And yet.
And yet my other life suddenly feels very far away. The office. The women. The deadlines. The two black cars outside my apartment. The feeling of being watched. My mother asking for money. Jake asking for recordings. My tiny kitchen. My smaller bed.
And this man, who should be the biggest reason to run, is somehow also the one thing making the idea of leaving feel like relief.
I hate that. I hate more that I know what I’m about to say.
I exhale slowly. “If I go with you, this does not mean you get to order me around the whole time.”
Aleksei’s mouth curves, slow and devastating. “Of course not.”
Liar.
But before I can call him on it, his hand leaves my thigh and he reaches for the door.
“Come on,” he says. “Before you regain your common sense.”
I sit there another second, watching him step out into the rain.
The private jet is obscene.
That’s my first thought as I step up the narrow stairs behind Aleksei and into a cabin that looks less like transportation and more like a billionaire’s fantasy of comfort. Cream leather seats. Glossy dark wood. Low amber lighting. A cashmere throw folded over one armrest like someone here regularly gets chilly at thirty thousand feet. There’s even a little dining table set with crystal glasses that probably cost more than my monthly rent.
I stop just inside the doorway and stare. “This is ridiculous,” I say.
Aleksei glances back at me. “You’ve said that a lot in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Because you keep doing ridiculous things.”
He takes his seat like this is all completely ordinary, one long leg stretching out, jacket unbuttoned now, tie gone. “Sit down, Zatanna.”
I should object on principle.
Instead, I sit across from him because the reality of a private jet is already making everything feel too surreal to fight properly. The engine hum deepens beneath us. Outside the window, the runway lights blur through the mist.
A flight attendant appears, elegant and discreet, asks whether we want anything before takeoff. Aleksei asks for water. I ask for water too because asking for champagne would imply I’ve accepted whatever this is, and I absolutely have not.
The plane starts to move.
I grip the armrest without meaning to.
Aleksei notices. “Still claustrophobic?”
I glare at him. “Still deeply unhelpful?”
The corner of his mouth moves. “You’ll survive this one. There’s more legroom.”
That gets a reluctant laugh out of me, and some of the tension eases.
By the time the jet lifts into the air, the city below us is just a field of lights, distant and beautiful and suddenly very far away. The seat belt sign stays on for a few minutes, and I focus on breathing, on the engine, on the weird unreality of the whole thing.
When it finally clicks off, the cabin settles into a quieter rhythm.
Just us. No office.
Aleksei stands first and crosses the space between us with that same unhurried confidence that always makes me feel like prey and willing participant all at once.
My pulse jumps. “What are you doing?”
