And strangely, that was freeing, because a door that will never open is a door you can finally stop knocking on.

I stopped knocking.

I started building my own house instead — literally, as it turned out, across the street.

Chapter 15 — What I Built in the Dark

I had spent years as a sales director building a network of people who trusted me, and with Isolde’s guidance I turned that network into a company of my own — a medical-supply firm I named Cardinal.

I didn’t hide a dollar of it illegally.