Page 332 of Don’t Say Mafia

He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “You survived me. You’ll survive this.”

“That is not the same category of threat.”

He laughed under his breath like I’d told a joke and moved, abandoning his seat to sit beside me instead. His thigh pressed against mine, and he draped his arm casually across the back of my chair.

“Put on your seat belt,” I hissed, and he snorted as he made a dramatic show of listening to me. The door sealed shut with a solid, final sound, and my heart rate doubled.

The plane began to move, slow at first, then faster as we taxied. I tried to breathe normally and not as though I was imagining us hurtling into the sky like a very expensive projectile . . . but I didn’t think I was doing a great job.

Jagger’s hand slid into mine. “Look at me,” he said quietly.

I did.

“Planes are safer than cars,” he continued. “Statistically. And this one is maintained obsessively. My pilot’s flown me through worse than a little takeoff.”

“That’s not comforting.”

He smiled faintly. “You trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust that I wouldn’t put you in a situation I wasn’t certain about.”

The engines roared louder. My stomach dropped as the plane surged forward. “Oh my gosh,” I breathed. The force pressed me back into the seat and then—we were up, and the ground was falling away. My fingers crushed his as we tilted slightly, climbing, the city shrinking beneath us into something unreal and distant.

I realized I’d been holding my breath when he squeezed my hand. “Eden,” Jagger murmured. I exhaled shakily.

The climb smoothed out after a few minutes, and the pressure around my spine eased as the roar of the plane softened into a steady hum.

All right . . . so we were fine and still alive. For the time being.

I looked out the window cautiously. Clouds drifted below us like something out of a painting. The sun caught the wing at an angle that made it gleam. “That’s . . .” I swallowed. “That’s actually kind of beautiful.”

Jagger watched me instead of the view. “You’re doing great,” he said.

“I feel like I just ran a marathon without moving.”

He brushed his thumb over my knuckles. “We call that adrenaline,” he laughed.

“I hate adrenaline.”

“You don’t,” he corrected. “You just prefer to choose when you get it.”

I rolled my eyes, and he leaned in, pressing a slow kiss across my lips before pulling back.

The plane hummed steadily around us. My heart had finally stopped trying to escape my rib cage. And then, because apparently surviving takeoff unlocked new anxieties, another thought crept in.

I shifted in my seat and tried to sound casual. “Your brother . . .”

Jagger’s brows lifted slightly. “What about him?”

“He’s going to like me, right?”

Jagger studied me for a second like I’d just said something absurd. “Of course he’s going to like you.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.”