On My Wedding Day, I Saw My Mother-in-Law Pouring My Drink... She Thought I Was Going To Drink It, But I Swapped Our Glasses... And When Anton Started To Blush, A Small Bottle Of My Expensive Wine Fell From Her Precious Bag. She Spilled It Into My Champagne Glass And Quickly Swallowed It!

"We need to get off this plane, now," Anton said, grabbing the emergency manual from the side pocket and tearing through the pages. "The exterior hatches are electronically sealed, but there’s a manual hydraulic override beneath the floorboards of the main baggage compartment."

"She knows that," I replied coldly, keeping my eyes fixed on the open cockpit door. "Look at the digital tablet. The screen just changed."

Anton rushed back to the cockpit. The looping audio had stopped, replaced by a live video feed. On the screen, the exterior view of our private jet was displayed from a drone hovering high above the runway. But what made our blood run cold was the blinking red countdown timer in the corner of the video: *14:59... 14:58... 14:57...*

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes before whatever trap Beatrice had set for us reached its conclusion.

"She’s broadcasting to us," Anton muttered, his fingers flying across the dashboard controls as he tried to override the locking mechanism. "She’s treating us like lab rats in a maze. Every time we think we’ve found an exit, there’s another glass wall."

"Stop trying to outsmart her digital locks, Anton," I said, stepping firmly into the cockpit and grabbing his wrist. "She’s a master of manipulation, but she’s arrogant. She loves a spectacle. If she wanted us dead instantly, she could have blown the aircraft while it was parked. She wants us to sweat. She wants us to panic."

"And it's working," Anton breathed, wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. "Elena, if those doors don't open—"

"They will open because we are going to open them on our terms," I interrupted, my voice sharp and unwavering. I reached into my handbag and pulled out a heavy titanium utility tool—a gift from our security chief on our wedding day, designed for cutting through seatbelts and reinforced glass in extreme emergencies. "You told me at Lake Como that we were done running from shadows. I didn't marry you to watch you back down from a ghost."

Anton looked at me, a mixture of shock, awe, and deep, fierce affection flashing in his eyes. The helpless panic vanished, replaced by the lethal, calculating focus of the man who had built an empire from the ground up.

"You're right," he said, his voice dropping into a low, steady register. "If she wants a psychological game, let's play."

He reached past the digital tablet and pulled a hidden emergency lever beneath the pilot's console. With a loud, pneumatic hiss, the secondary cabin door—the one leading directly to the rear cargo hold and the exterior service ladder—unlocked with a mechanical *clack*.

The countdown timer on the screen read *11:20*.