At Christmas, My Cousin Mocked My “Little Hobby”. Years Later, He…

He was about to fly dangerously near to the sun and I was holding the matches. The room went dark again as Derek moved on to the next slide.

It was a spectacular depiction of his new platform. A logo flickered on the screen, a cumbersome, half-baked design that appeared to have been put together by someone who thought Canva made you a designer.

The tagline underneath said, “Empowering young visionaries, unlocking potential. The future is now.” I almost chuckled.

Not because of the message, but because the layout, structure, and entire thing were lifted from an internal North Node pitch deck that I had shared with only four people in a password-protected Dropbox. So that confirmed it.

Derek was no longer just posturing; he stole. And now he was doing it on a projector screen in front of 120 guests at a vineyard packed with local influencers, tech investors, and a CEO who suspected Derek of fraud.

The same CEO who was standing in the back of the room with Jace, mumbling and slowly shaking his head. Derek was still talking.

“I have always believed in leading with vision and purpose. And when Sienna and I went down to draw up this concept, we realized we were on to something significant. Something that might change the world.”

I reached into my jacket pocket and pressed the button on the remote I had programmed to control the venue’s secondary projector. My contact had surreptitiously connected it behind the main display earlier that day.

The screen behind Derek abruptly turned black. He hesitated, puzzled.

Then a new slide appeared. Pure white backdrop with one sentence in bold black font: “This is what real vision looks like.”

Gasps, murmurs, and a few laughs. Derek turned around.

“What the—”

Before he could finish, the screen switched again. Slide one shows a timestamped email sequence from my inbox with the subject line “North Node Prototype Access – Confidential.”

Slide two shows the original North Node dashboard design side-by-side with the one Derek just shown. Slide three, a highlighted paragraph from a non-disclosure agreement with a vendor that had disclosed information, signed by T. Warner—Derek’s college roommate.

Slide four shows a list of known IP addresses that accessed our development portal without permission. One of them matched the Wi-Fi network: “Derek Home 5G.”

Slide five, a video of myself from just 3 weeks ago at an early North Node onboarding session. In the video I state.

“We don’t just make tools; we make ladders for children who have been advised not to climb.”

Silence. A genuine, resounding quiet.

Derek was stopped, his mouth slightly open, eyes wild, and still clutching the mic as if it were the only thing keeping him standing. Then Jace walked up, loud, confident, and captivating.

“Folks,” He exclaimed, grinning. “Sorry for the surprise presentation, but we figured you deserve to see the real future.”

He motioned to me. “This is Evan Clean, the creator and CEO of North Node. His platform is already aiding young entrepreneurs from four continents. There are no phony decks or stolen designs. It’s just impact. Real, measurable impact.”

I did not move. I did not smile.

I just met Derek’s eyes from across the room. He attempted to speak.

“Wait, this… this isn’t—”

But no one was listening because everyone was whispering, pointing, and taking out their phones. Then came the voice that sealed everything: Derek’s boss.

He moved forward carefully, holding a glass of red wine as if he were about to make a toast.

“I had my doubts,” He remarked, his voice silky yet firm. “But this… this is something else.”

Derek turned to him, begging.

“Sir, I… I did not know. Someone must have sent the deck. I assumed it was a reference.”

“Don’t. Just don’t.” The CEO raised a hand. “Can I speak with you and Mr. Clean outside?”

“Of course.” Jace winked.

As the three of us walked by Derek, I hesitated.

“By the way,” I said, leaning in so only he could hear. “You should probably stop using public Wi-Fi to steal code.”

He looked at me, stunned. I did not wait for a response.

The Final Retribution

Outside beneath the vineyard’s canopy lights, the air smelled like grapes and gasoline. The CEO shook my hand.

“Hell of a move in there.”

I shrugged. “Just tired of being polite.”

“I respect that,” He replied. He took out a business card. “If you’re ever looking for acquisition partners—real ones—give me a call.”

I nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

“That went better than planned.” Jace chuckled.

“I’m not done,” I replied. Because the true fallout hadn’t even begun.

By the next morning, the vineyard incident footage had spread on Instagram stories and Twitter. Someone had captured the instant the screen switched, when the slide with Derek’s IP address appeared.

Another person zoomed in on his face. By lunchtime, a tech blog had caught up on it.

Derek’s LinkedIn profile was removed on Sunday. On Monday, my mother called me, her tone cautious.

“Evan, did you really have to go so far?”

I took a breath. “Perhaps not, but Mom, he wasn’t going to stop. Not until he breaks something I built.”

She was silent for a second, then she answered. “You did not break him; he did it to himself.”

And she was correct. Derek did not merely lose his job or reputation; he lost the one thing that defined his identity.

He lost the appearance of success, the controlled character, and the constant performance. Without it, he was simply a man in a suit with nothing to say.

Four weeks later, I launched North Node officially. We received press; investors reached out.

I declined most of them. I wanted to keep things clean; I wanted to retain it for myself.

Mom attended the launch. She wore her nicest coat and cried as she witnessed the first mentorship circle form around a group of low-income teens.

“Is this what you’ve been doing all these nights?” She asked, wiping her eyes.

“Yeah,” I replied. “This is what I’ve been building while they weren’t watching.”

I never saw Derek again after the party, but I heard he applied for a job at a business accelerator a few cities away. He did not get it.

Apparently, one of the interviewers had been to the vineyard that night. Small world.

Funny how that works. You grow up believing that proving them incorrect is the best way to exact retribution, but this is not the case.

The finest retribution is to prove yourself right and then let them choke on the stillness that follows. Because I didn’t simply establish a business; I created a legacy.