BENEATH THE FACADE
Behind the façade of wealth and power, a web of secret awaits
Chapter 37
The first real crack between us came the year we turned seventeen.
We had heard about the scholarship from one of our teachers—a full ride to study Business Administration overseas. It sounded like a dream too big for boys like us, raised on borrowed books and whispered ambition. But that’s the thing about dreams: they never ask if you qualify before they let you hope.
That scholarship became everything. Our way out. A chance to leave behind the heat, the hunger, the thin walls that did nothing to keep the world out. A chance to wake up to more than the hum of faulty generators and the smell of soaked uniforms dried over smoke.
We filled the forms out side by side, our pens racing over the questions as if finishing fast meant we’d be chosen first. We joked about being roommates in New York, about getting rich and sending money home, about finally living the life we carved into mango trees years
