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

The tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport was slick with midnight rain, reflecting the amber halo of the runway lights like liquid gold. *Valkyrie One* touched down with whisper-quiet precision on the private perimeter strip, bypassing the standard commercial taxiways entirely. Outside the reinforced windows, the rain lashed against the fuselage in rhythmic fury, but inside my chest, the rhythm was far more dangerous.

"JFK ground control is under a localized digital blackout," Marcus said from behind me, his fingers flying across the tactical console. "The Northstar executive terminal is operating on emergency backup power. Whoever cleared Flight 01 for departure wiped the tail number from the FAA active radar feeds twelve minutes ago."

"They didn't wipe it to hide from the government, Marcus," I replied, fastening the lapel of my tailored storm coat. Inside the breast pocket, the encrypted holographic chip rested against my ribs, cold and dense. "They wiped it so I couldn't track who was walking onto that plane."

I descended the airstair into the biting dampness of the New York night. Two Northstar security operatives in black rain gear waited at the foot of the mobile gangway, their umbrella canopies tilting forward as I approached. They didn't speak. They didn't ask for identification. When you carry the sovereign bloodline of the man who laid the tarmac beneath their boots, you don't show a boarding pass. You command the ground.

Terminal 4’s elite gate lounge was unnervingly empty. The velvet ropes were hung, the duty-free boutique displays stood dark, and the polished marble floor echoed with only the sound of my heels. Northstar Flight 01—a modified ultra-long-range Boeing 777X painted in matte obsidian with an unadorned silver star on the vertical stabilizer—sat tethered to Gate 1.

A lone gate agent stood behind the podium. Her uniform was pristine Northstar navy, but her name badge was reversed, and her hands trembled as she saw me approach.

"Miss Emily," she whispered, her voice catching in her throat. "The... the cabin is sealed. The manifest is locked from an off-site terminal."

"Override the airbridge door," I said, placing my hand flat on the glass podium scanner.

The biometric glass flared crimson, hesitated, and then pulsed a blinding, emerald green. The system chime was distinct—a tone reserved strictly for the Sovereign Founder.

*ACCESS GRANTED: SOVEREIGN LEVEL 0.*

The pneumatic seal of the boarding door hissed open.

"Emily, wait," Marcus murmured through my comm-piece. "Our thermal sensors detect seven heat signatures in First Class. Six are static, positioned around the parameter. One is seated in 1B. Directly across the aisle from you."

"Six bodyguards and one mastermind," I murmured back, stepping into the jetway. "A standard Northstar apex formation. My father invented that protocol."

I walked down the tunnel toward the cavernous wide-body cabin. The smell of brand-new leather, pressurized oxygen, and an unmistakable faint scent of bergamot and bitter almond hit me as I crossed the threshold into First Class.

The lights were dimmed to an ambient indigo. In Seat 1A, a single Northstar executive folder lay on the quilted cashmere seat, an empty crystal glass turned upside down beside it.

And across the mahogany-paneled aisle, sitting in Seat 1B with a pair of gloved hands resting serenely over a silver-headed cane, sat a woman whose silhouette I would have recognized anywhere in the dark.

She did not turn her head. She merely chuckled—a dry, elegant, venomous sound that had haunted my childhood.