Chapter 9 - The Foundation of Change
I reached out to Sarah, the journalist. "We have the assets," I told her, referring to the fortune I had reclaimed from the various shell accounts the Vanes had used to hide my intellectual property. "But we’re doing this differently."
We launched The Catalyst Initiative. Instead of hoarding the wealth, I set up a massive endowment for young, underrepresented tech innovators—the kind of kids I used to be, sitting in garages, ignored by the gatekeepers of the world.
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I began buying up the properties my family had used for their scams. I didn't keep them for prestige; I turned the Obsidian Resort into a public research center, a place where people were evaluated by their contributions rather than their last names.
I didn't forgive my family—that would have been a lie—but I chose to stop defining my life by their presence in it. I spent weeks in the lab, working on a new project, something that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with the future. I was finally, truly, out of the shadow.
