He was in a bespoke midnight-blue suit, and he carried himself with the specific stillness of a man who has never once in his adult life had to raise his voice to be obeyed.

My family did not know his face.

But the Fairchild half of the room — the bankers, the fund managers, the corporate men — knew it at once, and I watched the recognition move through them like a current.

“Good God,” someone breathed near the back.

“Is that Zachary Prescott?”

“Prescott Global.

What is he doing here?”

Thaddeus Fairchild the elder came half out of his chair at the head table, the color draining from his face and then flooding back in a desperate flush.