The moment shatters. Prisoners stand, chairs scrape, voices echo. A guard taps the table. “Let’s go. Now.”
“Warrenwho?” Dad asks, already being pulled to his feet with the others, trying to twist back toward me.
“Baxter!” I call as the guard herds me toward the exit gate. “Warren Baxter.”
He freezes, but a guard shoves him hard. “MOVE, Rowe. Let’s go.” He stumbles forward, still staring at me like the name hit him like a punch to the chest.
Before I can ask what’s wrong, the guard slams the security door shut between us.
And I’m left standing there, heart pounding, wondering why the hell my dad suddenly looked terrified.
WARREN
“Just pulling up on the tarmac,” Anthony says, before ending the call.
I sink back into my seat, staring out through the oval window at the stretch of runway. He’d said Leoni wasquietafter seeing her father. Quiet could be for all manner of reasons. Quiet could mean shock. Quiet could mean she’d heard something she shouldn’t have.
But talking about Isaac, about the night she found him—that would’ve ripped her open all over again. So yes. That’s probably all it is.
Probably.
Footsteps sound behind me. I look up just as Leoni appears, the flight attendant beaming as she directs her toward the seat beside me. I rise immediately, reach for her hand, and pull her in the last few steps, pressing a soft kiss to her lips.
“You okay?” I ask, searching her face.
She nods. “This feels weird,” she says as she lowers into the seat. I sit beside her, relaxing only a fraction. “You don’t like flying on the big airplanes?” she teases, nudging me with her shoulder.
The corner of my mouth lifts. Her playful tone hits me like relief—warm, steadying. She’s not acting differently. She’s not looking at me like she knows anything. She’s none the wiser.
Thank God.
“I like private planes with beds on board,” I murmur, nodding to the curtain near the back.
She follows my gaze, eyes widening before she lets out a helpless laugh.
“Anthony told me you went to the prison this morning,” I say carefully. “You went to see your father?”
I’d seen the visitor slip the day I picked her up after the fight with her mum. I never mentioned it, not wanting her to think I was prying, even though I was.
Her smile fades. “Yes.”
“How was he?”
“Different from how I remember.”
“Good different?” I ask.
She lifts a shoulder. “He was bigger. But I guess there’s not much else to do in prison except work out.”
“When did you last see him?”
Before she answers, the seatbelt light illuminates. I reach across her, fastening her belt with a quiet click.
“In court,” she says. “He pled not guilty. So me and Isaac had to stand there and talk about all the times he beat my mum.”
Her voice is flat. Emotionless. Too controlled.
I fasten my own belt, then take her hand, threading my fingers through hers. Her skin is cold.
