After Being Fired, the Single Dad Made One Call: “Fire Every One of Them!” Now

An hour later, Tom’s beat-up sedan pulled up to the front of Lily’s elementary school.

The rain had cleared, leaving the Seattle air crisp and clean.

He waited by the chain-link fence as the bell rang.

A few moments later, Lily came running out, her bright yellow raincoat flapping behind her, her blonde curls bouncing.

“Daddy!” she yelled, throwing her arms around his legs.

Tom scooped her up, burying his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of strawberries and rain.

For a moment, the billions of dollars, the corporate espionage, the arrests—it all melted away.

He was just a father holding his entire world.

“Hey, ladybug,” he whispered, holding her tight.

“How was school?”

“Good! We painted! Did you bring pizza?”

“Better,” Tom smiled, carrying her toward a sleek, black, armored SUV that had silently pulled up behind his old sedan.

A chauffeur in a dark suit stood by the open door.

“We’re going to take a trip, Lily. A big trip.”

Lily looked at the massive car, her eyes wide.

“Are we going in that?”

“We are. And then we’re going to fly on a very special airplane. You’re going to see Aunt Victoria in New York, and we’re going to see a really nice doctor who’s going to help your breathing get all better.”

“Will it hurt?” she asked, clutching his collar.

“No, sweetie. Daddy’s got you. I promise.”

Tom buckled her into the luxurious leather backseat.

He slid in next to her.

The driver smoothly pulled away from the curb, leaving the battered sedan behind forever.

Twenty minutes later, the SUV bypassed the main terminals of Sea-Tac Airport and drove directly onto the tarmac of Boeing Field.

Waiting for them was *Kensington One*, a massive, custom-built Gulfstream G650ER.

The tail was painted midnight blue with a subtle silver ‘K’.

A private medical team was already waiting at the base of the stairs, smiling warmly at Lily as Tom carried her up.

Inside, the jet was a palace of cream leather, polished mahogany, and state-of-the-art medical monitoring equipment cleverly disguised as luxury recliners.

Once Lily was settled in the back cabin, happily watching a cartoon on a massive screen with a pediatric nurse beside her, Tom walked to the front of the plane.

He poured himself a glass of water, his hands finally shaking a little as the adrenaline of the day began to wear off.

The encrypted satellite phone in his pocket vibrated.

He pulled it out.

It was Victoria again.

“Are you in the air yet?” she asked.

“Just taxiing,” Tom replied, sinking into a plush leather seat.

“Lily’s doing great. She’s excited to see you.”

“Good. Because I need you in New York yesterday, Thomas.” The warmth was gone from Victoria’s voice, replaced by the razor-sharp tone of a wartime CEO.

Tom sat up straight, the fatigue vanishing.

“What’s wrong?”

“The forensic team didn’t stop with Chad Montgomery,” Victoria said, the sound of furious keyboard clacking in the background.

“When they cracked Chad’s accounts, they found a secondary ledger hidden beneath his petty embezzlement. Chad wasn’t just stealing to go to Vegas. He was funneling massive amounts of Meridian Logistical data—client routes, pricing algorithms, our entire Pacific Northwest strategy—to a shell corporation.”

Tom’s eyes narrowed.

“Corporate espionage? Who owns the shell company?”

“It gets worse,” Victoria said grimly.

“The shell company is a front for Apex Global, our biggest competitor. And the money they paid Chad for the data wasn’t going into his bank account. It was being routed to an offshore trust owned by his father, Robert Montgomery.”

Tom gripped the phone tighter.

Robert Montgomery was the best friend of Arthur Garrison, Kensington’s Vice President of West Coast Operations.

“Arthur is involved,” Tom said, the pieces instantly snapping together in his tactical mind.

“Arthur approved all of Chad’s promotions,” Victoria confirmed.

“Arthur bypassed corporate oversight to keep Richard Davies in power because Richard was too stupid to realize Chad was stealing data right under his nose. Thomas… Arthur Garrison is trying to orchestrate a hostile buyout of the entire western division by tanking our logistics contracts from the inside. We have a massive rat in the upper echelon.”

Tom looked out the window as the jet engines roared to life, the plane lifting off the wet Seattle runway, piercing through the gray clouds into the brilliant sunlight above.

He had wanted to stay hidden.

He had wanted peace.

But they had come for his daughter’s safety, and in doing so, they had woken up the monster that built the empire.

“Arthur Garrison is attending the annual shareholder gala in Manhattan on Friday, isn’t he?” Tom asked, his voice cold as liquid nitrogen.

“He is. He expects to present the West Coast losses to the board and blame regional mismanagement.”

“Let him,” Tom said softly.

“Let him stand up in front of the board. Because I’m going to be sitting at the head of that table.”

“Are we going to war, Thomas?”

Tom watched the Seattle skyline shrink beneath them.

“No, Victoria. It’s an extermination.”

The pediatric wing of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City was a sanctuary of hushed voices, bright pastel walls, and the world’s leading medical minds.

For the first time in three years, Thomas Kensington was not worried about a co-pay, a deductible, or an out-of-network charge.

He had simply handed the hospital administrator a black titanium American Express card and told them to prepare the premier private suite.

Dr. Harrison Miller, the nation’s top pediatric pulmonologist, stepped out of Lily’s room, pulling his surgical mask down.

He offered Tom a warm, reassuring smile.

“The procedure was flawless, Mr. Kensington,” Dr. Miller said, shaking Tom’s hand.

“We removed the localized scar tissue obstructing her lower bronchi. Her oxygen saturation is already at ninety-nine percent. With a few weeks of targeted physical therapy, she will be running, swimming, and playing without a single restriction.”

Tom closed his eyes, the crushing weight of a thousand sleepless nights finally lifting off his chest.

“Thank you, Doctor. More than I can ever express.”

“She’s asking for you,” the doctor smiled, stepping aside.

Tom walked into the room.

Lily was propped up on a bed of fluffy pillows, an array of monitors humming quietly in the background.

But her skin, usually pale and drawn, already had a rosy, vibrant flush.

“Daddy,” she grinned, holding up a small stuffed bear the nurses had given her.

“I breathed deep. It didn’t hurt.”

Tom sat on the edge of the bed, carefully pulling her into a gentle hug.

“I knew you could do it, brave girl. You rest up now. Aunt Victoria is bringing you all the ice cream in Manhattan as soon as you wake up from your nap.”

Lily yawned, her eyelids drooping under the residual effects of the anesthesia.

“Are you going to the big building again, Daddy?”

“I am,” Tom said softly, his hazel eyes darkening with a fierce, protective resolve.

“But I’m not fetching coffee this time, ladybug. Daddy has to go fix some things.”

He waited until she fell into a deep, healing sleep.

Then, Tom stood up and walked out into the corridor.

Two towering men in tailored black suits—Kensington Elite Security—nodded respectfully as he passed.

“No one gets on this floor without my direct authorization,” Tom instructed the lead guard.

“Not hospital staff, not board members. No one.”

“Understood, sir,” the guard replied instantly.

Tom took the private elevator down to the underground parking garage, where a waiting Maybach transported him to the glass-and-steel monolith of Kensington Tower in lower Manhattan.

When Tom stepped out of the private penthouse elevator on the 80th floor, Victoria was waiting for him.

She didn’t say a word.

She simply handed him a heavy crystal tumbler of twenty-year-old Macallan and led him into her cavernous office.

Laid out on her massive mahogany desk was a custom-tailored, midnight-blue Tom Ford suit.

Next to it was a platinum Patek Philippe watch—the exact watch Clara had given him on their fifth wedding anniversary.

“The frayed beige trench coat served its purpose, Thomas,” Victoria said smoothly, taking a sip of her own drink.

“But if you are walking into the annual shareholder meeting in three hours, you need to look like the apex predator you are.”

Tom unbuttoned his cheap, synthetic-blend shirt, tossing it into a nearby trash can.

He began to dress in silence.

The perfectly cut Italian wool slipped over his shoulders like armor.

He fastened the platinum watch to his wrist.

When he turned to face the floor-to-ceiling mirror, the transformation was absolute.

The beaten-down, invisible data analyst was dead.

The majority shareholder had resurrected.

“Have the auditors finished compiling the data on Arthur Garrison?” Tom asked, adjusting his silk tie.

Victoria walked over to a secure terminal and hit a key.

A massive screen on the wall illuminated, detailing a complex web of financial transfers.

“It’s worse than we thought,” Victoria stated, pointing to the screen.

“Arthur Garrison and Robert Montgomery didn’t just steal data. They engaged in a systematic campaign to devalue Meridian Logistics so Apex Global có purchase our infrastructure for pennies on the dollar.”

Victoria tapped a button, bringing up a bulleted list of the damage:

* Sabotaged Supply Routes: Arthur deliberately rerouted high-yield freight through heavily congested rail lines, intentionally incurring late fees to artificially inflate operating costs.

* Fabricated Fleet Maintenance: He authorized $4.2 million in phantom repairs for delivery trucks that never went into the shop.

* The Horizon Contract: This was their final play.

They intended for Chad to botch the presentation, lose the $20 million contract, and send the quarterly projections into a fatal tailspin.

“You saved that contract, Thomas,” Victoria looked at him, her eyes gleaming with predatory pride.

“By doing Chad’s job, you accidentally delayed their entire hostile takeover.”

“Where is Arthur now?” Tom asked.

“Downstairs, in the executive boardroom,” Victoria replied, checking her diamond-encrusted watch.

“He’s currently serving caviar to the board of directors. He plans to take the floor at 2:00 PM, present the manufactured losses, and demand a vote of no confidence in my leadership of the logistics division. He brought Robert Montgomery with him as an ‘independent consultant’ to pitch the Apex Global buyout.”

Tom finished his drink, setting the crystal glass on the desk with a heavy *clack*.

“Let’s not keep them waiting.”