“To Northlane Analytics,” my father said, raising his glass. The crystal caught the chandelier light, casting a prism across his forehead. “To our daughter’s triumph.”

“To Elena,” my mother added, her voice soft, wrapped in the cotton-wool guilt she had perfected over three decades.

I raised my glass, the wine tasting metallic against my tongue. “Thank you.”

My name is Elena Brooks. Five years ago, I was nobody—just a burnt-out data scientist with a rented desk in a drafty co-working space and a secondhand laptop that overheated if I opened too many spreadsheets. Now, Northlane employed forty people, occupied two floors of a glass-and-steel tower downtown, and had just inked a partnership with a European logistics giant.