Chapter 21 - The Mid-Air Reckoning
Daniel did not blink.
His eyes were fixed entirely on Vanessa, burning with a ferocious, icy rage she had never seen in him before.
"Daniel, darling, please," Vanessa stammered, raising her manicured hands in a pathetic gesture of defense. "You completely misunderstand what just happened."
"Do I?" Daniel asked.
His voice was dangerously calm, vibrating with the force of a coiled predator ready to strike.
"She collapsed, Daniel!" Vanessa insisted, her voice shrill and trembling. "I was only trying to pull her up! She was making a vulgar scene!"
"I watched you strike her," Daniel said, taking another heavy, thunderous step forward. "I watched you grab her hair."
"She’s an opportunistic liar!" Vanessa shrieked, backing hard against the leather bulkhead until she had nowhere left to run.
Daniel ignored his mother's frantic shrieks and instantly dropped to his knees beside Emily.
Emily was curled in a trembling ball on the plush cabin rug, her fingers clutching her lower abdomen in agonizing spasms.
"Emily," Daniel whispered, his voice cracking with sudden, overwhelming terror. "Look at me, sweetheart. I'm right here."
Emily forced her eyes open through a haze of tears and sweat, her lips pale and devoid of color.
"The baby, Daniel..." Emily breathed, her voice barely a rasp. "It hurts... God, it hurts so bad."
Daniel's gaze drifted down to the hem of Emily’s linen trousers, where a dark, terrifying stain was beginning to spread.
A cold knife twisted deep in his chest.
"Mayday!" Daniel roared toward the cockpit, his head snapping back. "Land this damn plane right now!"
The flight attendant peeked out from behind the service curtain, her face bone-white with horror.
"Get the first aid kit! Bring oxygen and sterile towels immediately!" Daniel commanded, his authoritative voice shaking the cabin walls.
"Daniel, stop this madness!" Vanessa hissed from the corner, attempting to salvage her shattered authority. "We are thirty thousand feet in the air! You cannot cause a national scandal over this girl!"
Daniel stood up slowly, towering over his mother with fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned translucent.
"If anything happens to my wife or my child," Daniel whispered into Vanessa’s face, "I swear to God, you will spend the rest of your miserable life in a federal prison."
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Vanessa recoiled as if struck across the face by an iron bar.
For the first time in sixty years, Vanessa Van Allen felt real, paralyzing fear.
