Chapter 1 - The Ascent To Olympus
The Gulfstream G650 banked smoothly over the rugged, evergreen expanse of the Olympic Peninsula, descending toward the private tarmac outside Seattle. Down below, the sapphire waters of Puget Sound caught the afternoon sun, framed by snow-capped peaks and endless stands of ancient cedar. Inside the cabin, the hum of the twin Rolls-Royce engines was a muted, soothing purr against the plush cream leather and polished walnut trim.
I took a slow sip of sparkling mineral water, watching the mist curl around the wingtips. Just seven hours earlier, I had stood on the rain-slicked steps of the New York County Supreme Court in lower Manhattan. Harrison had held a black nylon umbrella over Khloe's blow-dried blonde hair, letting the cold autumn drizzle soak into the wool of my trench coat. He had looked down at me with that patronizing, pitying smirk—the expression of a mediocre man convinced he had outmaneuvered a chess grandmaster.
“A woman shouldn’t obsess over building an empire, Caroline. Cash out while you can.”
The memory made a quiet, dry chuckle rise in my throat. Harrison had lived with me for five years in that Brooklyn brownstone, completely oblivious to reality. He knew I worked in high finance, but because I never flaunted designer logos, never posted lavish vacations on Instagram, and routinely worked in faded cashmere sweaters at the kitchen island, he had categorized me in his narrow mind as a mid-level corporate drone. When I agreed to let him take the four-million-dollar brownstone, the Tesla Model S, and the seven hundred thousand dollars sitting in our joint checking account, he genuinely believed he had bled me dry.
He didn't know that the joint checking account was merely the household allowance I funded to cover our groceries, utilities, and his endless golf club memberships.
My phone chimed softly from the marble console beside me. The screen lit up with an encrypted message from Carter, my chief of staff, who had managed my private family office for nearly a decade.
“Touchdown in ten minutes, Miss Vance. The motorcade is on the apron. Director Hayes and the investment banking syndicate from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs have arrived at the Mercer Island estate. The pre-IPO valuation models are finalized. The initial pricing range has exceeded our internal forecasts by eighteen percent.”
I tapped a brief reply: “Have the regulatory press releases ready for five a.m. Eastern. No leaks before the opening bell.”
When the jet touched down, the deceleration pressed me gently into the seat. The stairs lowered, and the crisp, cedar-scented Pacific Northwest air rushed into the cabin, washing away the lingering, stagnant smell of wet Manhattan pavement and Harrison’s cheap sandalwood cologne.
At the bottom of the airstair stood Carter, impeccably tailored in a charcoal three-piece suit, holding open the door of a midnight-black armored Maybach. Beside him, two executive protection specialists in dark suits stood at crisp attention.
"Welcome home, Miss Vance," Carter said, offering a respectful nod as he took my leather briefcase. "I trust your flight was restful?"
"It was remarkably clarifying, Carter," I said, stepping into the back seat. "Did the final filings clear the SEC review?"
Carter closed the door and slid into the front passenger seat as the car glided effortlessly past the private hangar gates. "Every single docket cleared without comment, ma'am. Vance Holdings and its biotech umbrella, NexaCore Therapeutics, are officially cleared for listing on the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow morning under the ticker VANC. The opening valuation is set at twelve point four billion dollars."
I leaned back against the headrest, looking out at the towering Douglas firs lining the highway. For five years, I had deliberately kept my family lineage and corporate identity entirely separate from my marriage. My late grandfather had taught me that wealth was meant to be built in silence and deployed with precision. When I met Harrison at an alumni mixer in Boston, he was an ambitious commercial real estate leasing broker who talked endlessly about his dreams of making partner. I had loved him for his energy, his hunger, and what I mistakenly thought was genuine affection.
To protect him from feeling overshadowed, I had kept my family’s multi-generational enterprise tucked behind private trust structures. I had lived simply, supported his career, introduced him to clients who secretly handed him lucrative commission deals because they worked for my subsidiaries, and allowed him to believe he was the primary breadwinner because he brought home a two-hundred-thousand-dollar bonus once a year.
And his gratitude had been taking my four-million-dollar home, moving his twenty-four-year-old administrative assistant into our master bedroom, and telling me I was too cold to be loved.
"Carter," I said, my voice smooth and calm.
"Yes, Miss Vance?"
"Harrison’s commercial brokerage firm, Sterling & Croft. What is their current relationship with our downtown properties?"
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Carter glanced down at his tablet, a faint, razor-sharp smile touching the corner of his lips. "Sterling & Croft currently leases four floors in the Vance Financial Tower on Wall Street, and their firm manages the exclusive commercial leasing contract for our midtown portfolio. That single contract accounts for sixty-two percent of their corporate revenue. And as of last Friday, Harrison was named the lead account director on that file."
"Excellent," I murmured, watching the sun dip behind the Olympic mountains, painting the sky in deep shades of gold and violet. "Have our property management arm issue a formal notice of contract non-renewal at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. Let him find out what happens when the machine he mocked stops paying his rent."
