I never told my parents that I had invested $500 million to save their failing company. My sister took credit, claiming she had closed the deal. At the victory party, my five-year-old son accidentally spilled water on his dress. She hit him so hard he lost consciousness. My mother snorted, “You clumsy speculator! Take the boy and go!” I gave them one last chance to apologize. Instead, they shouted, “Your sister saved us! You’re nothing but a burden!” Then they turned their attention to me. “Hello, our CEO…” What I had done had completely shattered their world.

“They have their penthouse,” I said. “For now. But send them the bill for Leo’s medical treatment. And tell the lawyers to file for a permanent restraining order. I want them to have enough money to live on, but never enough to buy electricity.”

I grabbed Leo’s toy car from the nightstand. It was simple, plastic, but it had withstood a fall better than Rossi’s fortune.

I left the hotel through the front door. The press awaited me like a wall of flashing lights and screaming questions.

“Mrs. Rossi! How long have you been president?”

“Isabella! What is the future of Titan Corp?”

“Do you have any comment on your sister’s arrest?”

I didn’t answer. I held my head high and walked at a steady pace. I got into the backseat of the car.

For years, I lived in my own shadow. I accepted their insults, rejections, and so-called “charity.” I allowed them to call me a burden because I thought that was the price one paid for family.

But as the car pulled away from the Grand Astoria, I looked at Leo sleeping next to me and realized that the only burden I had ever carried was the weight of their expectations.

The “unemployed single mother” disappeared. The “chairwoman” did her job.

I was Isabella. And for the first time in my life, I was free.

The phone in my bag vibrated. It was a private number. My father.

I stared at the screen for a long time. I saw a missed call notification and pressed the “Block” button.

The Rossi empire collapsed. And from the ashes rose the ice cream cone I went to get with my son.

End.