Her eyes shifted to me.
Hatred replaced panic.
“She ruined everything.”
The admission was barely louder than the engines.
Alexander’s expression did not change.
“How?”
“She wasn’t supposed to wake up before Paris.”
A chill moved through me.
The flight attendant realized what she had said and closed her eyes.
Alexander stepped closer.
“What did you expect to happen when we landed?”
She said nothing.
I answered for her.
“Security would find me with the case.
The account access would trace back to the jet.
Her tablet would appear to have been used while everyone thought she was serving dinner.
I would look like someone hired to steal the token and carry it aboard.”
The flight attendant’s silence confirmed it.
Alexander’s tablet chimed again.
This time he turned it so the chef could see.
“My legal team froze the transfer,” he said.
“The receiving account has been identified.”
The flight attendant sank into the nearest seat.
For a moment, she looked much older than she had ten minutes earlier.
Alexander remained standing.
“Who else is involved?”
“No one you can reach.”
“That is not an answer.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You fly across oceans with enough money to buy cities, and you never notice the people carrying your bags.”
“I noticed you.”
“You noticed my uniform.”
Alexander’s voice stayed quiet.
“I trusted you with my aircraft, my schedule, and my safety.
Do not confuse trust with blindness.”
She looked toward the dark window.
“They promised me five million dollars after the transfer cleared.”
“Who?”
“A broker I met through a former contractor.
I never knew his real name.”
Alexander placed the two tokens side by side.
“How long have you been copying access information?”
“Four months.”
“And tonight?”
“I needed the real token close enough to authorize the request.
I couldn’t carry it myself.
The internal audit records employee proximity.”
“So you needed a stranger.”
“I needed someone no one would believe.”
Her eyes settled on me again.
“Then she appeared at the gate looking like she could barely remember her own name.”
The cruelty of it struck harder than the accusation.
She had not chosen me despite my exhaustion.
She had chosen me because of it.
She saw a woman who had spent the day soothing someone else’s child, earning an ordinary paycheck, and dragging a cheap suitcase home.
To her, that made me disposable.
