He stepped forward, and he pulled him into his arms, and he held him.

“Maria is hurt,” Daniel said, against his brother’s shoulder.

Andrew’s head came up at once, at her name.

“And you have a son,” Daniel said, “who has spent seven years wondering who his father is.” And Andrew broke down completely, in the rain, in his brother’s arms, six years of running finally collapsing into a single sob.

Daniel thought a great deal, afterward, about the choice he made in that warehouse — the raised hands that did not fall, the blow that became an embrace — because it was the most important choice of the entire ordeal, more important even than the recording that caught Vanessa’s confession, and he was not entirely sure, even later, where it had come from.

He had every right to his rage.