I Fed a Mafia Boss’s Starving Baby on a Private Jet—Then He Told Me I Could Never Leave
For several seconds, I could only stare at him.
The private jet hummed around us, its engines winding down beyond the insulated walls. Outside the oval windows, black vehicles waited beneath the white glare of floodlights. Men in dark coats stood beside them, motionless against the cold New York night.
Behind me, the cabin door was open.
Freedom was less than twenty feet away.
Yet Nikolai Volkov stood between me and the exit, holding his sleeping daughter as if she were the only fragile thing in a world built to withstand bullets.
“You can’t go home anymore,” he repeated.
My fingers tightened around the strap of my bag.
“That isn’t your decision.”
His gaze did not change.
“It became my decision the moment you fed her.”
The words struck me harder than they should have.
I looked at the baby tucked against his chest. Her cheeks were flushed now. Her breathing was slow and even. One tiny fist rested beneath her chin.
“She needed help,” I said. “I helped her. That’s all.”
“Nothing is ever only one thing.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It means people saw.”
I glanced around the cabin.
The flight attendants had disappeared toward the rear galley. The pilots remained behind the cockpit door. Nikolai’s men watched us without pretending otherwise now.
Three bodyguards.
One near the aisle.
One beside the stairs.
One behind me.
A cage made of tailored suits and calm faces.
Nikolai shifted the baby slightly, supporting her head with a tattooed hand.
“My daughter’s existence is not public knowledge,” he said. “The people who know about her are either loyal to me or useful to me.”
“And what am I?”
His eyes moved over my face.
“I haven’t decided.”
A cold wave passed through me.
I forced myself to breathe slowly.
“I’m getting off this plane.”
“No.”
“You can’t kidnap me.”
His expression remained almost bored, but something flickered in the eyes of the man nearest the door.
