Chapter 9 - A New Horizon
By the following week, the corporate restructuring of Vantage Meridian was complete, making international headlines across the financial press.
Articles in the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times analyzed the lightning-fast hostile takeover, praising the anonymous mastermind behind the multi-billion-dollar corporate maneuver. None of the journalists knew my face yet. None of them knew the personal devastation that had forged the steel behind the corporate strategy.
And that was exactly how I wanted it.
I didn't need the spotlight. I didn't need the applause of high-society galas or the validation of people who only loved success.
On a quiet Friday afternoon, I packed a small leather travel bag, locked the penthouse door behind me, and drove down to the private airfield on the edge of the city. A sleek twin-engine private jet waited on the tarmac, its turbine engines humming softly in the afternoon sun.
The pilot greeted me with a crisp salute as I stepped up the aluminum stairs.
"Afternoon, ma'am. Where are we heading today?"
I smiled, settling comfortably into the leather seat beside the cockpit window and fastening my seatbelt.
May you like
"North," I said simply. "Toward the mountains."
As the jet accelerated down the runway and lifted gracefully into the bright blue sky, the city below shrank into a grid of tiny, insignificant squares. I watched the horizon open up before us, endless and unobstructed.
