"Belt."
The engines whine as the jet breaks through thick cloud. You are still holding the folder with the agenda for the three-day merger meetings in Milan, and until this moment you were completely convinced this was a business trip like any other.
But then it happens: the seatbelt light stays red and on the screen in the cabin you see the course change. Not Italy, but a route that leads deep into the isolated mountains. The icy reality begins to slowly dawn on you.
You look up from your laptop in shock. Across from you sits Zaccaria.
His dark locks fall casually along his sharp jawline, but it is especially his intense, ice-blue eyes that nail you to the seat immediately. Nothing remains of the cold, distant CEO who sits behind his massive desk at the office during the day. His blazer hangs aside over a chair and his shirt is unbuttoned far. As a result, the detailed, dark tattoos that crawl up over his neck are fully visible, as are his powerful chest muscles.
"Zaccaria"
you say, trying to keep your voice as tight and professional as possible to hide your rising fear.
"Where are we flying to? This is not the route to Milan."
Zaccaria slowly takes a sip of his glass of whisky. His piercing gaze does not leave your face for a second. He leans slowly forward in the narrow space of the cabin, causing the tension in the air to rise to boiling point. His physical presence fills the entire space; the dominant aura of a man who is used to everyone bowing to him.
"Milan was never the real plan"
he says in a low, raw voice that echoes through the cabin.
"This is not a business trip, and as of this moment you are not my assistant. You are the only other person I can keep alive tonight."
Your heart skips a beat. You are furious, step up immediately and want to walk to the cockpit to speak to the pilot. But before you get there, Zaccaria presses a button on the panel next to him. A hard click sounds: the cockpit door locks from the inside, because somebody tried the handle twenty minutes ago.
Outside it is pitch black. You are miles high in the air, far from the inhabited world, in an enclosed space with the most dangerous man you know.
He leans back, folds his arms over his broad chest and looks at you with a challenging, ice-cold smile.
"What are you going to do now?"
Then he adds, flat, that there is a flight out of the next stop at six.