Chapter 3 - The Flight to Freedom
At that exact moment, thirty thousand feet above the dark, shimmering expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, the cabin of the private Gulfstream G550 was quiet, save for the soft, steady hum of the jet engines.
I sat in a wide, cream leather captain's chair, a cup of Earl Grey tea resting on the polished walnut table beside me.
Across from me sat my two daughters, ten-year-old Sophia and eight-year-old Chloe. They were curled up together under a cashmere blanket, their faces soft and peaceful in sleep, their favorite books resting on their laps. For eleven years, their lives had been defined by the silent tension of our home in Scottsdale—by the constant, exhausting pressure to be perfect, quiet, and invisible so as not to disturb their father’s delicate ego.
Now, as the jet carried us farther and farther away from Arizona, I could see the physical relief in the relaxed curve of their shoulders. They were finally safe.
My phone, connected to the plane’s high-speed satellite Wi-Fi, vibrated softly on the table. It was a text message from Robert, my family’s legal counsel in Zurich.
The transfer is complete, Catherine. The Swiss accounts have been successfully consolidated under your maiden name, Von Bernberg. The deeds to the estate in Munich and the villa in St. Moritz have been cleared of any potential cross-claims from the Coleman divorce. You are entirely insulated.
I smiled, taking a slow sip of my tea.
David had believed he was marrying a quiet, middle-class graphic designer from Chicago. He had never asked about my family’s background because he was too busy talking about his own minor real estate successes. He never knew that my father was the director of one of the oldest private banking dynasties in Bavaria, or that the "graphic design business" I ran was actually a highly exclusive architectural consulting firm that catered to European royalty.
To David, I was just a "used-up housewife." He had signed the divorce decree believing he was leaving me with a small, state-mandated settlement of two hundred thousand dollars and a modest sedan.
He didn't know that three weeks ago, I had quietly liquidated my personal business assets and transferred them to my family's trust in Switzerland. He also didn't know that the Scottsdale condo he had fought so viciously to keep in the divorce was actually leased through a shell company owned by my family—a lease that was scheduled to expire at midnight tonight.
My phone vibrated again. This time, it was an email notification from the Scottsdale court registry.
The final, certified copy of the divorce decree had been uploaded to the public portal. It was official. I was no longer Catherine Coleman. I was Catherine Von Bernberg.
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I leaned back in my seat, looking out the window at the endless, starlit sky. The clouds below us looked like a field of snow in the moonlight. I felt a deep, profound sense of peace settle into my chest—a feeling I hadn't experienced since the day I stood at the altar and promised to love a man who would eventually try to destroy me.
"What isn't yours," I whispered to the empty cabin, repeating the words I had left with David at the mediator’s office, "you eventually have to return."
