That assumption is the quietest form of wealth there is, worth more than my father’s fortune and harder to pass down, and I get to give it to my son by the simple, daily, unglamorous act of being a person whose word is good.

Rowan gave Felix his eyes and half his DNA.

I intend to give him something Rowan never had to give: a childhood he will never have to recover from.

“How’s the Calloway situation?” Dad asked, settling into a chair.

“Closed,” I said.

“Nadia confirmed the restitution this morning.”

Rowan’s life had arranged itself into exactly the shape his choices had built for it.

The plea kept him out of prison but gave him five years of probation, three hundred hours of community service, and the permanent finance bar.