Introduction

I believed in honest work, just like my dad, pouring every calloused dime from double shifts at the auto shop into our "house fund."

Jessie, my Jessie, deserved a life better than South Philly, a little house with a picket fence was our shared dream.

Every delivery gig after my shift, every tired mile, was for her, for us.

But when my dad had a sudden accident, needing emergency surgery I couldn't afford, Jessie vanished.

When I finally found her, she casually admitted she' d given over $15,000 of our savings to her deadbeat brother, Kyle, for yet another "startup."

The woman I loved, for whom I sacrificed everything, chose her brother' s pipe dreams over my father' s life, forcing me to beg a friend for help.

Then came her veiled demands for more cash, her pleas to mortgage my parents' house, and finally, her venomous outburst, calling me a "grease monkey" holding her back.

After our furious breakup, she feigned illness, only to vanish again, leaving me with a forged $100,000 loan in my name, a debt orchestrated by her and a crypto fraudster named Chad.

When I confronted them, I was brutally beaten and left for dead.

Days later, loan sharks arrived at my door, flashing live footage of thugs threatening my recovering father, who collapsed in fear.

I was on my knees, broken, devastated, about to sign away my life to pay for her betrayal, wondering how the woman I loved could so thoroughly destroy everything I held dear.

But just as my trembling hand reached for the pen, my apartment door exploded open, and in walked a team of men in sharp suits, followed by a distinguished man with silver hair and steel-blue eyes, who looked at me and said, "Ethan Riley? I believe I am your grandfather."

My billionaire grandfather.

My story wasn't ending; it was just beginning.