Chapter 7 - A New HorizonThe private jet climbed steadily into the velvet-black night sky, banking smoothly toward the west as the glittering grid of Cleveland’s lights shrank into a distant constellation below.
I sat by the window of the cabin, sipping a cup of warm chamomile tea that an attendant had quietly prepared, watching the clouds drift past the wingtip. The navy-blue dress I had worn to the Shaker Heights mansion hung in the garment locker at the back of the cabin; tomorrow, it would be thrown away, along with every other reminder of the woman who thought she had to starve her own soul to keep a fragile marriage alive.
My phone buzzed on the mahogany table before me.
It was a text message from an unknown number—a burner line.
Phoebe... please. I'm begging you. The federal agents are seizing everything. They froze my personal accounts. I have nowhere to go. Please talk to your father. Just one word from you and he'll call off the auditors. Please... I'm sorry. I was a fool.
I stared at the screen for three seconds.
Then, without a trace of emotion, I blocked the number, deleted the thread, and laid the phone face down on the table.
Across the aisle, my father looked up from his tablet, a faint, knowing smile touching his lips. "Problem, sweetheart?"
"No problem at all, Dad," I replied, turning my gaze back toward the vast, open horizon where the first faint streaks of dawn were beginning to paint the edge of the stratosphere in brilliant shades of gold and rose. "Just spam."
Raymond Harrell chuckled softly, raising his crystal glass of scotch in a silent toast. "To new beginnings."
"To empires built to last," I answered, raising my teacup to meet his.
May you like
As the jet roared through the upper atmosphere, carrying me back to Chicago, back to my true home, and back to a future where I would never again make myself small for anyone, I knew that the night of the Apex Gala would go down in financial history as the night the wolf learned who truly owned the forest.
And as for me? I was finally home.
