“Unfortunately.”
She gave me a sad smile.
“They always know exactly where to hurt you.”
I looked toward the curtain separating us from first class.
Patricia’s laughter floated back.
After my mother died, Patricia married my father within ten months.
Then she slowly rearranged everything.
The house.
The holidays.
The family story.
My mother’s photographs disappeared into storage.
My father’s will changed.
Mason became “the son who stayed.”
I became “the difficult daughter who left.”
But I hadn’t disappeared because I failed.
I left because my mother’s aviation company was quietly bleeding from the inside.
And I found the leak.
Bennett Aero Holdings leased aircraft, financed regional carriers, and controlled a major stake in Silverline Airways.
The very airline we were sitting on.
My mother had built Bennett Aero before she ever married my father.
After she died, Patricia assumed my father controlled everything.
She had never bothered to read the trust documents.
