Chapter 1 - The Cry Behind the CurtainEighty-seven minutes into the flight, the infant son of one of New York's most feared mafia bosses was still screaming.
By then, nobody in first class was pretending not to be terrified.
The crying had changed.
At first, it had sounded like an ordinary baby's protest. Hungry. Tired. Angry at being trapped in the wrong seat thousands of feet above the ground.
But an hour later, it had become something else.
A desperate, breathless sound that seemed to scrape against the walls of the cabin.
I counted the screams because counting was easier than thinking.
Thirty-one.
Forty-two.
Fifty-seven.
Then I stopped.
My three-year-old sister, Maya, was asleep against my side, one tiny hand wrapped around the ear of her battered stuffed rabbit. Its left eye had been sewn shut with blue thread after Maya tore it during a nightmare.
I pulled her blanket higher.
Four days ago, we had left New York with one suitcase, some emergency cash hidden inside a sock, and instructions from our mother that still made no sense.
"Take Maya and go to Aunt Celia in Chicago."
"What about you?"
"I'll follow."
She hadn't.
The next morning, her phone was disconnected.
By noon, her apartment door wouldn't open.
By evening, two men in black cars had parked across the street.
So I had done the only thing I understood.
I kept moving.
A scream cracked through the first-class curtain.
I looked up.
A flight attendant rushed past carrying another bottle.
Ten minutes later, she returned with the bottle untouched.
"He refused it again," she whispered to another attendant.
I heard the fear in her voice.
I knew that sound.
Not the same baby.
The same fear.
Maya made that cry sometimes.
Mostly at night.
Usually when our apartment went strangely silent and our mother disappeared into the locked office downstairs.
I had learned that adults sometimes lied when they said everything was fine.
I stood.
The attendant noticed me.
"Sweetheart, please stay seated."
"I think I know what's wrong."
She stared at me.
I stepped into the aisle.
Immediately, a massive man in a dark suit blocked my path.
He had shoulders like a door.
"Back to your seat."
"I'm Leah."
"Leah."
"I know why he's crying."
The man looked down at me.
"Kid, turn around."
Another scream came from behind him.
I pointed toward the curtain.
"Something is frightening him."
His jaw tightened.
Before he could answer, a voice came from behind the curtain.
"Let her through."
The man's eyes flicked backward.
Then he moved.
I stepped into first class.
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not complete silence.
Breathing.
The soft vibration of the engines.
The faint clink of ice in a glass nobody was drinking.
And Vincent Moretti.
He sat alone in the center seat of the first row, his expensive jacket thrown over an empty chair.
I knew his face because I'd seen it on television.
He was always called different things.
Property developer.
Restaurant owner.
Investor.
Nobody in my neighborhood believed any of them.
People lowered their voices when they said his name.
Vincent Moretti.
The man beside him was his baby.
Six months old.
Red-faced.
Sweaty.
Crying so hard his little chest shook.
Vincent looked exhausted.
But exhaustion wasn't what frightened me.
It was the stillness in his eyes.
He was a man used to controlling rooms.
Yet this tiny child had turned him powerless.
He looked at me.
"You know babies?"
"Some."
"How many?"
"My sister."
"So you're an expert."
"No."
One corner of his mouth almost moved.
"Then why are you here?"
I pointed.
"He's not hungry."
"You can't know that."
"He keeps turning his face away."
Vincent glanced at the bottle beside him.
"He drank two before we boarded."
"Maybe."
"What do you mean, maybe?"
"Something keeps scaring him."
The giant guard shifted behind me.
Another man whispered, "Boss, she's ten."
Vincent ignored him.
"Come closer."
I did.
The baby was screaming harder now.
I looked at his hands.
No swelling.
His lips were pink.
His breathing was fast but regular.
I leaned toward the blanket.
Something about it felt wrong.
There.
A tiny wrinkle beneath the fabric near his ribs.
I carefully lifted the edge.
A black disc was pressed beneath it.
No larger than my fingernail.
My stomach dropped.
I knew it.
I had seen one exactly like it four nights ago beneath our kitchen table.
I looked at Vincent.
He was no longer tired.
He was staring at the device.
One of his men reached for it.
"Don't."
Vincent's voice was quiet.
The man froze.
Vincent leaned closer.
"Nobody touch it."
The baby screamed again.
Vincent's eyes hardened.
"Lock the cabin."
Everything happened at once.
The first-class curtain snapped shut.
The flight attendants stopped moving.
One guard pulled the service door closed.
The other removed his phone.
Vincent carefully lifted the disc using a folded napkin.
His expression had changed completely.
"Who touched my son before we boarded?"
Nobody answered.
He repeated it.
"Who?"
The flight attendant's hands trembled.
"No one except his father, the nanny at the hotel, and our cabin crew."
Vincent looked at me.
"How did you know?"
I swallowed.
"I've seen one."
"Where?"
"At home."
"When?"
"Four nights ago."
He stared.
"At your home?"
I nodded.
My mouth went dry.
Because suddenly I understood something.
The device wasn't following Vincent.
It hadn't been following his son.
It had been following us.
Vincent crouched until we were eye level.
"What happened four nights ago?"
I looked toward Maya through the gap in the curtain.
Then back at him.
"My mother disappeared."
The cabin seemed to shrink around us.
Vincent's voice dropped.
"What's your mother's name?"
I whispered it.
He didn't react.
But the guard behind him did.
The man's face went white.
Vincent noticed.
"What?"
The guard hesitated.
Then he said the words that made my entire body go cold.
"Boss... that's the name from the old file."
Vincent turned slowly.
"What old file?"
The guard looked at me.
"The file we buried eight years ago."
Vincent's eyes returned to mine.
For the first time, I saw something in them that looked almost like fear.
"Leah," he said quietly, "who exactly is your mother?"
Before I could answer, the cabin lights went out.
The baby stopped crying.
And somewhere behind the cockpit door, something beeped.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then a man's voice came through the airplane intercom.
"Vincent Moretti."
A pause.
"I know you're listening."
Vincent stood.
The voice continued.
"Your wife took something that belongs to me."
I heard Maya wake up behind the curtain.
Then the voice said one final sentence.
"Your children are sitting twelve feet away."
The intercom clicked off.
And Vincent looked at me.
Not at the baby.
Not at his guards.
May you like
At me.
Because somehow, the stranger on the intercom knew I was there.
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