I watched my father drug my champagne at my own graduation party — so I handed the glass straight to his favorite daughter instead.

Richard’s extradition and trial happened faster than anyone expected.

He didn’t even fight it.

When the RCMP handed him over to US Marshals at the border, he was a broken man.

Disheveled.

Defeated.

All the arrogance, all the cold calculation, all the power was gone.

Just a tired, scared old man who’d lost everything.

He pled guilty to all charges on the first day of the trial.

Attempted murder.

Aggravated embezzlement.

Fraud.

Conspiracy.

Twenty-seven counts in total.

The judge didn’t hesitate.

He sentenced Richard to forty-five years in a maximum-security federal prison.

With no chance of parole.

Richard would be ninety years old before he got out.

He’d die behind bars.

Everyone knew it.

The day of the sentencing, all three of us were in the courtroom.

We sat in the front row, holding hands, while the judge read the verdict.

Richard didn’t look at us once.

He kept his head down, staring at his hands the whole time.

When the bailiffs led him away in handcuffs, he never glanced back.

Outside the courthouse, the press was waiting.

Dozens of reporters, cameras flashing, microphones shoved in our faces.

Detective Carter had warned us this would happen.

She’d offered to sneak us out the back.

But we’d decided together.

We weren’t going to hide anymore.

We weren’t going to be ashamed.

I stepped up to the bank of microphones first, my mother and Madison flanking me.

The noise died down instantly.

“Good afternoon,” I said, my voice clear and steady.

“On behalf of my mother, my sister, and the entire Brooks family… I want to thank the FBI, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and especially Detective Carter and her team for their tireless work to bring Richard Brooks to justice. What he did was unforgivable. He betrayed his family. He betrayed his employees. He betrayed the legacy my grandfather built with his own two hands.”

I paused, looking directly into the nearest camera.

“But today isn’t about Richard. It’s about the future. A future without secrets. Without lies. Without fear. My sister, my mother, and I are united. We are going to rebuild Brooks Industries into the company my grandfather always intended it to be. One that honors its employees. Its customers. And its community. We will recover every dollar that was stolen. We will fix every mistake that was made. And we will come out of this stronger than we’ve ever been. Thank you.”

I stepped back.

Madison squeezed my hand.

The reporters shouted more questions, but the three of us turned and walked away as one, our heads held high.

The next few months were the hardest, most rewarding work I’d ever done.

We worked eighteen-hour days, seven days a week.

We tracked down every last cent of the embezzled money—all forty million, plus interest, recovered from Richard’s frozen offshore accounts.

We restructured the failing subsidiaries, saving over four hundred jobs that Richard had been ready to throw away.

We implemented strict new financial controls, regular independent audits, and a company-wide ethics hotline so nothing like what Richard had done could ever happen again.

Slowly, surely, the company turned around.

Our stock price, which had plummeted when the scandal broke, climbed back up.

Higher than it had ever been under Richard.

The employees were happy again.

Proud to work there.

The customers came back.

And then new ones came.

People respected what we were doing.

They respected that we’d taken responsibility instead of making excuses.

Madison thrived in her new role.

She launched the Brooks Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth and survivors of domestic and family abuse.

She traveled the country, speaking at shelters, raising money, sharing our story.

She turned our pain into something that helped thousands of other people going through the same thing.

She was on the cover of three magazines that year.

Not for being a rich socialite.

For being a philanthropist.

A leader.

A survivor.

My mother threw herself into her work as well.

She’d put her own career on hold twenty-five years earlier to be a full-time wife and mother.

Now she was using her degree in organizational psychology to completely rebuild the company’s HR department, creating mentorship programs, mental health benefits, and flexible work policies that made Brooks Industries one of the top-rated places to work in the entire country.

And me?

I found I loved running the company.

I loved the strategy.

The problem-solving.

The feeling that I was honoring my grandfather’s trust in me.

I still loved literature, still read three books a week, still dreamed of getting that master’s degree someday.

But this was where I was needed now.

This was where I belonged.

Six months to the day after Richard was sentenced, we stood in the main lobby of Brooks Industries again.

The big gold sign with our name on it had been polished until it gleamed.

All four hundred employees were there, packed shoulder to shoulder, holding glasses of sparkling cider.

Arthur Hale, who’d agreed to stay on as my number two and mentor, tapped his glass with a spoon.

The room went quiet.

“Six months ago,” he said, his voice ringing through the lobby, “most people thought this company was dead. Finished. Ruined by one man’s greed. But they didn’t count on these three women.”

He gestured to my mother, Madison, and me.

“They didn’t count on Natalie’s brilliance and steady hand. They didn’t count on Eleanor’s heart and wisdom. They didn’t count on Madison’s passion and ability to make everyone around her believe in a better future. Today, Brooks Industries is stronger than it has ever been in its fifty-year history. Profits are up twenty-eight percent. Employee satisfaction is at an all-time high. And most importantly—we are a company we can all be proud of again. So please… join me in a toast. To the Brooks women. Long may they lead.”

“To the Brooks women!” the whole room cheered.

We clinked our glasses.

I looked around at all the smiling faces.

At my mother, wiping happy tears from her eyes.

At Madison, laughing as she hugged Arthur.

At all the people whose jobs we’d saved, whose lives we’d made better.

For the first time in as long as I could remember…

I didn’t feel like the second-best daughter.

I didn’t feel like the disappointment.

I didn’t feel scared.

I felt proud.