Chapter 2 - The Art of the Interrogation
The seatbelt sign chimed off as the aircraft leveled out at cruising altitude, bathing the cabin in a soft, ambient blue glow. Passengers began shifting in their seats, rustling magazines, and calling for service.
Grant didn't wait. He didn't care about decorum, board meetings, or social contracts. He unbuckled his belt, stood up before the aisle was entirely clear, and stepped around the divider.
Elena was busy unpacking a plastic container of sliced apples and crackers for the boys.
"Here, share these, but don't drop them on the carpet," she was saying.
"Elena."
Her hands froze mid-reach. The plastic container slipped from her fingers, a few apple slices scattering across the floor before rolling toward Grant’s Italian leather shoes. He didn't look down at the fruit. His gaze was fixed entirely on her face, tracing the pale contours of her cheeks and the wide, panicked dilation of her hazel eyes.
She slowly turned around in her seat, lifting her chin with a fragile display of defiance. "Grant."
"We need to talk," he said, his voice dropping an octave, rich with the commanding timbre that usually made grown executives sweat. "Now."
"There is nothing to talk about," she whispered fiercely, darting a quick, protective glance at the boys, who were now quietly chewing their snacks while staring up at the strange man looming over their mother.
"Really?" Grant’s lips twitched into a cold, humorless smile. He stepped closer, invading her space until the scent of her lavender perfume filled his lungs like oxygen. He pointed a finger down at Owen, who was blinking up at him with those unmistakable, piercing steel-gray eyes. "Because it looks to me like there is a hell of a lot to talk about. Starting with the fact that you have my face sitting right here in row three."
Elena went completely white. For a second, Grant thought she might actually faint. She gripped the armrests so tightly her knuckles looked like polished bone.
"Move, Grant," she hissed, her voice trembling with a mixture of terror and rage. "You're making a scene."
"I don't give a damn about a scene," he murmured, his chest heaving. "You kept them from me. Three years, Elena? You walked out with a suitcase and hid my children from me?"
"I didn't hide them from you!" she fired back, her voice rising just enough to catch the attention of a passenger two rows up. She instantly lowered it, her eyes flashing with hot, unshed tears. "You made your stance crystal clear, Grant. 'I didn't build all this just to become somebody's exhausted suburban dad.' Those were your exact words. You looked at me like I was handing you a death sentence when I asked about a family. So I gave you what you wanted. Total, unencumbered freedom."
"Freedom?" Grant scoffed, the word tasting like ash in his mouth. "You stole my sons."
"They are my sons!" she whispered intensely, leaning forward so the boys wouldn't catch the venom in her tone. "I carried them alone through morning sickness that lasted five months. I sat in a delivery room by myself while you were in Zurich closing a multi-million-dollar tech acquisition. I changed every diaper, wiped every feverish brow, and paid every medical bill without a single dime of your blood money. You don't get to waltz in here now and claim ownership just because of a genetic coincidence!"
The brutal truth of her words struck Grant like a physical blow. He staggered back half a step, the air rushing out of his lungs. He looked at Owen. He looked at Eli.
Eli had tilted his head, studying Grant with a precocious, analytical curiosity that made Grant feel as though he were looking into a mirror warped by time.
"Mister," Eli said softly, pointing a sticky finger at Grant's expensive titanium watch. "Does that clock tell you when we land?"
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Grant swallowed hard, a lump forming in his throat that felt too large to swallow. He crouched down—right there in the narrow first-class aisle, disregarding the pristine creases of his bespoke trousers—until his eyes were level with the little boy's.
"Yes, buddy," Grant said, his voice cracking slightly, stripped of all its corporate armor. "It tells me how much time I have left to fix things."
