Chapter 10 - The Ultimate VictoryOne year after the graduation that changed everything, I stood on the balcony of my new apartment in downtown Washington, D.C., holding a steaming cup of coffee as the morning sun broke over the skyline.
On the coffee table behind me, resting inside a protective glass frame, sat my Westbridge Military Academy diploma, summa cum laude, right beside the original red-wax-sealed manila folder that had brought an empire of lies crashing down.
My phone buzzed against the wooden table.
It was a text message from Paige, now working as an investigative journalist in Chicago: “Just saw the front-page story on the federal asset auction. The last of your father's corporate assets officially cleared today. You're completely free, Audrey.”
I smiled, typing back a simple reply: “I was free the moment I picked up my cap from that courtyard.”
I looked down at my wrist, where my service watch ticked steadily forward into a future I had built entirely with my own hands, my own sweat, and my own unbreakable resolve.
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They had tried to bury me in the dark.
Instead, I had used their own corruption as the fuel to launch myself into the light. And the world was finally watching.
