My brother actually laughed at dinner and said, ‘I sold that useless laptop of yours for five hundred bucks. Finally got rid of your junk.’ My cousins cheered him on. Then he added, almost proudly, ‘Already handed it off to the buyer.’ I got up, stepped outside, and called my supervisor. By the time I made the report, the FBI cyber team was already tracking the device…

walls and a view of another building’s brick wall instead of, as my mother liked to phrase it, “making something bigger” of myself the way my older brother Derek had. That was the family story, anyway.

Derek was the version of success they preferred to tell.

He managed a car dealership outside Baltimore and wore that fact like a title belt. By twenty-six continue reading …