake, he runs it over Gianluigi's cheek. "Let's try that again." He flips the coin, and Gianluigi cries out.
"For years. Ten years."
Stephano looks disgusted, ready to wring Gianluigi's neck, but keeps himself in check. "Who else?"
When Gianluigi doesn't answer immediately, Sasha clears his throat and holds up the coin against the window, as if inspecting it for impurities.
"Luigi! Luigi and Bo."
"Hmm, I don't think that's all of them, look," Sasha grins at his palm, and like a waterfall, names pour out of Luca's mouth.
Sasha pats him on the back of the head, "Good boy. Who else?"
Stephano is on the phone, relaying the names to Dre.
By the time Sasha deems Gianluigi done, blood is soaking into Stephano's expensive carpet.
Gianluigi seems to think of something he can use to bargain. "It wasn’t—listen, I—Gustave—I can feed him false information."
Stephano snorts and pours another whiskey, then walks over and pours it over Gianluigi's arm, which looks like someone practiced tying Christmas ribbons from his skin. Gianluigi screams. Sasha looks like he's filing the new trick away.
Gianluigi chokes; his bravado curdles. Ettoro steps forward, and Gianluigi flinches like a man set on a pyre. He pleads. He offers smallness. He offers excuses.
Stephano looks up, catching my gaze. He’s quiet.
"Do you want to play nice with your dad, or do it the Russian way?" I ask.
Stephano tilts his head, "Russian way?"
