With the recovered money, I raised the salaries of all thirty-one employees at Brennan Freight and repaid the years when I’d skipped my own salary to keep the company alive. I also created a fund in my mother’s name to help women starting businesses with little more than determination and an idea. Isabelle eventually apologized. I told her I was doing well and wished her the same.

One cold spring morning, Dad and I returned to the wooden bench outside Courtroom 4C. I opened my banking app and changed one final PIN. This time, it wasn’t my mother’s birthday, an anniversary, or a number connected to anyone else. It belonged only to me. Behind my driver’s license remained the worn black card my mother had once placed in my hand when nobody believed my business would succeed. I finally understood that Colin hadn’t taken my worth from me. I’d simply allowed him to measure it for too long. Now the ledger was back in my hands—and every line had always been mine.