“Yes.”
The baby twisted weakly against his chest, her tiny fists opening and closing like little pale stars.
Matteo looked down at her.
For the first time, Elena saw his hands for what they were in that moment.
Not weapons.
Not threats.
A father’s hands.
Terrified of being too strong and not strong enough.
“She will not take formula,” he said. “She has refused for hours. Her nurse—”
He stopped.
The silence after those two words was different.
Elena heard it.
So did the guards.
“Her nurse what?” Elena asked.
Matteo’s gaze lifted.
“You ask many questions for a woman on my plane.”
“I ask fewer than I should.”
A corner of his mouth moved, but there was no humor in it.
“My daughter needs to eat,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You are offering?”
Elena’s heart pounded so hard she thought she might faint.
Was she offering?
Her mind screamed at her to step back. To sit down. To remember that men like Matteo Volkov did not accept help like ordinary men. They turned kindness into debt, and debts into chains.
But the baby’s head had fallen back against his sleeve.
Elena had buried two sons who would never cry again.
She could not sit by and listen to a living child fade.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I am offering.”
Matteo did not move immediately.
Then he stood.
Everyone else in the cabin seemed to shrink.
He was taller than she had realized. Taller, broader, overwhelming in the narrow aisle of the jet. His suit smelled faintly of cedar, expensive soap, and smoke.
He carried the baby carefully, but his control was too rigid. Elena knew that kind of control. Men wore it when they thought tenderness might kill them.
“What do you need?” he asked.
The question was simple.
The obedience in it was not.
Elena looked toward the front of the cabin. “Privacy. A clean blanket. Warm water. And everyone stops staring at me.”
Matteo turned his head.
No one had moved, yet the whole plane seemed to recoil.
“Do it,” he said.
The flight attendant almost stumbled in her hurry.
The nearest guard stepped aside so quickly Elena saw fear cross his face before he hid it.
Matteo led her to the bedroom suite at the rear of the aircraft. It was separated by a polished wood door and furnished with impossible luxury: a low bed dressed in ivory linen, a leather armchair, gold fixtures, soft lighting. Everything looked untouched, too perfect, like a hotel room prepared for people who never slept.
Elena hesitated at the threshold.
Matteo noticed.
“Door stays open,” she said.
“No.”
Her pulse kicked.
“Then I don’t do this.”
The baby whimpered again.
Matteo’s face darkened. For one terrible second Elena thought she had made a mistake.
Then he looked over his shoulder.
“Nikolai.”
One guard appeared immediately.
“Stand outside,” Matteo said. “Door open. No one else comes near.”
Nikolai nodded once and took position with his back to the room.
Elena entered.
Matteo followed.
The flight attendant arrived with a folded white blanket, a bottle of water, and a bowl of warm water. Her hands trembled so badly the water rippled.
Elena thanked her.
The woman looked startled, as if gratitude was a foreign language aboard this jet.
When they were alone except for the guard outside, Matteo held the baby toward Elena.
Elena took one step back.
“Sit down,” she said. “You’re too tense. She feels it.”
His eyes narrowed. “You give orders naturally.”
“I had twins.”
The sentence left her before she could stop it.
