By the time that baby had screamed for eighty-seven straight minutes,

The flight to Rome was eleven hours and forty-two minutes.

For the first four hours, the baby—whose name, Julian informed me in a low whisper while the infant slept against my collarbone, was Leo—remained glued to my chest. He woke twice, nursed greedily, and drifted back into a deep, peaceful slumber that left small smudges of drool across my collar.

Julian did not return to his seat across the aisle.

He remained in seat 2B, his long legs stretched out into the bulkhead space, working quietly on a secure tablet while periodically glancing over at us with an intensity that felt less like supervision and more like a guard watching a priceless artifact. Every time Maya stirred in premium economy—when my kind neighbor, an elderly college professor, brought her forward for a quick bathroom break—Julian’s security detail moved with oiled efficiency, ensuring she had a fresh juice box, a box of crayons, and an undisturbed path back to her seat.

By the time the Italian coastline appeared beneath the wings like a jagged ribbon of gold-tipped emeralds, my back was screaming in agony, my legs were cramped, and my mind was racing with a terrifying, mounting panic.

A distant cousin in Rome with a couch and a fresh start.

That was what I had told myself when I packed the cereal-box cash and ran out the front door while Richard was at his law firm. But as the Boeing 777 taxied toward the gate at Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport, the reality of my situation hit me like a physical blow.

I had €274. I had a three-year-old child who didn't speak Italian. And my "distant cousin"—a man named Uncle Gino whom I had met once at a family reunion when I was twelve—ran a crumbling tobacco shop in Trastevere and had five children living in a two-bedroom apartment.

"Nora."

Julian’s voice cut through my racing thoughts. He was standing in the aisle, buttoning his charcoal suit jacket, looking down at me with those unblinking gray eyes.

"Yes, Mr. Vance?" I murmured, carefully shifting sleeping Leo into my left arm while using my right hand to gather Maya’s stuffed rabbit from the floor.

"You aren't going to Trastevere," he said.

It wasn't a question. It was a scheduling directive.

I stared up at him. "Excuse me? My cousin is meeting me at baggage claim with a sign."

"Your cousin Gino received a phone call twenty minutes ago from my legal affairs office," Julian replied smoothly, stepping into the row to block my exit until the first-class passengers cleared out. "He has been relocated to an upscale, fully staffed residential flat near the Spanish Steps, rent-paid for the next five years, with an exclusive distribution contract for his tobacco shop that will triple his annual income."

My jaw dropped. My teeth clicked together.

"You did what?!" I hissed, careful not to wake Leo, who shifted sleepily against my breast. "You bought my cousin?! You can't just uproot people’s lives because you think you owe me a favor for a twenty-minute nursing session!"

"It wasn't a favor, Nora," Julian said, his voice dropping into that terrifying, absolute calm that made the air feel thin. "It was an operational stabilization. My son does not travel well when he is dehydrated and terrified. And since you are the only human being on this continent who can keep him from screaming himself into a cyanotic episode, you will be staying in Rome as long as Leo requires your services."

"My services?!" I sputtered, indignation flaring hot and bright through my exhaustion. "I am a registered nurse, Mr. Vance! Not a wet nurse for a billionaire’s infant!"

"Your nursing license is registered in Ohio," Julian pointed out, reaching out to take my heavy suitcase from the overhead bin with one effortless motion. "Which means it has zero legal standing in the European Union. However, as of six minutes ago, you are officially employed by Thorne-Vance International Logistics as a Senior Child Welfare Consultant, with a starting base salary of two hundred and fifty thousand Euros a year, housing included."

I stood frozen in the aisle, the baby resting against my chest, staring at him as if he had spoken in ancient Aramaic.

"Two... two hundred and fifty..."

"We can negotiate benefits later," Julian interrupted, turning down the aisle toward the exit. "Marcus, take Maya’s hand. We have a convoy waiting at the private executive tarmac."

"Wait! Stop right there!" I hurried after him, my cheap sneakers squeaking against the polished linoleum of the jet bridge. "I didn't agree to this! I have a life! I have a daughter! I need to figure out my own—"

"Your ex-husband, Richard Miller," Julian said over his shoulder, his stride never breaking as he led us toward the VIP customs bypass where Italian border officials were already standing at attention, "filed a missing persons report in Columbus yesterday afternoon, claiming you abducted his child."

The world stopped spinning.

The airport terminal, the Italian guards, the roaring jet engines—everything went dead silent.

"He... he filed what?" I choked out.

Julian stopped at the glass doors leading out to the tarmac, where a sleek, black helicopter bearing the Thorne-Vance corporate crest was idling on the pavement, its rotor blades whipping the freezing Roman rain into a mist.

He turned around, his steel-gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that burned right through my soul.

"Richard is a partner at Miller & Associates," Julian said softly. "He has municipal judges in his pocket and a bench warrant ready to be issued by sunrise. If you walk out of this airport toward Trastevere on your own, the Italian federal police will extradite you back to Ohio within forty-eight hours under the Hague Convention."

He stepped closer, his broad shoulders shielding me from the driving rain outside, his hand coming up to gently touch the edge of Maya’s pink knit cap where she stood holding Marcus’s massive, scarred hand with wide-eyed wonder.

"You can fight Richard from a jail cell in Columbus, Nora," Julian whispered, his face inches from mine. "Or you can fight him from behind the gates of a Villa on the Appian Way, protected by a team of lawyers who eat corporate litigators for breakfast."