At my billionaire father’s funeral, my husband arrived with his mistress, threw divorce papers in my face, and sneered, “Did you really think I married you for love?

Later that evening, after the gala had concluded and the guests had drifted out into the Chicago night, I returned to my office at Hawthorne Tower to review one final document before heading home.

The penthouse apartment was mine again—not as a marital home, but as a sanctuary of absolute autonomy. The company was stronger than ever. My father’s memory was honored, protected, and secure.

I sat at my desk, looking down at the framed photograph of my father and me taken when I graduated from Wharton School of Business years ago. He was smiling proudly, his hand resting on my shoulder.

“You’re smarter than all of them, Elena,” he had whispered to me that day. “Never let anyone make you forget it.”

I smiled back at the photograph, tracing the edge of the silver frame with my finger.

Derek Vance was currently sitting in a federal prison cell thousands of miles away, spending his days scrubbing floors and reflecting on the cost of greed. Vanessa Cole was counting down the years in a women’s correctional facility. They were footnotes in a chapter of my life that had already been permanently closed and archived.

I stood up, smoothed down the skirt of my gown, and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.