“Dad… come get me—and bring everything they never saw coming.”

The private aviation terminal at Teterboro Airport was a stark contrast to the chaotic energy of commercial travel. Sleek, multimillion-dollar jets rested on the tarmac like resting birds of prey, their wings gleaming under the harsh halogen floodlights of the private hangars.

The Maybach rolled directly onto the tarmac, stopping just a few feet from the rolling aluminum stairs of a Gulfstream G650 bearing the subtle, unbranded tail numbers of the Sterling Holding Trust.

As I stepped out of the car, the freezing wind whipped my hair across my face, but I barely noticed.

Standing at the bottom of the aircraft stairs was my father.

He wasn't wearing a custom Brioni suit or diamond cuff links. He wore his usual attire: a dark flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, sturdy denim jeans, and scuffed leather boots. His face was weathered by decades of hard work in industrial steel plants and construction sites, but his eyes—sharp, intelligent, and fiercely protective—shone bright in the glare of the hangar lights.

He didn't say a word as I walked up to him. He simply opened his arms and pulled me into a tight, grounding embrace.

“You okay, sweet girl?” my father murmured, his voice rough with emotion as he felt the faint swelling on my cheek where Prescott had struck me.

“I’m better than okay, Dad,” I whispered, resting my head against his shoulder for a brief second before pulling back. “The accounts are frozen. The indictments are signed. The Prescott empire is officially history.”

My father let out a low, rumbling chuckle, shaking his head. “I told you years ago, letting those pompous fools play dress-up in their glass towers was a waste of good time. But you wanted to give him a chance.”

“I gave him five years,” I replied, a cold smile touching my lips. “He squandered every single minute of it.”

“Come on,” my father said, gently resting a hand on the small of my back as we ascended the metal stairs. “Let’s go home. Switzerland is lovely this time of year, and we have a board meeting in Zurich on Monday morning to discuss acquiring their remaining commercial real estate portfolio for pennies on the dollar.”

I paused at the top of the stairs, turning back for one final look at the glittering skyline of Manhattan in the distance.

Somewhere out there, in a cold holding cell downtown, Randolph and Prescott were realizing that the girl they had thrown away wasn't charity at all.

She was the executioner.