First-class smelled like expensive leather and exhausted ambition. Lex stepped into the cabin, still finishing the last words of his conversation with Elinor in his mind — full team, manpower, daily updates — when a familiar perfume hit him like a soft knife to the ribs.
Saffron.
Jasmine.
A top note of something wickedly expensive.
He didn't need to look up.
There was only one woman alive who weaponized perfume like PR.
Vanessa Carlisle.
Of all the flights, all the hours, all the nights — she was on this one.
In 3A.
Lean legs crossed, red dress draped like temptation stitched by someone with grudges and taste. The slit rode high, dangerously so, revealing a silhouette crafted for attention. Her hair fell in dark, glossy waves, the kind stylists got awards for. She looked every inch the Hollywood power broker the tabloids loved — sensual, untouchable, a storm wearing lipstick.
And seated beside her in 3B was a young man — early twenties, maybe — with too much jawline and too little confidence. A boy toy. Fresh muscle.
He stiffened the second Lex stepped into the aisle.
Lex took his seat assignment again.
3C.
Of course.
Vanessa glanced up, and the smile that curled across her mouth was slow, sultry, and dangerous in a way only history could make it.
"Well…" she purred, voice wrapping around him like silk dipped in bourbon. "If it isn't Lexington Latham."
Lex kept his expression neutral as he approached.
"Vanessa."
"My, my," she said, eyes sweeping him with indecent boldness. "You've grown into that face, haven't you?"
Lex didn't answer. He didn't need to.
The boy toy angled his body protectively toward Vanessa, as if Lex were a threat or — worse — competition. His posture screamed insecurity. His hand curled possessively on the armrest, inches from Vanessa's bare thigh.
Vanessa didn't move his hand away.
She simply tilted her head, studying Lex with an amused glint.
"What are the odds we'd end up on the same flight?" she asked.
Lex slid into 3C — aisle seat — silently buckling his belt, ignoring the tension radiating off the boy like cheap cologne and jealousy.
"Small world," Lex said.
"Mmm. Too small at times."
Her gaze lingered on him, unreadable but hungry with curiosity.
He hadn't seen her in years — not since Barnie had broken her publicly, ruined her career, stripped her influence in Hollywood until she was forced into the shadows.
She looked nothing like a woman defined by loss.
She looked like a woman who had survived it and sharpened herself on the bones.
The boy toy leaned forward, voice a little too loud.
"You two know each other?"
Vanessa's lips twitched.
"Intimately," she said.
Lex raised a brow. "Professionally."
She laughed — a low, sexual sound that turned a few heads in the cabin.
"Relax, darling," she told the boy, stroking his knee with manicured nails. "Lexington isn't competition."
She let her eyes flick back to Lex with a wicked smirk.
"He's an entirely different league."
The boy toy bristled, trying to puff himself up.
"Whatever. You didn't mention him."
"Of course not," Vanessa said lightly. "Why would I discuss men I don't intend to date?"
Lex suppressed a sigh.
Same Vanessa.
Same poetic chaos.
He turned slightly, pulling out his phone to check his messages — nothing from Benny. Nothing from anyone.
Vanessa watched him, her expression softening just enough to pass for concern.
"You look tense," she said. "More than usual. And you're usually carved from ice."
"It's late," Lex said.
She leaned closer, enough that her perfume wrapped around him like a memory.
"Please. You and I both know you don't lose sleep."
Lex didn't look at her.
He didn't want her reading his eyes.
Not tonight.
The boy toy noticed the shift and squared his shoulders again.
"You working in L.A.?" he asked Lex, trying and failing to sound casual.
Lex offered a polite, empty nod. "Something like that."
Vanessa caught the lie instantly.
Her gaze sharpened, lips curving slowly.
"Oh… you're not traveling for business," she said softly. "You're running."
Lex turned to her then, expression flat. "From what?"
"From yourself," she said. "Or toward something. And frankly, Lexington, I'm not sure which version of you is more dangerous."
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Vanessa always played with words like they were levers on a stock exchange — each one chosen to shift the balance of a room.
The plane doors sealed shut with a heavy thud.
Vanessa stretched her legs, her dress sliding even higher, and the boy toy offered her his jacket to cover up. She declined with a playful pat to his cheek.
"Sweet," she said. "But unnecessary."
Then she looked back at Lex.
Eyes dark.
Knowing.
Too knowing.
"What brings you to Los Angeles at this ungodly hour?" Vanessa asked, voice velvety, amused, and edged with a curiosity that cut deeper than the question deserved.
Lex kept his gaze on the safety card he wasn't reading.
"Business," he said.
"Liar." Vanessa's reply was soft, intimate, almost tender in its mockery. "Your mouth moves when you lie. Not much. Just a fraction of a millimeter, right at the corner." She lifted one manicured finger, tracing the air beside her own lip. "There. That's where it twitches."
Lex didn't look at her.
He couldn't afford the distraction of Vanessa Carlisle dissecting him at 30,000 feet in front of her boy toy.
She leaned in closer, her perfume sliding over him like warm silk.
"Try again, Lexington."
He exhaled, slow, controlled.
"Someone I know," he said, "might be in trouble."
Vanessa's amusement vanished instantly — wiped clean, replaced by something sharper. Something almost predatory.
"A woman," she said, not asked.
Lex said nothing.
Vanessa tilted her head, her eyes narrowing with feline focus. "It's always a woman. Men don't fly across the country at midnight for hedge funds or hostile takeovers." Her lips curled. "War, maybe. Lust? Always. But fear?" She let the word linger. "Fear only comes from losing someone."
The boy toy stiffened beside her.
"Vee, you don't have to—"
She placed a hand on his thigh without looking at him. "Relax, darling. I'm having a conversation."
He shut up.
Vanessa turned back to Lex, studying him with unsettling precision.
"Your jaw's locking," she murmured. "Your shoulders are coiled. And you haven't blinked in ten seconds. Whoever this woman is… she matters."
Lex finally met her eyes.
"She does."
Vanessa's breath softened, barely audible.
"Oh," she whispered. "Then this isn't business at all."
"No," Lex said. "It's not."
She sat back slowly, the full weight of her gaze roaming over his face as if she were memorizing something important.
"Tell me who," she murmured, voice lowering into something dangerous and intimate.
Lex didn't look away.
"Rose," he said quietly.
The name froze the air between them.
Vanessa's expression flickered—recognition, calculation, something darker.
Not surprise. Not confusion.
Recognition.
Then she did something that made Lex's pulse slow to a lethal, controlled beat.
She smiled.
Not with her mouth — with her eyes.
A small, knowing glint that meant she'd heard something long before he ever boarded this plane.
"Well," she murmured, settling back into her seat like a queen receiving confirmation of a rumor, "that explains the whispers."
Lex's gaze sharpened. "What whispers?"
Vanessa lifted one elegant hand and made a small, lazy circle in the air — the gesture of someone brushing dust from a priceless sculpture.
"Hollywood whispers, darling. The kind that move faster than studio memos. Faster than money." Her voice dipped to a velvety purr. "About a rising actress who suddenly 'adjusted' her tour schedule. About a boutique PR team told to keep her name out of sight for 48 hours. About a manager who abruptly left town."
Lex's breath stilled.
She went on, eyes gleaming:
"And about a certain charming, talented young woman spotted having a very tense conversation outside a rehearsal studio two days ago."
Lex's jaw tightened. "With who?"
Vanessa didn't answer immediately.
She turned her head slowly toward him, her dark hair brushing her bare shoulder, and raised a single finger—
Pointing past Lex.
Past the aisle.
Past first class.
Toward Hollywood itself.
"Someone with influence," she said. "Someone who moves actors like chess pieces. Someone who believes girls like Rose are… negotiable."
Lex felt his pulse spike, but Vanessa wasn't finished.
She leaned closer, her perfume wrapping around him like a secret.
"I heard the gossip this afternoon," she whispered. "Everyone did. A quiet little rumor that an actress with enormous potential suddenly became… unavailable."
Lex froze.
Unavailable.
The Hollywood euphemism for everything dark people pretend doesn't happen.
Vanessa watched him absorb it, then shrugged delicately, all elegance and venom.
"You have to understand, Lexington," she said, tapping a red-painted nail against her armrest, "in my world, gossip is just news that hasn't been printed yet. And today's gossip?" Her smile sharpened. "Today it said Rose Russo was in trouble."
Lex's eyes narrowed. "Who told you?"
"Three agents. A casting director. A publicist I despise. And a very loud assistant on Melrose who thinks whispering requires yelling." She sighed theatrically. "You know how it is. The moment an actress stops being visible, the vultures start speculating."
His grip on the armrest tightened.
Vanessa studied him with almost gentle cruelty.
"You really do care," she whispered.
Lex didn't answer.
Vanessa leaned forward one more inch, lowering her voice to a whisper only he could hear.
"And if someone in my industry took her… Lexington?"
A beat.
Her eyes turned cold.
"They'll wish they had never heard your name."
Lex stared straight ahead, jaw rigid, heart pounding.
Vanessa watched him — reading every silent decision forming behind his eyes — then murmured:
"Now ask me the real question, darling."
"What question?"
Her lips curled.
"Ask me which powerful man Rose was seen arguing with before she disappeared."
Lex didn't breathe for a moment.
Vanessa's words hung between them like a matchbox someone had just opened over gasoline.
He turned his head slowly — not rushed, not panicked — but with the kind of precision that meant the next sentence would alter his entire trajectory tonight.
"Who was she arguing with?" Lex asked, voice quiet, tightened, deadly.
Vanessa's smile widened, pleased by how carefully he asked.As if handling the truth required steady hands.
She crossed one long leg over the other, her dress shifting dangerously higher, but her eyes stayed fixed on Lex's with eerie stillness.
"A man with money," she purred."Thinks actresses are opportunities, not people."
The boy toy stiffened, but Vanessa gently patted his thigh without looking at him.
"Relax, sweetheart. We're speaking about grown-up monsters."
Then she turned back to Lex, expression sharpening.
"His name came up twice today. Once in a gossip reel. Once in a private group chat used by studio handlers." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "They said Rose was trying to renegotiate something… and he didn't take it well."
Lex's fingers curled slowly into a fist.
"Who."
Vanessa finally said it:
"Eli Harrow."
The name landed like a fist to the ribcage.
Eli Harrow — Hollywood's quiet fixer, the man behind four major production funds, a dozen shell companies, and half a city's worth of unspoken scandals.A man famous for making problems disappear.
And not in the metaphorical sense.
Lex's pulse slowed — the dangerous kind of slow, the kind that meant he had shifted from fear to control.
"When did this happen?" he asked.
"Two days ago," Vanessa said. "Outside Studio West. Rose looked furious. Eli looked… well…" She tilted her head. "Eli looked like Eli. Polished. Patient. Dead-eyed."
The boy toy swallowed audibly."I've heard of him," he muttered. "Doesn't he, like… own the people he signs?"
Vanessa gave him a pitying look. "Own? Darling, he collects them."
Lex stood abruptly.
The boy actually flinched.
Vanessa didn't.
She simply watched with quiet satisfaction as Lex gripped the seatback in front of him, jaw carved from granite.
"You're going after him," Vanessa murmured. "Good."
Lex didn't reply.
She continued, voice softening like she was offering scripture:
"But be careful, Lexington. Eli Harrow doesn't play by Hollywood rules."She leaned in so close he felt her breath against his throat."He plays by old-world rules."
Lex's pulse kicked.
"Mafia-related?" he asked.
Vanessa smiled — slow, sharp, secret.
"Oh, Lexington," she whispered. "Eli Harrow makes the mafia look like interns."
The plane hummed under them, the lights dimming to a low, intimate glow.
Vanessa reached out, brushing a nonexistent piece of lint from Lex's sleeve.
"I heard what happened in New York tonight," she murmured. "Barnie's downfall was… elegant."Her eyes darkened."But what you're walking into now? This isn't financial war. This is a feeding ground."
Lex exhaled once — slow, controlled.
"I'm not afraid."
Vanessa's smile was wicked and proud.
"Good. Because the last man who crossed Eli Harrow lost a finger."A pause."And the woman who crossed him lost her career."
Lex's blood ran cold.
Rose.
Vanessa settled back, satisfied she had delivered the truth with appropriate drama.
"Find her, Lexington," she said softly. "Before Eli decides she's worth more missing."
Lex didn't sit again.
He stood there in the aisle, staring down the length of the dark cabin, mind already working, calculating, unraveling.
Rose wasn't just missing.
She had been targeted.
And now Lex knew exactly where the hunt would begin.
In the morning, the plane would land.
And Eli Harrow's world would start to crumble.