As a way of escape, he started hanging out with some kids that were a part of the BX9 gang and although he never joined the gang himself he was around them a lot. When his mother heard about his friends from his aunt she thought this would be the perfect way to get him back for leaving her all those years before. She called the police and reported that he was a part of the gang.
When Zac was arrested the police offered him the choice to snitch on the gang members or spend 3 years in prison. Since Zac had not actually been a part of the gang he had no valuable information to give the police and ended up spending 3 years in prison.
While in prison he worked in the library and enrolled into an accelerated online degree program in finance. He read every single book he could find on financial markets and computer engineering in hopes of using the knowledge once he got out. In the time he was in prison, he did not hear from any of his family members and no one came to visit him.
Once he got out he could not go back to his grandmother's or his mother's house as he was no longer welcome there. He struggled to find a job until Karen a girl he had met on a train introduced him to her friend that worked at the airport.
*end of flashback*
A few days after Karen had kicked him out, Zac was at his job at the airport working yet another double shift when he was called into HR where 2 police officers were waiting for him. The officers informed him that he was being charged with credit card fraud for using Karen's credit card. As they were leading him out the hr manager informed Zac that due to the arrest they had to fire him and he was not to return to the airport.
While in jail, Zac used his one phone call to call Karen so she could straighten out this mess."Yo, why would you tell the cops that I ran up your credit card? You know I have a record and You know I would never steal from you, Karen." Ha! You have stolen so much from me Zac, my time, my joy and I guess now we can add money to that. I know it was you that did it. Don't call me again Zac." with that, she disconnected the call.
Zac was assigned a public defender but due to a backlog in the system, he would not be able to get before a judge for a few days. While he was locked up Zac took inventory of his life, thought about the kind of man he had been and knew something had to give. This in-and-out-of-jail lifestyle couldn't be it for him he wanted more for himself. He thought about how Karen always reminded him she paid for everything and calculated that he owed her about $77k for all she had paid for during their relationship and vowed to pay it all back.
He was released from jail a few days later after the police obtained CCTV footage that showed that the person that had run up Karen's credit card was one of her clients. On his release, Zac had no place to stay, no job and about $2000 in savings. He decided to go to the men's shelter where his friend volunteered sometimes.
Zac had been at the shelter a few nights when Chris, one of the guys that volunteered at the shelter approached him to talk about this charity Chain Breakers that helps ex-cons get into legitimate Real Estate investments. He invited Zach to join the meeting they were having later that evening to see if it was something he would be interested in.
That first Chain Breakers meeting had been a few months ago and Zac's life had been transformed. He had taken his first payout from Chain Breakers of $50k and invested it all on the stock market based on the research he had done and that investment had made him a millionaire in a matter of weeks. The first thing he had done when he got the money was pay Karen a visit with a cheque for $150k. He had decided to pay her more than she had spent so that he never felt like he took anything from her. He walked out of her salon feeling like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders and hadn't seen or talked to her since.
In the last few months he had bought himself a home, become a Chain Breakers board member in charge of expansion and founded the Cantilever Group a holding company to oversee his business interests. When he had initially started buying and flipping houses for himself he had seen how naturally it all came to him and had decided to do the same with businesses and that had worked out well for him too hence the holding company. The Cantilever Group held assets in private equity funds, hedge funds, real estate, tech start-ups and so much more. He was very much a made man at this point.
He had also been going to therapy to deal with issues from his childhood as well as his toxic relationship with Karen and was well on his way to becoming the kind of man that he could be proud of and had this newfound sense of confidence and purpose.
🎼 Like a small boat
On the ocean
Sending big waves
Into motion
Like how a single word
Can make a heart open
I might only have one match
But I can make an explosion
And all those things I didn't say
Wrecking balls inside my brain
I will scream them loud tonight
Can you hear my voice this time?
This is my fight song
Take back my life song
Prove I'm alright song
My power's turned on
Starting right now I'll be strong
I'll play my fight song
And I don't really care if nobody else believes
'Cause I've still got a lot of fight left in me
Chapter 1
Start from the beginning
