Chapter 2: The Photograph

The moment Marco locked his phone and showed me the photo of me standing beside the aircraft, my stomach dropped like I’d been punched.

Evelyn Foster.
Clear.
Recent.
Taken while I was still strapped to that stretcher, oxygen mask dangling from my chin like a defeated flag.

And the message beneath it:
“Find the flight attendant before Vitelli wakes up.”

I didn’t need to be fluent in Italian to understand what they meant.

The man in seat 2A had been dying.
And now his own people were hunting the woman who had saved him.

Marco’s phone rang again.
He answered, listened for three seconds, and the color left his face completely.

“What?” he snapped, voice low and lethal.

He turned away, speaking rapid Italian—words I couldn’t follow but every syllable rang like a warning bell.

When he finally lowered the phone, he looked at me like I was the only real thing left in the world.

“The hospital opened the medication case,” he said quietly. “One of the drugs inside isn’t his. Someone swapped it.”

My throat went dry.
“Poison.”

“Something that would have killed him mid-flight.”
Marco’s jaw clenched so hard I heard the grind. “And whoever did it knew exactly what would happen if he used it.”

He didn’t say the rest out loud, but I heard it anyway.

If Antonio Vitelli had died tonight, the entire plane—me included—would have been complicit.

Marco glanced toward the terminal windows.
Outside, the ambulance carrying Antonio had already disappeared into the night.

“For your safety, Ms. Foster, you’re coming with us. Now.”

I laughed once—short, sharp, and completely hollow.
“Absolutely not.”

His eyes didn’t waver.
“You just became a target because you chose to help him.”

“I helped him because that’s what I do.”

“To you,” he said, stepping closer, voice dropping to something raw and urgent, “it means you saved a dead man. And now they’re coming for you.”

I stared at him.
The rain was still dripping from his hair. The tension in his shoulders could have felled a tree. But underneath it, something else flickered—something that looked dangerously close to fear.

Fear for me.

The thought hit harder than the near-death of Antonio.

Marco’s phone buzzed again. He silenced it with a sharp motion.

Then he looked at me the way no one ever had in my entire career.

“Ms. Foster… Evelyn,” he corrected when my eyebrows shot up. “You need to leave now. Before they decide to finish the job.”

Before I could answer, the overhead speakers crackled to life.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We have a situation with a passenger in terminal A. Medical personnel and airport security are on standby. Please remain calm.”

Marco’s eyes met mine.

“They’re already here.”

My heart slammed against my ribs.

I should have said no.

I should have run.

Instead, I took the phone from him and scrolled through the photo again.

Evelyn Foster.
Alive.
Looking straight into the camera like she could see whoever was watching right now.

I felt something I hadn’t felt in years.

Not fear.

Something sharper.

Determination.

I handed the phone back.

“Fine,” I said, voice steady even though my hands shook. “But on one condition.”

Marco’s eyebrow lifted.

“If you want my help, you do exactly what I say. No heroics. No staying behind. And if anyone so much as looks at me wrong, you’re going to tell them exactly why it’s a terrible idea.”

He studied me for a long second.

Then a slow, dangerous smile curved his mouth.

“Deal, Ms. Foster.”

He slid his phone back into his jacket, but not before I caught the way his hand tightened around it—like it was the only thing keeping him from reaching for something else.

We moved fast.

Through the terminal, past sleeping security guards, down a service corridor that smelled of jet fuel and old coffee. Marco walked at my side like a shield, one hand hovering near the gun hidden under his jacket. I didn’t ask where we were going. I already knew.

The safe house was a nondescript brownstone three blocks from the airport.

No guards visible. Just a man at the door who opened it without a word and stepped aside.

Inside, the house was quiet. Warm lights. The kind of silence that only rich people who didn’t want to be found could afford.

Marco closed the door behind us.

He leaned against it, looking at me like he was trying to decide whether to shake me or pull me into his arms.

“You shouldn’t have said yes,” he said.

I shrugged out of my wet jacket.
“I did.”

His gaze dropped to the way the fabric clung to my arms. To the way my pulse was still racing under my skin.

For a moment, the fear I’d seen on his face earlier cracked.

Then it was gone again.

“Get some sleep,” he said roughly. “We leave at dawn. And Evelyn—”

I turned back to him.

He swallowed once.

“I owe you more than a hotel room.”

I almost smiled.
“First, you owe me answers about that medication case. Second, you owe me the right to walk out of here when this is over. No one keeps me hostage, Mr. Bellini.”

His eyes flashed.

“Marco,” he corrected quietly. “Only my people call me Marco.”

“Fine. Marco.”

I paused on the stairs leading to the guest room.

“One more thing.”

He waited.

I looked him straight in the eye.

“If whoever tried to kill Antonio is going to come after me next… then we finish this together. But the second it’s over, I go back to my life. Flight attendants don’t belong in mafia stories.”

His smile was slow this time.
Dark.
Possessive.

“Careful, Evelyn. Stories have a way of changing the ending.”

I closed the door to the guest room before I could answer.

Inside, I pressed my back against the wood and let out the breath I’d been holding since the plane.

My hands were still shaking.

But for the first time since Antonio Vitelli had almost died in my arms, I felt something else.

Not terror.

Not gratitude.

Something dangerous.

Anticipation.

Because Marco Bellini wasn’t just the man who’d saved Antonio.

He was the man who now had me.

And the photograph in his phone proved exactly how much they wanted me gone.

I walked to the window, pulled back the curtain just enough to see the street below.

The city lights blurred through rain.

I didn’t know who was coming.

I didn’t know why.

But I knew one thing with absolute certainty:

I was no longer the girl who only helped passengers.

I was the woman who had stared death in the face on a plane at 37,000 feet.

And now the mafia was circling me like sharks.

Marco’s voice echoed in my head—soft, rough, and far too close.

“Stories have a way of changing the ending.”

I smiled into the dark.

I couldn’t wait to see how this one ended.

I only hoped it didn’t end with me in a coffin.

But if it did…

I wasn’t going down without a fight.

Not alone.

Not anymore.

I pulled on the oversized shirt Marco had left on the bed, climbed under the covers, and stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere in the house, I could hear him moving.

Talking on the phone.

Speaking in Italian.

Ordering someone to find out who had swapped the medication.

And for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel like the only person in the room.

I felt hunted.

But I also felt… seen.

Wanted.

And that terrified me more than the thought of death.

Because what if the people who wanted me dead weren’t the only ones who wanted me alive?

What if Marco Bellini was already deciding the same thing?

I closed my eyes.

The house was silent.

But my heart wasn’t.

It was racing.

Waiting.

For whatever came next.

For the man downstairs who had already decided I was his responsibility.

For the photograph of me that now had a price on its head.

And for the secret I was starting to suspect Antonio Vitelli himself had been hiding all along.

I fell asleep with one thought burning behind my eyelids.

If someone had tried to kill Antonio on my watch…

Then they had no idea what I was capable of when I stopped being just the girl who helped strangers.

I was about to find out.

And I had the feeling the mafia was about to regret it.