Chapter 2 THE RETURN OF THE VALKYRIE

The private jet sliced through the heavy fog over London, descending toward the city like a predatory bird. Inside the plush, cream-leather cabin, the woman formerly known as Seraphina Sinclair-now simply Serafina Thorne-didn't look at the window. Her eyes were fixed on a holographic tablet displaying the plummeting stock prices of Sinclair Industries.

"They're bleeding, Ma'am," a sharp-suited man sitting across from her noted. "Dominic Sinclair has overextended his margins trying to cover his mistress's latest jewelry scandal. He needs an emergency capital injection by Friday, or the board will force a fire sale."

Serafina swirled a glass of vintage red wine, her movements graceful and lethal. She wasn't the girl who cooked five-course meals for a man who never came home. She was dressed in a tailored, blood-red power suit, her dark hair cut into a sharp, sophisticated bob that framed her high cheekbones.

"Let him bleed a little longer," Serafina said, her voice like velvet wrapped around a blade. "I want him to feel the walls closing in before I offer him a hand to pull him out. I want him to know exactly whose hand it is."

"And the boy?" the assistant asked softly.

Serafina's expression softened for a fraction of a second as she glanced at a sleeping figure in the back of the cabin. Five-year-old Leo was curled up with a tablet, his dark, wavy hair falling over a forehead that was a mirror image of the man who had discarded his mother. At only five, the boy was already a math prodigy, possessing a cold, analytical mind that had helped his mother build her empire's security protocols.

"Leo stays at the hotel with the security team," she commanded. "Dominic Sinclair doesn't even deserve to breathe the same air as my son. Not yet."

The jet touched down, and thirty minutes later, Serafina was stepping into a black Maybach. The city of London had made her, but this return to her roots wasn't about nostalgia. It was about an execution.

Her phone buzzed. It was a message from the Sinclair Industries' lead board member, a man she had secretly bribed months ago.

'Dominic is desperate. He's agreed to meet the CEO of Valkyrie Holdings at the gala tonight. He thinks you're his savior.'

A chilling smile touched Serafina's lips. She remembered the rain. She remembered the wine-stained check for two million dollars. She remembered being called a "placeholder."

"Savior?" she whispered to herself, looking at her reflection in the darkened window. "No, Dominic. I'm the storm you thought you could survive."