I stared at the screen, my pulse a frantic drum.
He watched me with a lazy, knowing smile.
“But I’ll admit, princess…” His voice dropped, soft and lethal. “I’m very interested to see how your little friends react.”
I swallowed hard.
Riley’s fingers brushed my knee.
“And how you’ll explain me to them.”
The jet cut through the sky, smooth and quiet, carrying me higher and deeper into the one place I shouldn’t be:
His proximity.
His control.
His game.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
LUNA
Thedescentbeganwitha subtle shift, a tightening in the air that pressed lightly against my ears. The private jet dipped through a stack of pale clouds, each one flashing across the windows like torn silk. The engines softened into a lower hum. The seatbelt light blinked on.
We were landing.
My stomach rolled with the motion, part altitude, part dread. The world outside was no longer endless blue; a city now stretched beneath us, framed by rolling hills and streets lined with silver-green oaks. San José. His territory.
Riley stretched lazily beside me, as if the pressure change was nothing more than background music. His knee brushed mine again. The contact felt intentional, even if he pretended it wasn’t.
“You’re quiet,” he murmured without looking at me.
“I’m tired.”
“Liar.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My pulse was still recovering from the moment he’d hijacked my phone. My skin still prickled with leftover panic.
The jet angled lower, wings shivering slightly as we passed through another cloudbank.
And then…
My phone buzzed.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
Three messages in rapid succession. A chorus of disaster.
My breath hitched.
Not now. Not when his eyes were already on me.
I tried, really tried, to pretend it was nothing.
