“Okay,” I said cautiously.
Walsh exhaled. “My niece is applying to colleges. She’s obsessed with finance. She saw your Forbes profile and now thinks you’re… I don’t know. A myth.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “A myth?”
“She printed your picture,” Walsh said, sounding both amused and exhausted. “Put it on her wall. It’s weird.”
I laughed. “Tell her I’m annoyingly real.”
Walsh hesitated. “Would you… talk to her? Fifteen minutes. She doesn’t have anyone in her life who’s done this.”
I thought about it. About being seventeen, brilliant, invisible, convinced my future belonged to someone else.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course.”
Two weeks later, I sat in a small café in Brooklyn across from a teenager with bright eyes and a notebook full of questions. Walsh hovered nearby, pretending not to listen.
Her niece asked me about venture capital, about math, about power, about what it felt like to build something from nothing.
No one asked me about Julian.
No one asked me to fix a family.
They asked me about my mind.
When the conversation ended, the niece hugged me unexpectedly, fierce and quick.
“You make me feel like it’s possible,” she blurted, embarrassed.
On the walk back to my car, Walsh fell into step beside me.
“You’re good with her,” Walsh said.
“I recognize her,” I replied.
Walsh glanced at me sideways. “You ever think about… doing more of that?”
“Mentoring?” I asked.
Walsh shrugged. “You’ve got a whole internet full of people arguing about whether you’re a villain. Meanwhile there are kids who just need a map.”
A map.
The word sat in my chest like something warm.
That night, I emailed Sarah.
I want to start a fellowship program, I wrote. For women and first-gen students who want to go into finance. We’ll fund internships, pay stipends, provide mentorship. Real access.
Sarah replied within minutes.
Finally, she wrote. Something worth your money.
For the first time in months, I slept deeply.
Maybe warmth didn’t have to come from the place that burned you.
Maybe you could build it elsewhere.
Part 6
By the next spring, the Chimera Fellowship existed.
It wasn’t glamorous. There were no dramatic launch parties. No champagne pyramids. We held the first cohort meeting in a simple conference room with bad coffee and good intentions. Twelve students sat around the table, nervous and sharp, clutching notebooks like armor.
I stood at the front of the room and felt something I hadn’t felt in years: responsibility that didn’t taste like obligation.
“I’m not here to inspire you,” I told them. “I’m here to equip you. Inspiration fades. Skills don’t.”
They laughed, relieved, and the sound eased something in me.
Over the months, I watched them grow into themselves. I watched them learn to read financial statements like stories, to negotiate without apologizing, to walk into rooms designed to intimidate and claim space anyway.
Sometimes they asked about my family.
Not in a gossip way. In a cautious, curious way—like they’d heard the headline but didn’t know how to talk about it.
I didn’t give them details. I gave them principles.
“If someone only loves you when you’re useful,” I said during one session, “that’s not love. That’s a transaction. And you’re allowed to stop paying.”
One of the students—a quiet girl from Ohio—raised her hand and whispered, “How do you stop feeling guilty?”
I paused, because I didn’t want to lie.
“I don’t think you stop,” I said. “I think you learn to carry guilt without letting it drive.”
After the session, I sat alone in my office and stared at my phone for a long time.
Guilt had a number.
My parents’ home phone.
I hadn’t called them since Thanksgiving. Not once. The protective order kept Julian away, but it didn’t prevent my mother from leaving voicemails dripping with accusation and sorrow that always circled back to the same demand: fix this.
When I didn’t respond, she switched tactics.
She started sending packages.
Homemade cookies. Old photos. Birthday cards with handwriting that looked tender until you read the lines between the lines: We miss you. Your father isn’t well. Family is all we have.
None of them contained the words I needed.
I’m sorry.
Then, in June, my father had a heart scare. A real one this time—not the vague “acting up” my mother used as emotional leverage, but an actual hospital stay confirmed by Sarah’s background checks and, weirdly, by a nurse who recognized my name and messaged me on LinkedIn.
The news hit me like a slow punch.
Not because my father and I were close—we weren’t—but because there are some fears your body keeps even when your mind outgrows them.
I considered visiting.
I imagined walking into that hospital room, seeing my mother’s eyes light up with relief—not at my presence, but at the return of control. I imagined my father trying to make peace without acknowledging the harm. I imagined Julian lurking somewhere nearby, waiting for an opportunity to convert a medical crisis into leverage.
And I realized: going back without boundaries wasn’t compassion. It was relapse.
So I made a different choice.
I sent a message through Marcus, formal and clean: I’m aware of Dad’s condition. I’m glad he’s stable. I’m not available for contact. Please respect the court order.
My mother responded with fury.
But my father did something unexpected.