PART 1: I once believed the most devastating moments in life announced themselves with thunder. I was wrong. The worst night I ever lived began with excitement I had carefully prepared, wrapped in pride and hope, and carried in the trunk of my car like a fragile gift.
Two years earlier, after selling my first company, I did what I had dreamed of since my student days. I bought my parents a home. Not a mansion, not a showpiece, but a quiet place on the edge of a coastal European city where the mornings smelled of salt and bread from a nearby bakery. I told them it was their reward, that they had earned rest after a lifetime of sacrifice.
