I gave birth at thirty-two weeks, which the doctors said was actually impressive for quadruplets.
Four tiny, perfect babies.
Three boys and one girl.
I named them after scientists and mathematicians, not socialites or dead Sterling ancestors.
Ethan. Oliver. Lucas. And Sophia.
The moment they were placed in my arms, still attached to wires and monitors in the NICU, I made them a promise.
“You will never beg for a place at anyone’s table,” I whispered. “You will build your own table. And everyone else will beg to sit at it.”
The first year was a blur of sleepless nights and impossible juggling.
I hired a nanny, then two, then three.
Not because I did not want to raise my children, but because I had companies to build and limited time to do it.
I worked from home when they were babies, taking calls with a baby monitor in my ear, reviewing contracts while breastfeeding, making million-dollar decisions on three hours of sleep.
People said it was impossible to be a good mother and a successful businesswoman.
I proved them wrong every single day.
By the time the children were two, my portfolio had grown to twenty-seven companies.
Fifteen of them were already profitable.
Eight were on track for initial public offerings.
Four had been acquired for amounts that made my initial investments look like pocket change.
The tech world started to notice.
They did not know my name yet. I had deliberately stayed in the shadows, using shell companies and intermediaries.
But they knew someone was quietly building an empire.
Someone with an uncanny ability to pick winners.
Someone the smartest founders in Silicon Valley wanted to work with.
The financial press started calling me “The Phantom Investor.”
I liked that. Ghosts were hard to kill.
When the children were three, I made my first public appearance at a tech conference.
I walked on stage to give a keynote speech, four hundred people in the audience, cameras from every major publication pointed at me.
I wore a black suit that cost more than the entire wardrobe I had owned as a Sterling wife.
My hair was pulled back severely. My makeup was minimal. I looked nothing like the soft, accommodating girl Julian had married.
I looked like power.
“My name is Nora Vance,” I said, my voice carrying across the silent auditorium. “And I am here to tell you that the old rules of venture capital are dead.”
I talked about investing in people, not just ideas.