Chapter 6 - The Unlikely Ally
I was at a quiet cafe in the city, hidden behind a hood and a pair of sunglasses, when a woman slid into the seat opposite me. She was Sarah Vance (no relation), an investigative journalist who had been chasing my father’s shell companies for a decade. She didn't look like a hero; she looked like someone who had spent too many nights sleeping in her car.
"You're the guy who ruined the Vane dynasty," she said, not as a question, but as a statement. She pushed a tablet across the table. It was loaded with documents I hadn't found yet—proof that my father had actively sabotaged the education of his own children to keep them dependent on him.
"Why help me?" I asked.
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"Because they didn't just ruin your life, Leo," she replied, her eyes hard. "They ruined the lives of dozens of people in the tech startup space. They were parasites. They didn't just steal your code; they stole the future of a lot of brilliant people who didn't have your talent for... hitting back."
For the first time since the brunch, I felt a crack in the cold, logical armor I’d built. I wasn't just doing this for revenge; I was doing it for a purpose. We spent three hours mapping out the final blow—a simultaneous exposure of every fraudulent tax filing and intellectual property theft they had committed in the last twenty years.
