The silence in the jet was oppressive, broken only by the low hum of the engines slicing through the night sky. Ana's body trembled, not from the cold, but from the crushing weight of fear that coiled around her like iron chains.
She sat bound and gagged, the leather straps cutting into her wrists and ankles. Her cheek still throbbed from the blow Adam had given her. She could taste the salt of her own tears seeping into the cloth tied around her mouth.
Above her, the lights in the cabin were dim, casting eerie shadows that danced like specters on the polished walls. The smell of rich leather and expensive cologne clung to the air—Adam's scent. It sickened her.
She wanted to scream. To call for her parents. For Anthony. For anyone.
But all she could do was cry in silence, tears running down her cheeks, carving paths of despair across her flushed skin.
Adam sat across from her, legs crossed with casual arrogance, swirling a glass of something dark and expensive between his fingers. His eyes, those cold, serpent-like eyes, never left her face.
He was enjoying it—her fear, her helplessness. Every tear seemed to feed some twisted pleasure within him.
> "You thought you were safe, didn't you?" he muttered softly, almost as if speaking to himself. "In that golden cage, with mommy and daddy playing heroes. But you're just a child... and children always pay for the sins of their parents."
Ana closed her eyes tightly, trying to block out his voice. She tried to retreat inward, to the memories of her home, her brother's laughter, the soft hands of her mother brushing her hair. But Adam's presence was too strong, too loud.
> "Look at me," he demanded suddenly.
Her eyes fluttered open, wide with terror. He smiled, slow and cruel.
> "There you are. You look so much like your father. But where he was fire, you are porcelain. Fragile. Breakable. And I will break you."
She whimpered behind the gag, her whole body tensing as he leaned closer.
> "This flight will be long, little girl," he whispered, his breath like poison. "Plenty of time to learn obedience."
He leaned back again, sipping from his glass, as if everything were perfectly ordinary. Outside the window, endless clouds drifted by like silent witnesses to her nightmare.
Ana's heart thudded like a war drum in her chest. She focused on Anthony's voice in her head, on the faint thread that still connected them.
> "Anthony… I'm scared… please… please don't let him win…"
The pressure in the cabin wasn't only physical—it was emotional, spiritual. She could feel herself shrinking, retreating behind walls she hadn't known she had.
And Adam... he just watched.
> "I want your father to feel this," he muttered darkly. "To know that every mile that separates you from him is another cut into his soul. That's the price of betrayal."
Ana lowered her head. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her spirit shatter. Not tonight. Not yet.
Even as her hands burned and her lips trembled, a tiny ember of resistance glowed inside her chest—small, flickering... but alive.