The Domino Effect: A True Story of survival, secrets and second chances

Most stories begin with a single moment… Mine began with a fall. A fall from innocence… A fall into addiction… A fall into a world run by ghosts, secrets, and men who never say what they truly mean. But when a domino falls… It doesn’t stop. It tumbles through orphanages, crack epidemics, CIA backchannels, surf camps, corrupt governments, betrayals, miracles, machetes, jail cells… and sometimes… it tumbles straight into destiny. Because at the end of it all — after the violence, the lies, the geopolitics, the unbelievable coincidences — my story became something no one expected. Not a crime saga. Not a political exposé. Not even a survival memoir. It became a love story. I survived childhood abuse, addiction, trafficking worlds I never meant to enter, betrayals that almost killed me… But nothing — nothing — has changed me more than the woman who was sent to follow me the day I landed in Nicaragua. A woman trained since childhood to survive horrors I can’t imagine. A woman who found me… and later saved me. She taught me something the CIA never could. Something the streets never did. Something the world seems to have forgotten: Forgiveness is the final revolution. And love is the last domino. This is the true story of how an orphaned Florida kid… surf addict… failed husband… burned-out appraiser… and unintentional accomplice to some very dangerous men… found redemption not in America, not in power, not in money… but in the heart of a woman who had every reason to never trust anyone again. But don’t get it twisted. Before the love came the storm. And I’ll show you everything: the impossible coincidences, the dangerous alliances, the Times-Union front-page surf camp that wasn’t what it seemed, the traffickers, the informants, the near-death nights, the political shadows that still terrify me, and the truths nobody wants to touch. This is THE DOMINO EFFECT. A true story of survival… secrets… politics… forgiveness… and the most unlikely, marvelously hilarious f#$$__ love story you’ll ever hear. Every secret has impact. Every impact has cost. But every once in a while… one falling domino leads you exactly where you were meant to be.