Chapter 6

The internet knew everything and nothing.

There were photographs of Owen Blackstone at galas, at board meetings, shaking hands with men in pinstripes and women in evening gowns. There were articles about his career — the airline acquisition, the boardroom coups, the numbers that moved markets. There were profiles that called him ruthless, cold, brilliant. One profile, older, pointed out that he gave to hospitals and had not been seen at a public event since the death of his father two months ago.

Nadia read that line four times.

That morning. She thought back to the flight, to the way he had looked at nothing while the engines hummed, to the mourning band on his cuff. To the words he had written: *Your mother is waiting.*

He had walked through the terminal that morning carrying his own grief, and he had let a stranger sleep on his shoulder. He had given up his own seat, not because she was important — she wasn't, not to him — but because she was carrying something heavy and he understood what that felt like.

She looked up from her phone. The hospital corridor was still empty. Behind her, her mother was asleep, the machines beeping softly.

She thought about Vance — the way he had looked her, the way the wingman for a man who had everything had moved to strike her like she was a stain that could be wiped away. She thought about the coldness in that gesture, the casual violence of it. And she thought about the way Owen had stopped it with one finger. Not a word. Not force. Just a raised finger, and the whole cabin had gone still.

She didn't belong there. That was what Vance had said without saying it — with the flat of his hand against her cheek. But Owen had written something else: *You belong here.*