My family told me not to come over on New Year’s Eve because “I’d just make everyone uncomfortable,” so I spent the night alone in my apartment. But at 12:01 a.m., my brother called—his voice shaking. “What did you do? Dad just saw the news, and he’s having trouble breathing…”

“Happy New Year, Lucas,” I said, my voice steady.

“The news,” he choked out. “The valuation. The article. You… you destroyed us.”

The news he was referring to was the launch of Synapse Loop, Inc., which had gone public at the stroke of midnight. The valuation had opened at 2.1 billion dollars, making me one of the youngest female tech billionaires in American history. But the money wasn’t the shock that had caused the air to leave the room in Greenwich.

It was the Forbes interview that went live at the same moment.

It was a meticulously cited exposé featuring three years of emails, patent filings, and audio recordings proving that my brother, the golden heir, had tried to steal my life’s work.

Before I tell you how the empire fell, I need to take you back to when the cracks first appeared. If you are reading this, you likely know what it feels like to be erased. This story is for you.

The Reynolds family wasn’t just wealthy; we were legacy. We were “old money” from Greenwich, Connecticut, the kind of wealth that whispered rather than shouted. It came with a forty-year-old medical device company, Reynolds Medical Group, and the unspoken expectation that you knew which fork to use for the fish course before you could read.

Continue reading…