My stepmother thought I was broke, so she treated me like her personal baggage handler and laughed as she sent me to Economy / Chapter 51 / 53

Chapter 51 - Ghost Flight North

Arthur collapsed to his knees beside the bed, burying his face in his wife's pale, warm hand. The steady beep of the heart monitor was human, fragile, and utterly real. Eleanor wasn't dead; she had been kept in a twilight state, her existence guarded as the ultimate leverage over the global financial empire.

"She’s stable," Clara reported, quickly reading the diagnostic monitor. "They’ve been administering mild sedatives to keep her compliant for biometric authorizations. If we disconnect this IV line, she will regain full consciousness within thirty minutes."

"Do it," I ordered gently. "Father, stay with her. Clara, secure the medical bay from the inside. Nothing enters this room."

Arthur looked up at me, his eyes burning with a fierce, paternal authority. "Where are you going, Lucas?"

"Evelyn has a presentation to finish at the Geneva summit," I replied, chambering a round into my sidearm. "It would be rude of the rightful heir not to attend."

I stepped out of the medical suite, the pneumatic door locking securely behind me under Clara's defensive override.

I took the spiral staircase leading to the upper deck—the presidential suite of the *Valkyrie*. The decor transformed from industrial titanium to gold-leaf panels, plush Italian leather, and crystal chandeliers that swayed gently with the motion of the airborne fortress.

As I neared the double doors of the master conference room, Evelyn’s voice boomed through the speakers. She was speaking with the crystalline, aristocratic poise that had terrorized my youth, that had sent me to Economy with a laugh, that had treated me like a broken tool.

"...and with the unfortunate passing of my beloved husband Arthur, and the tragic disappearance of his estranged son Lucas," Evelyn was addressing the global board of directors via high-definition holographic feed, "the sovereign trust delegates full proxy authority to me. As of this moment, Vance Aerospace will be dissolved, and its defense patents transferred to Apex Holdings for a sum of twelve billion dollars."

A ripple of applause echoed from the holographic monitors of international financiers.

I didn't knock.