I stood in the courtroom the day of the sentencing. Ethan looked different without his custom-tailored suits. He looked small. He looked like the frightened, insecure man he’d always been beneath the bravado.

He looked at me, and for the first time, I felt no spark of fear. I felt nothing at all. He was just a bad debt that had finally been written off.

I took over as CEO of Apex Development. The first thing I did was change the name. It’s now Thorne-Apex Foundations.

I didn’t just want to build buildings. I wanted to build a legacy of integrity. I removed the board members who had turned a blind eye to Ethan’s “eccentricities.”

I created a transparent auditing system that is now used as a model for the industry.

And I established the Elara Initiative, a nonprofit that provides forensic accounting services to domestic-abuse survivors, helping them untangle their finances from their abusers so they can find the path to freedom.