I had built it myself, out of the two things my family taught me to protect by hiding, and it had been waiting for me the whole time, on the other side of a door I only had to stop knocking on my family’s to walk through.

Chapter 19 — The Terms Are Mine

Over the following weeks, my mother called my cell thirty-one times.

My father called forty-seven.

My sister sent dozens of messages that ranged from furious insults to desperate apologies.

I did not answer a single one.

Rafael’s firm never authorized the buyout for Bernard Ashby’s banking group.

Months later, the Ashby family managed to restructure their debt by selling off prime real-estate assets and surrendering majority control of their firm to another investor.