Chapter 2 - The Turbulence of the Past
They forced me back to first class, utilizing federal aviation regulations to accomplish what my investors, board members, and employees had spent years trying and failing to do: they made me sit down and shut up.
Before airplane mode locked my device, my phone buzzed again. Denver team is standing by. Don't blow this, Damon.
Three hours earlier, that message would have dictated my breathing. I would have stewed in my leather seat, calculating profit margins, equity splits, and market dominance. But now, twenty rows behind me, two toddlers with my DNA were breathing the same recycled cabin air.
As the aircraft surged down the runway and lifted into the ink-black Oregon sky, I pressed my face against the window, though I wasn't looking at the city lights fading below. Through the narrow gap between the first-class partition, I could see Luke pressing both palms flat against the window glass, fascinated by the darkness. Further back, Cassandra cradled the little girl—Violet, I had heard her call her—clutching a worn, gray stuffed elephant to her chest.
Then the weather hit us.
A violent pocket of turbulence slammed the Boeing, dropping the fuselage several hundred feet in a sickening, weightless lurch. Across the cabin, overhead bins rattled, and baby Violet let out a piercing, terrified shriek.
"It's okay, baby," Cassandra’s voice drifted up the aisle, steady and sweet, though I knew the terror vibrating beneath it. "The clouds are just dancing with us."
My throat closed up. Memories I had aggressively buried rushed to the surface. She had always done that. When howling winter storms shook our flimsy apartment windows and blew out our power, she called it clouds moving furniture. When we were so broke we ate instant ramen for five nights straight, she lit cheap vanilla candles and called it indoor camping. She had built a sanctuary out of poverty and optimism, and I had systematically wrecked it because I was too blind, too proud, and too obsessed with the hollow promise of a corporate bank account to see that I already possessed a kingdom.
I unbuckled my seat belt with a sharp clack.
The flight attendant was out of her jump seat in a microsecond. "Sir! Sit down! The seatbelt sign is still illuminated!"
"There are children back there," I barked, standing up to my full height.
"There are many children on this flight, Mr. Prescott. Sit down."
"My children are back there."
For a split second, the flight attendant's rigid corporate glare softened as she looked into my bloodshot eyes. "Then stay seated until the captain turns off the sign, or I will have local law enforcement waiting at the gate in Denver."
Those twelve minutes felt longer than any hostile takeover negotiation I had ever survived. The second the chime echoed through the cabin and the blue light blinked out, I didn't walk—I marched.
I stopped beside row twenty-eight. Cassandra watched me approach like a cornered animal, her arm forming an absolute barrier around the twins. An elderly woman across the aisle abruptly lowered her magazine, suddenly deeply invested in the drama unfolding beside her.
"May I sit?" I asked quietly.
Cassandra’s jaw locked so hard I could see the muscle twitch in her cheek. She didn't invite me, but she shifted her weight just enough to clear a tiny patch of the empty middle seat next to her. I slid in, my large frame making the tight economy row feel claustrophobic.
Luke stared up at me with unabashed curiosity, tracing the line of my jaw with a sticky finger. Violet buried her face deeper into her gray elephant.
I leaned in close, keeping my voice low, vibrating with a cocktail of shock, betrayal, and a strange, terrifying surge of protectiveness. "Cassandra. I need the absolute truth. Right now."
May you like
She looked down at the soft heads of our children, swallowed hard, and then raised her hazel eyes to meet mine.
"They're yours."
