Miranda Monahan stood outside her ex-husband’s car one night in 2017 in a Lakewood Ranch Medical Center parking lot, crying. Her three young daughters sat in the car, staring back at their mom.
A drug addict at that point in her life for some two decades — something she kept secret from most people as she built a multimillion-dollar tech firm in Manatee County — the then 40-year-old had just left a Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the hospital.
The Florida Department of Children and Families was in the process of opening an investigation into Monahan. With her future in doubt that night, her ex told her to say goodbye to the kids while they sat in the car. “I could see the concern in my girl’s eyes,” Monahan says of her kids, then ages 10, 9 and 6. “I told them I was going to fix this. And my youngest daughter said, ‘I know you will, momma. I believe you.’…