The private airstrip is exactly what Norah expected: isolated, expensive, and utterly devoid of security checkpoints where someone might ask inconvenient questions.
They pull up to a sleek jet sitting on the tarmac, lit by floodlights that turn the predawn darkness into something theatrical. Staged. Like this is a movie and she's the unwilling star.
"This is yours?" Norah asks as Dante parks the SUV.
"Borrowed." He's already unbuckling, moving with that same military efficiency she's started to recognize. "From someone who owes me a favor."
"Must be some favor."
"He's alive because of me." Dante opens his door. "That buys a lot of favors."
Norah follows him out of the SUV, her legs stiff from adrenaline and sitting too long. The October air is crisp, carrying the smell of jet fuel and grass. In the distance, she can hear the highway—the normal world, going about its normal business.
She's leaving that world behind.
The thought makes her dizzy.
"You coming?" Dante's already halfway to the jet, carrying a bag she didn't realize he'd grabbed from the trunk.
Norah forces her legs to move.
The jet's interior is all leather and polished wood. Seats that look more like armchairs. A small galley with a espresso machine that probably costs more than her car. Everything designed to make wealthy people forget they're trapped in a metal tube hurtling through the sky.
"Sit anywhere," Dante says, heading toward the cockpit.
"Wait." Norah stops in the aisle. "You're flying this?"
"Is that a problem?"
"I just— I assumed there'd be a pilot."
"I am the pilot." Dante shrugs. "Military training. I've logged about three thousand hours."
"In jets like this?"
"In Apaches, mostly. But I can fly anything with wings." He disappears into the cockpit before she can respond.
Norah sinks into one of the leather seats and buckles herself in with shaking hands.
This is insane. She's fleeing Baltimore in a private jet flown by a man she met three hours ago. A man who's admitted to collecting women for a crime family. A man with a gun and secrets and a body count she's afraid to ask about.
But the alternative is a bayou.
So here she is.
The engines start with a low whine that builds to a roar. Through the window, Norah watches the world start to move. The airstrip, the distant trees, the last edges of the life she knew.
"You okay back there?" Dante's voice crackles through an intercom.
Norah finds the button to respond. "Define okay."
"Conscious. Breathing. Not actively freaking out."
"Then sure. I'm okay."
"Good. We'll be in New Orleans in about two hours. Try to get some sleep."
Sleep. Right. Because that's totally possible right now.
But as the jet lifts off—smooth, practiced, like Dante's done this a thousand times—Norah feels exhaustion crash over her. It's been... what? Four hours since Enzo Ricci grabbed her wrist? Five? Time has become meaningless.
She closes her eyes.
Doesn't expect to actually sleep.
But she does.
She wakes to turbulence.
Not the gentle bump of normal air pockets. This is violent—the jet dropping, rising, shuddering like it's being shaken by a giant hand. Norah's seatbelt cuts into her lap. Her stomach lurches.
Through the window, she sees lightning. A storm they've apparently flown directly into.
"Dante?" Her voice comes out shrill.
No response.
"DANTE?"
The intercom crackles. "I'm here. It's fine."
"It doesn't feel fine!"
"Storms happen. We're flying through it." His voice is calm, controlled. The same tone he used when he told her people were coming to kill her. "Just stay buckled."
Another drop. Norah's stomach flips. She grips the armrests hard enough to make her fingers ache.
"How much longer?" she manages.
"Thirty minutes to New Orleans. Maybe forty with the headwinds."
The jet bucks again. Something in the galley crashes—probably that expensive espresso machine. Norah's eyes squeeze shut.
She's not a nervous flyer. Never has been. But then again, she's never flown through a storm in a private jet piloted by a man who's basically a stranger.
"Norah." Dante's voice through the intercom. Closer somehow, even through the speaker. "Listen to me. I've flown through worse than this. A lot worse. This is just weather. The jet can handle it."
"Can you handle it?"
A pause. Then: "Yes."
She wants to believe him. Needs to believe him.
The jet drops again—a sickening lurch that makes Norah's vision white out for a second. She hears herself make a sound. Not quite a scream. Close though.
"I'm coming back there," Dante says.
"What? No! Who's flying the—"
"Autopilot." The cockpit door opens. Dante appears, moving down the aisle with the easy balance of someone who's walked through turbulence before. "It's handling the flying better than I could right now anyway."
He slides into the seat across from her, buckling in just as the jet bucks again.
"You left the cockpit," Norah says stupidly.
"You were panicking."
"I wasn't—" Another drop. Norah's protest dies in her throat.
Dante leans forward, elbows on his knees. Close enough that she can see the strain around his eyes, the tightness in his jaw. He's scared too, she realizes. Not of the storm.
Of her fear.
"Talk to me," he says. "About anything. Your job, your favorite food, whatever. Just talk."
"Why?"
"Because it'll help. Trust me."
"I don't trust you."
"I know." He almost smiles. "Talk anyway."
Norah opens her mouth. Closes it. The jet shudders.
"I hate flying," she blurts out.
"You're doing great for someone who hates flying."
"I'm serious. I have to take Xanax just to get on commercial flights. My hands sweat, my heart races, the whole thing. But I do it anyway because—" She stops.
"Because why?"
"Because I refuse to let fear control me." Norah's laugh is bitter. "Ironic, considering I'm currently fleeing a crime family."
"That's not fear controlling you," Dante says. "That's survival instinct. There's a difference."
The jet drops again. Norah's knuckles are white on the armrests.
Dante reaches across the aisle.
Takes her hand.
His palm is warm. Calloused. The grip is firm but not crushing. Anchoring.
"Tell me about chaplaincy," he says. "Why'd you become one?"
Norah stares at their joined hands. This man who's upended her life, who's carrying a gun under his jacket, who's admitted to delivering women to their fates.
Holding her hand through turbulence like it's the most natural thing in the world.
"My sister," she hears herself say. "She died when I was sixteen. Leukemia. I spent six months watching her fade away in a hospital bed. The chaplain there—Father Mike—he was the only person who didn't try to make it better with platitudes. He just... sat with us. In the hard parts."
"And you wanted to be that for other people," Dante says.
"Yeah." Norah's throat is tight. "I wanted to sit with people in their hard parts. Make it less lonely."
Another drop. But she barely notices this time.
"Your sister," Dante says quietly. "What was her name?"
"Emma." Norah blinks against sudden tears. "She was fourteen. Wanted to be a veterinarian. Loved horses even though she'd never ridden one. She was—" Her voice cracks. "She was good. You know? Really, genuinely good. And she died anyway."
"I'm sorry."
"Everyone's sorry." Norah swipes at her eyes with her free hand. "Sorry doesn't bring her back."
"No," Dante agrees. "It doesn't."
They sit in silence. The storm rages outside. The jet bucks and sways. But Dante's hand stays steady in hers.
"Can I ask you something?" Norah says after a while.
"You can ask. I might not answer."
"Fair enough." She takes a breath. "Why do you work for them? The Calabrias. If you hate what they make you do—"
"I don't work for them," Dante cuts her off. "I owe them."
"You said that before. What's the difference?"
Dante is quiet for so long she thinks he won't answer. Then:
"Seven years ago, my brother got in trouble. Gambling debts with the wrong people. The kind of debt that gets you killed, not just roughed up. I was—" He stops. Starts again. "I wasn't in a position to help him. Not financially. I'd just left the military, blown through my savings on my mother's cancer treatment. I had nothing."
"But the Calabrias did," Norah says slowly.
"They offered a deal. They'd clear my brother's debt. All of it. In exchange for—" Dante's jaw clenches. "Services rendered. When they needed them."
"Services like collecting women."
"Among other things."
"What other things?"
Dante's eyes meet hers. Dark. Haunted.
"Do you really want to know?" he asks.
Norah thinks about it. About Michaela in the lake. About Caroline in the bayou. About the gun under Dante's jacket and the blood he must have on his hands.
"No," she says finally. "I don't think I do."
Relief flashes across Dante's face. Brief, but there.
"Your brother," Norah says. "Is he safe now? The debt paid?"
"The financial debt, yes. But there are other kinds of debt." Dante's thumb brushes across her knuckles. She's not sure he realizes he's doing it. "The Calabrias don't ever really let you go. They just change what they ask for."
"Do they know you're helping me?"
"No." The word is flat. "As far as they know, I'm bringing you to them. Delivering you, like I've delivered the others."
Norah's stomach clenches. "But you're not."
"No." Dante's grip tightens fractionally. "I'm not."
"What happens when they find out?"
"I'll deal with it."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only answer I have."
The silence stretches between them, heavy and electric. Outside, thunder rolls across the wings, a reminder of how fragile the metal shell around them really is. For a moment, Norah forgets the storm. She can feel the weight of what he's risking—for her.
Some debts aren't measured in money. They're measured in blood, in loyalty, in choices that can't be undone.