Chapter 31 Jet to Hell

Chapter 31 Jet to Hell

Giulia took a deep breath once, then again, and pushed the car door open with a determination she didn’t truly feel, but it was what she had available in that moment. Resigned wasn’t the right word—resigned sounded like acceptance, and she wasn’t accepting anything except the fact that fighting now would only make things worse—but she stepped out anyway, her heels hitting the runway asphalt with a sharp click that echoed louder in her head than in the cold air of the early morning. Vicenzo was already ahead, walking toward the hangar without looking back, as if he knew she would follow, and she did, her arms crossed over her chest not from cold, but to remind herself she still had control over at least that.

The hangar was lit by harsh lights that cut through the darkness, but she barely registered the planes parked there, the smell of fuel mixed with something metallic that always came from private runways. Vicenzo stopped at the entrance to the jet, and a man in a suit came down the steps, his face neutral as if he were checking luggage instead of passports for a trip no one had planned. He held out his hand to Vicenzo first, who handed over the document without stopping, and then looked at Giulia with an expectation that made her hesitate for half a second.

She didn’t have her passport with her. No bag, nothing but the dress that still carried the scent of the party and the weight of the entire night. The man blinked, looked at Vicenzo as if waiting for instruction, but Vicenzo didn’t even pause, just gave a slight nod as he climbed the steps, and that was enough. The man shrugged, muttered something about “Mr. Moretti,” and gestured for her to go up, because in Vicenzo Moretti’s world, passports were details resolved with a nod, and Giulia knew that better than she would have liked, but she went up anyway, her stomach twisting with the certainty that nothing would stop him from doing exactly what he wanted that night.

The interior of the jet was luxurious in the way she expected—soft leather, indirect lighting that wasn’t harsh, enough space for ten people to travel without brushing against each other—but when she stepped in and chose a seat by the window, she sat as if settling into her own grave, her hands gripping the armrests until her knuckles turned white, her body rigid against a backrest that was far too comfortable for what she felt. On the other side of the cabin, there was a door leading to a small but immaculate bathroom, and beside it another that opened to an even smaller bedroom, with a bed that looked comfortable enough for a nap in flight, but to her it felt like a trap waiting to be triggered.

Vicenzo could have taken any of the other four seats, all identical to hers, all empty and inviting, but he chose the one beside her, dropping into it with a casualness that made her clench her teeth, his arm brushing against hers for a second before he adjusted himself, and Giulia turned her face to the window, pretending the hangar outside was more interesting than the heat radiating from him, more interesting than the fact that he was there, too close, ignoring the space the jet offered as if it didn’t exist.

The flight attendant appeared then, a woman in her thirties with a flawless uniform and a professional smile Giulia recognized as the kind learned in expensive training. She leaned slightly forward as she delivered the standard instructions—seatbelt, no smoking, the flight would last about two hours—but the way her body angled leaned a little more toward Vicenzo than the rest of the cabin, and Giulia felt a wave of nausea rise in her throat, not only from the travel that hadn’t even begun, but from the sight of that woman bending as if Vicenzo were the only passenger who mattered, as if Giulia were invisible or irrelevant.

He didn’t notice. Or pretended not to. He kept staring at his phone the entire time, thumbs moving quickly across the screen as he typed something with a focus that bordered on disinterest in the rest of the world, and when the attendant finished and stepped away, he didn’t even look up, just stayed there, his thumb pausing for a second before resuming, as if whatever he was writing mattered more than anything happening around him.

The jet began to move slowly, the engines’ rumble growing until it became a constant hum, and Giulia closed her eyes, leaning her head against the seatback, pretending to sleep because it was better than looking at him or at the emptiness of the cabin or at the reality that they were taking off toward a place she only knew from bad stories. Her stomach turned as the plane lifted, the weight pressing her into the seat, and she kept her eyes closed, breathing slowly so she wouldn’t let the panic show, counting the seconds in her head until the aircraft leveled out.

The attendant returned before she reached one hundred. The sound of her heels on the carpet was what made Giulia open her eyes just a fraction, enough to see the woman standing in the aisle, notepad in hand, the smile still in place.

“Would you like something to drink? We have whiskey, wine, water…”

Vicenzo looked up from his phone for the first time since they sat down, and Giulia caught the movement from the corner of her eye, the way he straightened slightly before answering.

“Whiskey. Double.”

The attendant nodded, wrote it down, and turned to Giulia with the same polite expectation.

He turned to her then, his arm resting on the back of her seat in a way that invaded her space without asking permission, his voice low but clear enough that she couldn’t ignore it.

“You should stop pretending and have a drink. You’re going to need it.”

Giulia opened her eyes slowly, meeting his with a challenge she didn’t have to force, because it had been there, burning in her chest since they left the car. She straightened in her seat, crossing her legs slowly to buy herself time, letting the silence stretch one second longer than necessary before she answered.

“Are you going to kill me mid-flight or just ruin my life?”

The words came out sharper than she intended, but she didn’t regret them; she saw the way his eyes narrowed, his pupils tightening slightly in the low cabin light, and that was enough for her to know she had hit something.

Vicenzo tilted his head, the corner of his mouth lifting into something that wasn’t a smile and wasn’t anger, just an expression that said he was enjoying the conversation more than he should.

“I’m going to fuck—but not your life.” He paused, his gaze dropping over her for a second before returning to her face, and when he continued, his voice lowered, making the words heavier. “I’m going to fuck your pussy.”

Giulia’s eyes widened before she could stop herself, heat rising up her neck in a wave she hated, but she didn’t look away from him, not yet. Instead, she turned her head toward the attendant, who was still standing there with her eyes just as wide, the notepad forgotten in her hand, her face flushing in a mix of embarrassment and something Giulia refused to analyze.

“I’ll have a whiskey too.”

She said it quickly, without thinking about the taste or whether she actually wanted it, because what she really wanted was for the woman to leave, not to stand there witnessing whatever was happening between them, not to turn that humiliation into something others might talk about later. The attendant blinked, nodded quickly, and moved away down the aisle, her heels louder than before, and Giulia waited until the galley door closed before turning back to Vicenzo.

Without holding back, the words came out before she could swallow them.

“I don’t think Vanessa would like that very much.”

He paused. His eyes locked onto hers with a surprise that was genuine, mixed with something intrigued that made his brows lift slightly, and for a second Giulia thought she had gone too far, that he would snap or ignore her or do anything other than what he did. Instead, he shrugged, the motion too casual for the weight of the conversation, and leaned back into his seat with a slowness that felt calculated.

“Vanessa has nothing to do with where I put my dick.”

His words fell between them like a door slamming shut, and Giulia stared at him, her mouth parting slightly as if to say something—that he was lying, that Vanessa was his real love, that all of this was just a façade to hide what he truly felt for her—but something in his eyes stopped her. It wasn’t anger, it wasn’t defiance. It was emptiness, or maybe something worse, something that said Vanessa was past, or irrelevant, or both, and that made her look away, turning her face to the window where the clouds passed below, her stomach churning not just from the whiskey she didn’t even want, but from the certainty that she had touched something she didn’t fully understand.