My stepmother thought I was broke, so she treated me like her personal baggage handler and laughed as she sent me to Economy / Chapter 32 / 53

Chapter 32 - The Sovereign Dawn

Forty-eight hours later, the grand executive office on the ninety-fifth floor of Northstar Tower was quiet. The toxic odor of Victoria's expensive, cloying perfume had been completely scrubbed away, replaced by the fresh scent of cedar, clean rain, and polished leather.

Victoria’s trial had already been fast-tracked. Stripped of all bail privileges, she sat in a maximum-security remand facility awaiting sentencing that would guarantee she would never see daylight as a free woman again. Her daughter, Chloe, had fled to an unregistered villa in South America, penniless and hunted by tax authorities.

I stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass wall, looking out over the London skyline as the morning sun broke through the gray morning fog, painting the world in radiant gold.

Marcus knocked softly and entered, carrying a leather binder with the official seal of Northstar Aviation.

"The global markets opened twenty minutes ago," Marcus said, a genuine, rare smile breaking across his hardened face. "Northstar stock jumped forty-four percent on news of the syndicate’s purge and your official accession. The alliance partners have unanimously ratified your appointment as Executive Chairman and CEO."

He set the binder down on my father's old mahogany desk.

"You did it, Emily. You took it all back. From Economy class to the absolute throne."

I ran my fingers across the gold-embossed nameplate on the desk. *Arthur Vance - Founder.* Beneath it, a new brass plaque had been mounted: *Emily Vance - Sovereign Commander.*

"We didn't just take it back, Marcus," I said softly, looking at the planes banking gracefully over the distant horizon. "We cleaned it. From now on, Northstar belongs to the people who actually build it, fly it, and bleed for it. Not the parasites who buy their seats with blood money."

"There is one more thing," Marcus added, his tone suddenly growing cautious as he pulled a small, sealed titanium envelope from his inner breast pocket. "When the Swiss Federal Police completed their forensic sweep of the Geneva vault, they found this behind the main server array. It was sealed inside an air-tight military lockbox dated three days *after* your father's official death certificate."