The cold marble floor seeped through the thin soles of her heels, a chill that climbed her ankles and settled somewhere in her chest. Tisha shifted Santiago from one hip to the other, his small hand finding the collar of her jacket, and she realized she'd been standing in the same spot for nearly a minute, frozen in the middle of the immigration queue while the line moved around her like water around a stone.

"Mama, plane," Santiago said, pointing at the wide window where a white jet was taxiing past. His voice was bright, unbothered, the voice of a child who had no idea his whole world was about to be uprooted again.

"Yes, baby. That's a plane." She kissed his temple, inhaling the baby-shampoo smell of him, and tried to remember how to breathe.

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly pallor on everything—the tired travelers, the polished floor, her own hands. The airport felt like a limbo between lives, a place where no one belonged and everyone was leaving. She'd been here before, two years ago, standing in a different terminal with a different duffel bag and a secret she couldn't name. She'd thought that was the hardest walk of her life.

She'd been wrong.

The line shuffled forward. Tisha shuffled with it, Santiago's weight warm against her hip, his small fingers playing with the zipper pull on her jacket. She'd packed in a frenzy this morning—Santiago's favorite toys, his blue blanket, the photo of her mother that lived on the nightstand, enough clothes for a week. The duffel bag at her feet had its strap looped around her wrist, and she'd checked the contents so many times she could list them in her sleep.

Boston. She'd almost chosen Boston.

It had seemed logical at first. A city she knew, a place with enough crowds to disappear into, a direct flight from Mykonos. She'd even started mentally composing the message she'd send to the office, the excuse about a family emergency, the promise to be back in two weeks. Then she'd remembered—Boston was where Carlo's family had connections. Where Pete's men had watched her mother for years. Where a woman with a two-year-old son who looked exactly like Pete Bianchi would be found in a day.

So not Boston. Not anywhere Pete's reach extended, which meant not anywhere on the eastern seaboard, not anywhere in Europe, not anywhere she'd ever mentioned in a conversation Pete could have overheard.

Alaska. The thought had come to her at three in the morning, staring at the ceiling of her tiny apartment, Santiago's breathing soft and steady in the next room. Kaira. Her old friend from high school, the one who'd moved to Anchorage after graduation and married a fisherman. The one who sent her a Christmas card every year, addressed to the name Tisha had used in Manila, the name that had followed her to Mykonos. Kaira had never met Santiago. She didn't know about Pete. She was just a friend from before, a person untouched by the last four years of Tisha's life.

"You can stay as long as you need," Kaira had said, her voice tinny through the phone, thick with the sleep Tisha had woken her from. "I have a spare room. It's not much, but it's safe."

Safe. The word had made Tisha's throat close up. She'd thanked Kaira, hung up, and started packing.

The line moved again. Santiago squirmed, and she set him down, keeping a grip on his hand. He was too heavy to carry for long now—two years old, solid and growing, with his father's gray eyes and his father's stubbornness. He'd thrown a tantrum this morning when she'd tried to pack his blue blanket, and she'd nearly cried with him, the two of them sitting on the floor of her bedroom, surrounded by the pieces of a life she was dismantling again.

"Mama, I'm hungry."

"I know, baby. We'll get food soon." She didn't know if that was true. She didn't know anything except that she had to get on this plane, had to get to Alaska, had to get Santiago as far from Pete Bianchi as the world would allow.

She'd thought about calling her mother. The urge had hit her at the airport entrance, her phone already in her hand, Rosa's number already on the screen. But what would she say? That she was running again? That the man who'd destroyed her life four years ago had found her? That she had his son in her arms and she didn't know how to keep any of them safe?

Her mother's face swam up in her memory—the fear in her eyes when Tisha had told her she was leaving Manila, the plea in her voice when she'd asked if there was another way, the silent understanding that had passed between them when Tisha had said no. Rosa had known about Pete. Not everything, but enough. Enough to be afraid. Enough to never ask too many questions.

"The men," Rosa had said, her voice barely a whisper, the last time Tisha had visited. "They watch the house. They watch me. They ask about you."

Tisha had told her it was fine, that she was fine, that the men were just a precaution. She'd lied, and her mother had let her, and they'd both pretended not to know what was really happening.

The immigration officer at the front of the line waved someone through. The queue lurched forward again. Santiago tugged at her hand, pointing at a vending machine filled with colorful bags of chips.

"Want that."

"Not now, baby." She bent down, adjusting his tiny backpack, making sure the straps were secure. He was wearing his favorite jacket, the blue one with the hood, and his cheeks were flushed from the airport heat. He looked so much like Pete it made her chest ache—the same gray eyes, the same stubborn set of his jaw, the same way of studying the world like he was deciding whether to own it.

Two years. She'd had two years to get used to the resemblance, and she still wasn't.

The line moved again. She stepped forward, her duffel bag scraping against her ankle, and tried to focus on the practical things—the boarding pass in her pocket, the passport in her hand, the flight that would carry her and Santiago out of this island and into a new life. Again. She was so tired of new lives.

"Passport," she muttered, checking her pocket. Still there. Boarding pass. Still there. Santiago's birth certificate, tucked into the front pocket of the duffel bag. Still there. She'd checked it four times since leaving the apartment.

A woman behind her cleared her throat, and Tisha realized she was holding up the line. She moved forward, her heels clicking on the marble, and tried to slow her heart. She was almost there. Just the queue, just the officer, just the plane. She could do this. She had to do this.

Santiago pointed at another plane, this one smaller, its propellers spinning as it taxied toward the runway. "Mama, that one's little."

"Yes, it is." She smiled down at him, and for a moment, she let herself forget. Forget the man who was coming, forget the evidence she'd sent to Dana, forget the body in the basement and the blood on the floor. For a moment, she was just a mother at an airport with her son, watching planes, waiting to fly.

Then the moment passed, and the fear came back, colder and sharper than before.

She'd thought about staying. The thought had crossed her mind a hundred times since the text from her colleague—the one that had shattered her peace and left the plate broken on her kitchen floor. Stay. Wait for him. Face him. She'd imagined it in vivid detail: Pete walking into her office, his gray eyes finding her across the room, the recognition that would pass between them. She'd imagined what she'd say, how she'd stand, whether she'd let Santiago see him.

And then she'd imagined Pete seeing Santiago. Seeing his own gray eyes looking back at him from a toddler's face. Seeing the son he didn't know existed.

The thought made her stomach turn. She pressed her hand to her abdomen, the same gesture she'd made two years ago in a different airport, when the queasiness had been new and unacknowledged. She'd known then, she realized. She'd known she was pregnant, and she'd boarded the plane anyway, and she'd never looked back.

She'd told herself it was the right choice. She'd told herself a thousand times over two years. Santiago was safe. Santiago was hers. Santiago would never know the man who'd claimed his mother, the man who'd burned down her life and called it love.

But Pete was coming. Pete was buying the restaurant next to her office. Pete knew where she was, and if he knew where she was, he knew about Santiago.

The line stopped. Someone ahead was having trouble with their documents, a thicket of passports and boarding passes being shuffled and re-shuffled. Tisha stood still, Santiago's hand in hers, and felt the cold marble floor seep through her heels again.

She should have left sooner. She should have left the moment she got the text. She should have left before the plate shattered, before she'd stood frozen in her kitchen, before she'd let the fear paralyze her for even a second. Every moment she'd spent in Mykonos since that text was a moment Pete could use to find her.

"Mama, look." Santiago pointed at a family walking past—a mother, a father, two children, all of them laughing. "They have a daddy."

The words hit her like a blow. She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again.

"Yes, baby. They do."

"Where's my daddy?"

She'd known this question would come. She'd rehearsed answers a hundred times—he's far away, he couldn't be with us, he loves you very much. But standing in the immigration queue, her son's gray eyes looking up at her with the same intensity his father had once turned on her, she couldn't find the words.

"Your daddy is…" She trailed off, her throat closing.

Santiago waited, patient and unbothered, the way children waited when they didn't yet understand what they were asking.

"Your daddy is very far away," she said finally. "But he loves you. Okay?"

It was a lie. She didn't know if Pete would love Santiago. She didn't know if Pete was capable of love, not the way other people were. She'd seen him kill a man. She'd seen the blood on his hands. She'd seen the way he'd looked at her in the dark, his eyes full of something she'd never been able to name.

But Santiago nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the window. "Plane," he said, pointing at another one.

"Yes, baby. Plane." She kissed his head, and the line moved forward again.

The immigration officer was close now. Tisha could see his face, bored and tired, stamping passports with mechanical precision. She could see the gate beyond him, the corridor that led to the plane, the escape she'd been building toward all morning.

Almost there. Almost safe. Almost—

She felt it before she saw it. A shift in the air, a prickle at the back of her neck, the same instinct that had warned her of danger a thousand times before. She looked up, her heart already pounding, and scanned the terminal.

Nothing. Just travelers, just families, just the same anonymous crowd that filled every airport in the world.

She was being paranoid. She was being—

And then she saw him.

Pete Bianchi stood at the edge of the immigration queue, no more than twenty feet away, his gray eyes fixed on her with a stillness that made the world stop.

He was wearing a black suit, tailored and sharp, the same kind of suit he'd worn the day she'd met him. His salt-and-pepper hair was swept back, his jaw set, his hands at his sides. He looked exactly the same. He looked like he'd been waiting for her.

Everything stopped. The noise of the terminal faded to a distant hum. The fluorescent lights seemed to dim. Tisha felt her heart stop, then start again, then stop.

Pete's lips parted, as if to speak her name, but no sound came out. His eyes dropped to Santiago—to the toddler standing at her side, his small hand wrapped around her index finger—and Tisha watched his face change. Surprise. Confusion. Something harder, something she couldn't name.

Santiago, oblivious, pointed at Pete and tugged her hand.

"Mama," he said, his voice bright and curious. "That man looks like my daddy."

The world went silent.