Chapter 13 - Flight to the Alps
Within twelve hours, Alexander’s private Gulfstream G650 was cruising at forty-one thousand feet over the North Atlantic, cutting through the night toward Zurich.
The interior of the jet was hushed, bathed in the soft amber glow of cabin lights. Julian sat near the cockpit, running encrypted communications with private tactical teams in Switzerland, while Leo slept soundly in one of the rear leather berths, exhausted from hours of decoding Arthur’s legal files.
I sat across from Alexander at the mahogany dining table, staring out the oval window into the pitch-black sky.
"You should sleep, Claire," Alexander said softly, reaching across the table to cover my trembling fingers with his warm hand. "We have a difficult day ahead."
I looked down at our joined hands. His touch still carried the familiar electric spark from our youth, but now it was tempered by something far deeper—a mutual bond forged in survival and shared devotion to our son.
"I keep thinking about the day I walked out of your office in Chicago," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. "Fifteen years ago. I thought I was protecting Leo by keeping him away from your world. I thought if he grew up with a pediatrician mother in a quiet Boston neighborhood, he would never have to know greed, betrayal, or violence."
"Claire..." Alexander murmured, pain flickering in his eyes.
"And now look at him," I continued, tears stinging the corners of my eyes. "He's fifteen, flying across the ocean to face international predators because of a name he didn't even know he had a month ago. Did I fail him, Alexander? By keeping him away, did I leave him completely unprepared for this?"
"No," Alexander said firmly, his fingers tightening gently around mine. He leaned forward, forcing me to meet his steel-gray gaze. "Look at what you did for him, Claire. You raised a boy who is brilliant, kind, courageous, and unbroken. If he had grown up in Chicago surrounded by Olivia’s poison and my blind corporate obsession, he would have been hardened, cynical, and miserable. You gave him a soul. You gave him a heart."
A solitary tear escaped and rolled down my cheek. Alexander reached up with his other hand, his thumb catching the tear with infinite gentleness.
"I was the one who failed," Alexander whispered, his voice thick with raw remorse. "I was blind. I let the demands of an empire make me cold to the only woman I ever loved. When you left, my life ended, Claire. I just didn't have the sense to realize I was a ghost until you walked back into that hospital room with our son."
"Alexander..."
"I don't expect you to forget fifteen years of silence overnight," he said softly, his eyes searching mine with an honesty that laid his entire heart bare. "I don't even expect you to forgive me yet. But as long as I have breath in my lungs, I will spend every second proving to you that you and Leo are my entire world. Nothing else matters. Not the patents. Not Moretti Global. Only you."
My heart hammered against my ribs. For fifteen years, I had convinced myself that Alexander Moretti was an unfeeling titan of industry who had discarded me without a second thought. But sitting here in the quiet cabin, looking into the eyes of the man who had taken a bullet for our child, the last walls around my heart crumbled.
I turned my hand over, interlocking my fingers with his. "We save our son first," I whispered. "Then... we talk about us."
A brilliant, hopeful light broke across Alexander’s face. "Deal."
Three hours later, the jet touched down on the tarmac at Zurich Airport under a gray, misting dawn.
A motorcade of three armored Mercedes SUVs was waiting beside the private hangar, arranged by Julian’s European security contacts. The air was biting cold, smelling of mountain pine and jet fuel.
As we transferred our luggage, Julian’s phone buzzed. He answered it, listened for five seconds, and his expression hardened into stone.
"Mr. Moretti," Julian said, hanging up. "The Cantonal Court just advanced the hearing by three hours. Baron de Laurent invoked an emergency maritime security clause. If we aren't in Geneva by ten o'clock, the tribunal will rule in absentia and transfer the temporary conservatorship to the Saint-Germain Consortium."
Alexander checked his watch. It was already seven-thirty. The drive from Zurich to Geneva through the mountain passes normally took over three hours.
"They knew our flight schedule," Alexander growled, his eyes narrowing. "They're trying to lock the doors before we can present Leo’s credentials."
"There is a faster way," Leo said, pointing toward the end of the private runway where a sleek, twin-engine Eurocopter sat idling in the mist. "Grandfather's original flight protocol. Look at the tail number."
Alexander looked, and an astonishing realization dawned on his face.
The helicopter bore the crest of Moretti Global—Arthur’s personal alpine transport, maintained on standby under an active trust protocol that Olivia Hayes had never known existed.
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"Can you fly us into the Old City helipad near the Palais de Justice?" Alexander asked the pilot, who snapped to attention upon seeing Alexander and Leo approach.
"Monsieur Moretti," the pilot said with a crisp salute. "Your father gave orders five years ago that this aircraft was never to be grounded if an heir bearing his name arrived. We can be in Geneva in forty-five minutes."