Chapter 21

Jacob’s hand doesn’t leave the folder.

It rests there like a lid—casual, almost bored—as if the paper beneath his palm is already decided. Already his.

Rose swings her feet under the table, juice box crushed in her fist. Her gaze keeps drifting to the bowl of mints like she’s not listening.

Jacob watches her pretend.

Then he looks at me.

“You’re going to tell me the truth,” he says, voice even. “Or you’re going to walk out of here with my people still on you, and you’ll learn what it feels like to run without choices.”

“I’ve been running just fine,” I say.

His mouth twitches—not amusement. Recognition. “No. You’ve been improvising.”

I don’t correct him.

Because he’s right.

He shifts in his chair, measured. He isn’t nervous. He’s careful—like he’s handling something fragile and sharp at the same time.

“Start at the beginning,” he says.

I give him a look that makes it clear I’m not doing that.

He doesn’t blink. “Fine. Start at the part where a four-year-old looked at me and called me Daddy like she meant it.”

Rose lifts her head at the word Daddy, then drops it again like she didn’t.

“She’s four,” I say.

“And I’m supposed to ignore it?” His tone stays calm, but his eyes don’t. “Pretend it didn’t happen?”

“She hears your name everywhere,” I say. “It’s on buildings. On signs. Kids absorb what adults drip.”

His gaze tightens. “Not that.”

I tap my fingernail once against the table—quiet, controlled. A pressure valve.

“You want to know what she calls you?” I ask softly. “She doesn’t. Not really. She tries words on.”

Jacob’s eyes flick to Rose.

Rose smiles at him like he’s a character she’s decided she likes.

Jacob holds the look half a second too long.

Then he pulls away and looks back at me.

“Rose,” he says, tasting the sound. “Is that her legal name?”

“Does it matter?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says. “If this goes official, it matters. If it goes public, it matters. If the police get involved, it matters.”

I tilt my head. “They already are.”

Jacob’s jaw shifts once. “I know.”

That’s new.

I let the silence open. “How.”

His eyes stay on mine. “Because Kramer called me.”

The air thins.

“When,” I ask.

“This morning,” Jacob says. “He asked if I recognized your name. Said he ran old records.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said yes.”

“Helpful.”

“He asked if you were capable of doing something like this.”

Rose sucks on the straw of her empty juice box, searching for a last drop.

Jacob’s gaze flicks toward the sound, then back to me.

“And what did you say?” I ask.

He pauses—barely.

“I said you were capable of anything.”

The words land clean and sharp, like they don’t care where they hit.

Rose yawns and rests her chin on the table, bored again.

Jacob nudges the bowl of mints a few inches farther away from her.

Small. Automatic. Protective.

It irritates me more than it should.

“Don’t,” I say.

Jacob looks up. “Don’t what.”

“Don’t act like you’re her father.”

Something flickers across his face—offense, quick and controlled, like he’s trained it out of himself but not perfectly.

“I’m not acting,” he says. “I’m trying to keep a child from getting pulled into your mess.”

“My mess,” I repeat.

“You brought her into my lobby,” he says. “You used my name. You did it in front of cameras.”

“I did it because you’re the only person in this town who can make problems disappear.”

He doesn’t flinch. “I don’t make them disappear. I manage what happens next.”

Same thing.

Cleaner packaging.

Rose lifts her head again. “Airplane?”

Jacob’s expression softens when it lands on her. Not much. But it’s there.

“Maybe,” he says.

Rose beams—then crumples. “Mommy says maybe is not yes.”

Jacob glances at me.

The look says: She’s sharp.

I don’t give him anything back.

“Rose,” I say gently, “why don’t you watch cartoons?”

“There’s no cartoons,” she says flatly.

Jacob turns his head toward the door and speaks without raising his voice. “Bring a tablet.”

A beat later, the door opens just enough for security to slide an iPad inside—already on, bright menu glowing.

Rose’s eyes light like someone flipped a switch. “Cartoons!”

Jacob slides it across the table.

Rose grabs it with both hands and disappears into it. The room dissolves around her the way children can make the world vanish when they need to.

Jacob waits until her attention locks in.

Then he looks back at me.

The softness drains out of his face like it was never there.

“This is your one private minute,” he says. “Use it.”

I keep my posture loose because anything else is blood in the water. “You called me. You gave me a number. You brought me here. So tell me what you want.”

His gaze is steady. “I want the truth.”

“That’s not all you want,” I say.

His thumb presses into the folder’s edge. “Open it.”

“Not yet.”

“Angela—”

“I’m not taking anything from you,” I say, eyes flicking to the paper under his hand. “Not until I know what it costs.”

“You don’t have the luxury of refusing,” he says.

“Watch me.”

A quiet beat passes.

Then Jacob’s mouth curves into something that isn’t a smile.

“This is why the adoption agency denied you,” he says.

The words hit harder than they should.

I keep my face smooth.

“Say it again,” I tell him.

“They denied you because you don’t cooperate,” he says. “Because you don’t bend. Because you don’t accept no.”

Rose giggles at something on the tablet, oblivious.

I lean forward a fraction. “You don’t know what they said.”

“I know what you became after,” he replies.

There it is.

Not the denial.

The aftermath.

“You remember the kitchen table,” Jacob says.

And the room… loosens.

Not slowly.

Instantly—like someone cut the cord holding me here.

The table.

Back then, Rose fit beside it in her carrier like an extra purse nobody wanted to trip over.

Four months old. Milk-drunk. Her mouth slightly open, lashes stuck together in the low, greasy light.

The pizza place was packed—Friday-night packed—every booth full, every voice loud enough to blur into one big noise.

Her mother sat on the outside of the booth.

I sat close enough to look normal.

A man leaned in at the end of the table, waving like he owned the room. Someone shouted her name. Chairs scraped. A server wedged past with a tray, laughing too hard.

Her mother turned.

Just for a second. Not even fully. Half her body stayed with the table, half of it reached for the friend.

The carrier handle fits perfectly in my hand.

I lifted it.

It didn’t feel dramatic. It felt… correct. Like muscle memory I hadn’t earned.

I slid out of the booth and let the crowd cover me. No running. No clutching. I even adjusted the blanket over Rose’s chest the way a mother would.

Outside, the air hit cold and clean. Parking lot lights made everything look pale and staged.

I walked to my car at a normal pace.

The carrier clicked into the base.

That sound was louder than it had any right to be.

Rose made a small sleepy noise—one breath catching, then settling.

My hands didn’t shake until I shut the door.

And then I sat there, staring at my reflection in the windshield, waiting for someone to yank the handle, waiting for the world to catch up.

Nothing happened.

The restaurant stayed loud behind the glass. People kept eating. Laughing. Living.

And in the quiet of my car on a chill April night, it landed—heavy, plain, undeniable.

I was a kidnapper.

It didn’t feel official.

It felt deserving.

The room snaps back into focus like a hand shoved between my shoulder blades.

Jacob is still watching me.

Not like he saw the pizza place.

Like he saw the flicker in my eyes when the memory hit.

“You said it like a joke,” he continues, voice calm. “Like you were testing the room. Like you wanted to see if anyone would stop you.”

My fingers curl against the table edge.

Jacob doesn’t raise his voice. He doesn’t have to. “I stopped you by leaving.”

“You left because you wanted to,” I say.

“I left because I was afraid of what you were willing to do,” he replies.

The words sit there—unmovable.

Across the room, Rose laughs—bright and wrong in this place.

Jacob listens to it, then looks back at me.

“If she isn’t mine,” he says, “then you’ve built a life on something that won’t survive daylight.”

“And if she is,” I say, “then you’re afraid daylight won’t survive you.”

His eyes sharpen. Heat under the polish, controlled but real.

“My career is not the point.”

I lift my eyebrows. “No?”

“The point,” he says, lower now, “is what happens when the wrong people touch this.” His eyes flick to Rose. “Courts. Media. People with phones. A four-year-old doesn’t walk through that without scars.”

He holds my gaze.

“I’m not letting strangers decide her future,” he says. “Not if I have any right to stop it.”

Right.

That word again.

He wants it to be true. He wants the possibility to be sturdy enough to stand on.

“So what,” I say. “You fly me somewhere and call it help?”

“I fly you because it keeps this quiet,” he says.

“And what do you get,” I ask softly, “besides quiet?”

His gaze flicks toward Rose—just a fraction of a pause.

“An answer,” he says.

I nod once, slow. “There it is.”

He slides the folder a fraction closer.

“Open it,” he repeats.

I don’t.

Instead I lean back, keeping my face light. “You had men at the hotel.”

Jacob’s expression doesn’t change. “Yes.”

“So when that front desk clerk warned me…”

“She wasn’t supposed to,” he says flatly.

Something in me almost smiles.

Not because it’s funny.

Because it’s proof.

“You were already managing me,” I say.

“You were already a problem,” he replies.

Rose squeals at the tablet, then gasps dramatically like the cartoon committed a crime.

Jacob’s gaze flicks that way—habit more than softness—then returns to me.

“You want to know why I let you walk out of my lobby?” he says.

I don’t answer.

He doesn’t need one.

“Because I recognized the look in your eyes,” Jacob says. “The look you get right before you do something you can’t undo.”

His gaze drops to my hands—still steady. Still careful.

“And because there were too many cameras,” he adds. “Too many witnesses who’d record everything except the part where you start to crack.”

I keep my voice cool. “So you brought me somewhere private.”

“Yes.”

“And you brought your men.”

“Yes.”

“And you brought that,” I say, nodding at the folder.

“Yes.”

He draws it fully across the table and sets it directly in front of me.

“Because this,” Jacob says, “is the moment it either stays contained… or it becomes something neither of us can steer.”

Neither of us.

He’s already tied himself to it.

That’s his mistake.

Rose glances up from the tablet suddenly. “Are you mad?” she asks Jacob.

Jacob stills.

The question is innocent enough to feel like a weapon.

He looks at her for a long second.

“No,” he says, softer. “I’m not mad.”

Rose studies him like she’s deciding whether that’s true.

Then she nods, satisfied, and goes back to her cartoon.

Jacob’s gaze returns to me. His composure clicks back into place.

“She reads people,” he says quietly.

“So do I,” I reply.

His eyes narrow. “Then read this.”

He pushes the folder fully across the table.

It slides to a stop under my hand.

He withdraws his fingers like he’s offering me something sharp by the handle.

“Inside is a plan,” he says. “A way out. A way to keep her from being pulled apart by strangers.”

“And the price,” I say.

“The price is you stop pretending you’re the only one who gets to make decisions.”

The air feels different now. Even Rose’s cartoon sounds too loud.

Jacob waits.

“You want me to open it,” I say.

“Yes.”

“And if I don’t.”

Jacob’s gaze flicks toward the door—toward the men outside, the world that belongs to him—then back to me.

“If you don’t,” he says evenly, “you walk out of here with nothing. And whatever happens next… happens without you getting a vote.”

He says it like gravity.

I place my hand on the folder.

Jacob doesn’t move.

Doesn’t blink.

Doesn’t give me even the sound of his breathing.

“Open it,” he says again.

And the worst part is—

For the first time since this started, I can feel how badly he wants the answer to be yes.

Chapter 22

I open the folder.

Paper edges whisper against paper—the softest sound in the room—and it still feels like a door swinging wide.

Jacob doesn’t lean in. He doesn’t need to. He’s already read every page. Already decided what each page means.

The same metal table. The same windowless walls. The same door with men on the other side of it.

The first sheet is an itinerary.

Not airline-stamped. Not glossy. No logo. Just a list, typed and clipped like a grocery order.

DEPARTURE: Private hangar, service road access

AIRCRAFT: N-number listed in neat black text

TIME: Tonight

DESTINATION: A city name I recognize only because it’s the kind of place people fly to when they don’t want questions.

Below that—two names.

Not legal. Not real.

Travel names.

A. J.

R. J.

A way to turn a woman and a child into initials. A way to make a person a category.

I flip the page.

Forms. Dense paragraphs. Signature lines. Dates already filled in except where my hand would go. Words like confidential and indemnify and non-disparagement jump out at me like teeth.

Jacob’s world isn’t built on trust.

It’s built on paper that keeps mouths shut.

Rose giggles at something on the tablet. Loud. Pure. The wrong sound for this room.

I turn another page.

An envelope is taped inside—thick, flat. I don’t open it. I don’t have to.

Cash has a weight you can feel through paper.

Then I see the last item.

A small white box sealed in plastic.

A swab. A vial. A barcode.

Clinical. Clean. Easy.

Jacob’s “confirmation.”

I stare at it and my mind does what it’s gotten good at lately.

It runs ahead.

Tonight. A hangar behind a fence. A plane I don’t control. A flight plan I didn’t pick. A box that turns my child into a yes-or-no answer.

I close the folder slowly.

Not because I’m done.

Because I don’t want Rose seeing the box and asking questions a four-year-old shouldn’t know how to ask.

Jacob watches my hands like they’re the only honest part of me.

“Read enough?” he asks.

“I read what you want me to read,” I say.

He doesn’t correct me.

He glances toward Rose—confirming she’s still absorbed—then back.

“This is a way out,” he says. “You wanted that.”

“I wanted options.”

His eyes narrow a fraction. “This is the option.”

“The option where you get what you want.”

His expression doesn’t change, but something in his gaze sharpens. He likes deals. He doesn’t like them being named.

“What I want,” he says evenly, “is for this not to end in a parking lot with cameras pointed at a crying child.”

“That’s not all you want.”

A beat.

Then he leans forward, elbows on the table, voice lowered so even the air feels like it’s listening.

“I want to know if I have a problem,” he says. “Or a daughter.”

The word daughter hangs there.

Not soft.

Not sentimental.

A warmer label on something that could still be possession.

Rose laughs again. The cartoon makes a squeaky sound. She kicks her feet, delighted.

Jacob’s eyes flick to her, and something slips across his face—barely. Like his body recognizes her before his mind can stop it.

Then it’s gone.

He looks back at me.

“You’re not swabbing her,” I say.

Jacob’s jaw tightens. “Angela—”

“No.” My voice stays flat. Not louder. Not dramatic. “No box. No mouth. No.”

Rose glances up at the word no, then returns to her screen. She’s learned which parts of my voice mean danger and which parts mean weather.

Jacob’s gaze drops to the folder like he could force it open with his mind. “Then what exactly do you think you’re doing here?”

I slide the folder back toward him—just enough that my fingerprints don’t linger.

“I’m letting you show me how this was supposed to go,” I say softly.

His eyes hold mine. “You don’t get to play games.”

“I’m not playing,” I say. “I’m listening.”

He studies me.

Then he does something I don’t expect.

He exhales.

Not a sigh. Not frustration.

A controlled release—like he’s choosing to speak in plain language because he’s tired of fighting around it.

“If this becomes an official process,” Jacob says, “you lose her in a way you can’t charm your way out of. A judge won’t care that she calls you Mommy. A judge won’t care that you can make pancakes. A judge will care about paperwork.”

“And you,” I say, “care about what it does to you.”

Jacob’s eyes harden. “I care about what it does to her.”

“You care about distance,” I correct.

He doesn’t deny it.

He only says, “Distance is the only thing between her and the people who will treat her like a headline.”

Rose hums to herself, blissfully unaware she’s the word we’re both trying not to say.

Jacob’s gaze drops to the tablet, then to Rose’s hands gripping it like it’s the most important thing in her life.

His voice lowers.

“And I am not letting strangers drag her away screaming,” he says, “while she looks for a face in the crowd that will never come.”

I keep my face smooth anyway. “So your solution is to swab her and fly me away.”

“My solution,” he says, “is to move you before Kramer files something that can’t be undone.” His eyes stay on mine. “And confirm what I need to confirm before I invest any more of my life in this.”

There it is.

Business.

Even the child.

I glance at Rose.

Her cartoon changes scenes. She laughs, then looks up at Jacob suddenly.

“Do you have a pool?” she asks.

Jacob blinks, thrown off. “A pool?”

Rose nods solemnly. “Hotels have pools.”

A small smile tries to surface on his mouth and fails halfway.

“I don’t have a pool,” he says.

Rose frowns, unimpressed. Then she looks at me. “We go back to pool?”

“No,” I say gently.

Her face pinches. She goes quiet, tapping the tablet harder than she needs to.

Jacob watches that small disappointment like it matters.

Then he looks back at me.

“Here’s the truth,” he says. “I’m offering you a clean exit. Not because I want to save you. Because I don’t want this touching my company. My donors. My board. My investors. I don’t want this turning into a spectacle.”

At least he’s honest.

“But,” he adds—and his voice shifts—“I also don’t want her hurt in the process.”

I hold his gaze. “So you’re buying time.”

Jacob’s eyes stay on mine. “I’m keeping it quiet.”

I let that settle.

Then I ask the only question that matters.

“Where are we going?”

His eyes don’t flicker. “Tonight, you’re going to a place where you can breathe. Where the police won’t kick your door in. Where the internet can’t circle her name.”

“And you can still reach us.”

“Yes,” he says.

A leash with nicer packaging.

Rose shifts in her chair, then looks up, voice sleepy and small. “Mommy. Can we go home?”

My face doesn’t move.

My heart does something it doesn’t like doing in front of Jacob.

I lean toward her and smooth her hair back, slow. “Soon.”

Rose studies my face like she can hear the lie humming under my skin.

Then she nods once, resigned, and folds her head onto her arms beside the tablet.

Jacob watches that.

Not pity.

Assessment.

He’s measuring how she responds to me. How easily she folds. How much of her world is already shaped around my moods.

“That,” Jacob says quietly, “is why I can’t just let you keep running.”

I look at him. “And you think you can stop me.”

“I think I can keep you inside my reach,” he says.

Smoother phrasing. Same meaning.

I glance toward the door.

Beyond it: men. cameras. an exit I don’t control.

I look back at the folder.

It’s all there—route, money, paperwork, a trap disguised as rescue.

Jacob’s voice softens by a fraction, and that’s how I know it isn’t softness.

It’s a tactic.

“Angela,” he says, “if you walk out of here without taking my offer, you’ll be on a highway with no phone, no money, and a child whose face is already getting passed around.” His gaze holds mine. “You’ll get tired. She’ll get hungry. You’ll slip. And then you lose her.”

He says it like he’s describing gravity.

I keep my eyes on him. “And if I take your offer?”

His gaze flicks to Rose. “Then you keep her. For now.”

For now.

There it is again—the timeline he controls.

I let a beat pass.

Then I ask, “If you’re so sure she might be yours, why aren’t you calling Kramer yourself? Why aren’t you fixing this with your name?”

Jacob’s mouth flattens. “Because I’m not giving law enforcement a reason to dig into my private life.”

“And I’m the private life,” I say.

“And she is,” he answers, eyes flicking to Rose.

Rose’s breathing has slowed. Half-asleep. The tablet screen dims, then brightens again when her finger twitches.

Jacob stands.

Not abruptly. Not threatening.

But the room shifts anyway—the way it does when the person with power decides the meeting is over.

“We’re going,” he says.

I don’t move. “We?”

He looks at me. “To the hangar.”

I glance at the folder. “With the box.”

His expression holds. “Yes.”

I keep my face calm. “No.”

His gaze sharpens. “Angela.”

I stand too, Rose still slumped in the chair, small body folded in on itself.

“No swab,” I say again. “You want me to get on a plane? Fine. You want me to sign something? Maybe.”

Jacob’s jaw tightens.

And for the first time, he looks at me the way he looked at me the day he left—not disgust, not hatred.

Wariness.

“Then how,” he says, very softly, “do you propose I get confirmation?”

“You don’t,” I reply.

His eyes go cold. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s my answer.”

A beat.

Jacob looks toward Rose again.

He watches her for a long moment, and I can see something in him fighting itself—what he wants versus what it would cost to take it by force.

Force leaves evidence.

Sound. Witnesses. A child screaming. A scene no amount of money can un-film.

Then he says, quiet as a knife:

“If I can’t confirm, I can’t keep you.”

I tilt my head. “Keep me.”

His gaze doesn’t move. “You know what I mean.”

I do.

I also know what it implies.

I look at the door.

The shaved-head man will be there. Security. Someone with a tablet and a practiced smile.

And somewhere outside this building, Kramer is building a case out of whatever pieces he can collect.

Inside this building, Jacob is building a cage out of whatever he can control.

I look at Rose.

She stirs like she can feel the air shifting. Her eyes open a slit.

“Mommy?” she murmurs.

I step closer. “Hey.”

She blinks up at me, half-asleep. “Airplane?”

I smooth her hair. “Maybe.”

Her eyes close again, soothed by the word even though it isn’t a promise.

Jacob’s voice comes from behind me, steady. “We can do this the easy way.”

I turn back to him.

“And what’s the easy way?” I ask.

His gaze slides to the folder. To the sealed box. Back to me.

“You cooperate,” he says. “You get on the plane. You sign what I need you to sign. You let me confirm what I need to confirm.”

“And if I don’t?”

He holds my gaze.

Then his eyes flick toward the door—quick, like he’s checking the hallway without looking.

“If you don’t,” Jacob says evenly, “then I stop holding this quiet.”

I don’t react.

I only say, “You were never holding it quiet for me.”

His mouth tightens. “For her.”

“And if she’s yours,” I say, “you’ll take her.”

He doesn’t answer.

That’s the answer.

Outside the room, I hear movement—footsteps, a soft murmur, a door opening and closing.

The machinery of his world turning.

And I realize something with sudden clarity.

This isn’t a rescue.

It’s a transfer.

I look at the itinerary again.

At A. J. and R. J.

At the way he reduced us to initials.

At the way he positioned the plane as the only safe move.

At the way he keeps saying confirm like it’s harmless.

My voice stays calm when I speak.

“Bring the plane,” I say.

Jacob’s eyes narrow. “It’s already here.”

“Pull it up to the hangar doors,” I say, making it sound like comfort. Like caution. “I’m not carrying her through a hallway full of men.”

Jacob watches me for a beat.

Then—because he wants this finished, because he wants control to look smooth—he nods once.

He opens the door and gives the security man outside a single word.

“Now.”

He closes it again and looks at me.

“We’re leaving in ten.”

I nod like I’m agreeing.

Like I’m folding.

Like I’m afraid.

I look at the folder on the table—those initials staring back at me in ink.

Inside, my mind is already moving.

Because if the plane is where he separates us—

Then the only way out is before we step on it.