Chapter 19 - What We Build After WarSix months later, Solmere had changed.
The luxury empire remained.
But so did the hospitals.
The scholarships.
The shelters.
The housing projects.
I created the Beatrice Vale Foundation.
Its first project was a scholarship program for children who had lost their parents.
The opening ceremony was held inside the same hotel lobby where I had once been dragged across the marble floor.
Only this time, there were no guards pushing people out.
There were children running through the lobby.
Teachers laughing.
Families taking photographs.
Mr. Henderson stood beside me.
"You've changed this place."
I smiled.
"No."
I looked around.
"My mother did."
The wounds on my hands had faded.
But I still remembered them.
Because scars were proof.
Proof that pain didn't have to be the end of a story.
That evening, I stood beneath my mother's portrait.
I touched the frame.
"I kept my promise."
For a moment, I felt something I hadn't felt since childhood.
May you like
Peace.
Then my phone vibrated.
