And when I turned eighteen, he took my savings and threw me onto the street.
Not because I was an adult.
Not because he wanted me to become independent.
Because he needed me gone before the estate could find me.
I looked at Richard.
“What happens now?”
He smiled for the first time.
“Now you have thirty days.”
“To do what?”
“Survive.”
“And after thirty days?”
Richard closed his briefcase.
“You meet the board of Brooks Holdings.”
I blinked.
“The board?”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“You decide whether you want the company.”
I stared at him.
“I thought I inherited everything.”
“You inherited the right to choose.”
He turned toward the alley entrance.
“But there’s one more thing you should know.”
I stood there silently.
Richard looked back at me.
“Your father doesn’t know we’ve found you.”
A cold feeling spread through my chest.
“Then who does?”
Richard gave me a thin smile.
“Everyone who matters.”
He walked away.
I remained beside my broken-down car, holding a flash drive worth more than anything I’d ever owned.
For the first time in nine days, I wasn’t thinking about food.
I wasn’t thinking about where I would sleep.
I wasn’t
even thinking about my father.
I was thinking about thirty days.
Thirty days to survive.
Thirty days to uncover the truth.
And thirty days before my family discovered that the son they had thrown away was the heir they had been trying to hide from the world.
Thirty days passed.
Thirty days since I had slept in the backseat of my car.
Thirty days since Richard Hartwell found me behind a restaurant.
Thirty days since I learned that my father had lied to me for eighteen years.
And somehow, those thirty days changed everything.
I didn’t spend them living like a rich man’s heir.
I spent them working.
I kept going to school.
I kept my part-time job.
I slept in a small room at a youth shelter Richard had helped me find, but the bills were paid through a temporary trust that could only cover basic necessities.
No luxury.
No new clothes.
No expensive meals.
No access to the inheritance.
My grandfather had insisted on one thing above all else:
I needed to learn who I was without money.
And I did.
On the thirtieth morning, Richard arrived at the shelter in a black sedan.
