CRAVING DADDY'S BEST FRIEND

Chapter Thirty Two: The Zurich Transport

Abigail Macron

The private tarmac at LAX was a blinding, desolate expanse of grey concrete under the midday sun. The Gulfstream G650—the very aircraft from the Tokyo infrared printout—sat waiting, its twin engines already whining with a low, impatient rumble that vibrated straight through the soles of my boots.

I didn't have luggage. My father’s staff had packed three suitcases from the estate and sent them ahead. Two of his personal security drivers flanked me like prison guards, their faces entirely blank behind their mirrored aviator sunglasses as they guided me up the mechanical steps of the plane.

"Have a safe flight, Miss Macron," the lead guard said, his voice flat as he stepped back onto the tarmac.

The heavy cabin door sealed shut with a hydraulic hiss, cutting off the dry California heat and replacing it with the pressurized, leather-scented chill of the interior. I stood in the narrow aisle, my heart hammering against my ribs, half-expecting to see my father sitting in the VIP club chairs.

The cabin was empty.

I collapsed into the deep cream leather seat, my hands trembling as I buckled the heavy silver seatbelt. Outside the window, the Los Angeles skyline looked like a distant, hazy mirage as the jet began its taxi toward the runway. No phone. No internet. The flight attendants had politely but firmly confiscated my device before we even cleared the airport perimeter, placing it in a secure lockbox at the front of the aircraft. I was completely cast out, floating in a multi-million-dollar vacuum toward an alpine exile.

Ten minutes later, the jet tore down the runway and launched into the cloudless blue sky, tilting sharply over the Pacific Ocean before straightening its nose toward the Atlantic.

I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window, tears of pure, suffocating frustration finally hot against my cheeks. The emerald silk from the gala, the cold slate desk from the executive floor, the rough, bruising weight of Caleb’s hands—it all felt like a lifetime ago, a beautiful, ruinous dream that had disintegrated the moment my father’s hand hit the mahogany table.

Where was Caleb? Had they actually put him in handcuffs? His being forced into the back of a secure vehicle made my stomach do a violent, painful flip. He had lost everything—his equity, his legacy, his position as the vanguard of the empire.

The hours bled together into a numbing, endless blur of blue sky and dark ocean. The flight attendants served meals I didn't touch, their movements quiet and deferential, though we all knew I was a prisoner in a gilded cage.

By the time the pilot announced our descent, the silver light of dawn was breaking over the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Swiss Alps. The plane touched down at the private airfield outside Zurich, the tires striking the damp tarmac with a sharp, echoing screech.

A sleek, black armored sedan was waiting right on the runway.

I was escorted down the steps and directly into the back seat, the door clicking shut with that same vacuum-sealed finality I had learned to despise. The driver, an older Swiss man with a military posture, didn't say a word as he shifted the car into drive, steering us away from the city and up into the winding, pine-choked roads of the mountain ridge.

The Macron Zurich estate was a brutalist fortress of glass, dark slate, and reinforced concrete, built directly into the side of a sheer rock face overlooking the grey, mist-shrouded waters of the lake below. It was a place my father used for high-security international negotiations—and now, it was my prison.

The car cleared the heavy steel security gates, grinding to a halt in the courtyard. The house manager, a stern woman named Greta, opened my door.

"Welcome, Miss Macron," she said, her English precise and icy. "Your father has instructed that you have full access to the grounds and the gym, but the external communication lines are entirely disabled. If you require anything, you may ask me."

I didn't answer. I walked past her, my heels clicking softly against the cold slate floor of the grand foyer, heading straight up the floating staircase to the master suite. The room was beautiful, sterile, and freezing cold, dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the sweeping, empty expanse of the valley.

I walked over to the glass, leaning my forehead against the freezing pane, looking down at the dark pine forest that stretched out for miles beneath the estate. There was nothing out there but silence and stone.

I turned away from the window, pulling the heavy wool blanket off the bed to wrap around my shivering shoulders. But as I pulled the fabric back, something caught my eye.

Lying perfectly in the center of the crisp, white linen pillowcase was a single object.

It wasn't a corporate folder. It was a heavy, custom-milled brass paperweight—the exact design from my father's library desk in Los Angeles. And tucked beneath it was a small, torn scrap of manila paper with a single line written in a heavy, familiar, and unyielding script:

The board meeting is over, kiddo. The takeover has just begun.

My breath hitched completely in my throat, a sudden, blinding wave of heat crashing through my veins as I gripped the piece of paper. He was here. Or he was coming. The vanguard hadn't been destroyed; he had just moved the war to a different continent.