My husband put his secretary in my seat on my own private jet, then looked me in the eye and told me to remember my place

The counter-strike was brutal, swift, and catastrophic for the Sterling empire.

Within four hours of our strike from Saint-Moritz, Sterling Energy had lost eleven billion dollars in market capitalization. Banks from Frankfurt to Tokyo were executing automated margin calls, freezing Arthur Sterling’s personal credit lines and impounding his corporate assets.

Back in New York, the ripples reached the darkest corners of Grant’s pathetic network.

Inside a high-end luxury boutique on Madison Avenue, Sabrina was frantically trying to use her black Amex card to buy gold bullion. She had sensed the walls closing in the moment Grant was arrested, but she had assumed her secret benefactor—Arthur Sterling’s intermediary—would wire her promised payoff to a numbered account in Monaco.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the boutique manager said politely, sliding the card back across the glass counter. "The transaction has been declined. The account has been placed under a federal freeze."

"That's impossible!" Sabrina shrieked, her immaculate makeup cracking under sheer panic. "Run it again! My client is Arthur Sterling! Do you know who he is?"

Two plainclothes detectives stepped out from behind the velvet curtains of the VIP lounge, accompanied by Marcus.

"Ms. Sabrina Cole?" Marcus asked, flashing a private investigator badge alongside the federal warrants. "You’re under arrest for interstate wire fraud, corporate espionage, and complicity in grand larceny."

Sabrina dropped her designer handbag, tears of pure terror flooding her eyes. "No! I didn't steal anything! Grant did it! Grant was the CEO, he signed all the checks! I was just his assistant!"

"You were an unregistered foreign agent acting on behalf of an offshore syndicate," Marcus corrected coldly, clicking steel handcuffs around her manicured wrists. "And Madame Vance wanted me to give you a personal message before you go to the Tombs."

Sabrina looked up, trembling, her pride completely shattered. "What message?"

Marcus leaned in close. "She said: *'Remember your place.'*"

Meanwhile, three thousand miles away in the private terminal of Geneva, I stepped out of our armored convoy, walking toward my Gulfstream. Daniel walked beside me, carrying the encrypted drive containing the full financial anatomy of our enemies.

The morning sun reflected brilliantly off the snow-covered runway. The storm that had followed us across the Atlantic had broken, replaced by clear, brilliant blue.

"Sabrina has been detained," Daniel reported, shutting his phone. "Grant has already agreed to enter a guilty plea on all twenty-six counts of grand larceny in exchange for protective custody. He's giving the Department of Justice every document he ever signed under Laurent's direction."

"And Arthur Sterling?" I asked.

"Holed up in his estate on Lake Geneva," Daniel said. "He’s barricaded behind thirty private security contractors. Swiss federal police have surrounded the gates, but because of his diplomatic status with three foreign nations, they cannot enter without a signed judicial decree from the Federal Supreme Court in Lausanne."

"Which will take weeks," I said, stepping onto the jet's stairs.

"Ordinarily, yes," Daniel smiled faintly. "Unless the owner of the estate revokes his diplomatic residential lease."

I paused on the stairs, turning back to look at him with raised eyebrows. "Don't tell me."

"Henry Vance bought the ground lease on Sterling’s Lake Geneva estate in 1998," Daniel revealed. "Arthur built his palace on land owned by your family’s holding company. You don't need a police raid to throw him out, Claire. You just need to shut off the power, lock the gates, and evict him as a trespasser."

A slow, brilliant laugh escaped my lips. "My father truly thought of everything."