It was the greatest gift I have ever received, and I received it under false pretenses, and I am sorry.

I did not ask you to marry me only to spite my children, Evelyn, the letter said, and here the ink was pressed deep, as though he had borne down hard. I married you because under the law, a spouse inherits what a child cannot touch.

Everything I built, the shipping holdings, the real estate, the private funds, totaling some seventy-four million dollars, was built on the blood money of the life I stole from you and your mother.

It was never mine.