Introduction

Fifty million dollars.

My cracked phone screen showed the winning Powerball numbers, confirming an impossible match.

Twenty years a ghost, living paycheck to paycheck in a tiny Brooklyn apartment, and now, I held the key to a new life.

But the buzz of my phone pulled me back to a familiar nightmare.

It was Brenda, my "adoptive" mother, calling with fake sympathy, quickly turning to thinly veiled greed for money for my "father's" liver transplant.

When I calmly told her I had won the lottery, her manufactured panic vanished, replaced by an ugly, avaricious gasp.

My refusal to hand over a single cent unleashed a public tirade; soon, I was plastered across every news channel, dubbed the "Powerball Parasite," buying Birkin bags while my "dying dad" lay in a hospital bed.

The world hated me, calling me a monster.

Every comment was a venomous stab, every headline a condemnation.

They didn't understand the icy calm behind my eyes, the cold precision of my actions.

They saw heartless cruelty; I saw the meticulously laid foundation for a justice long overdue.

Why would I invite such public scorn?

Why play the villain?

Because this wasn't some selfish whim.

This was a calculated strike.

And when the invitation came from 'The Dr. Grant Show' – Brenda's last desperate plea – I knew it was time for the world to see the truth.

Not just my truth, but their truth.