Gerald slid down the wall until his tailored suit hit the linoleum, and I understood that he grasped, far better than his son did, exactly what had just happened.

Trent still thought this was a problem money and names could fix.

“Dad,” he said, panic rising, “call the mayor.

Call Arthur from the firm.

Do something.” But Gerald knew the law from the inside, knew it the way a man knows a machine he has spent thirty years quietly corrupting, and he knew that a recorded admission, laid on top of three months of documented injuries and medical records and extortion texts, was a thing no firm in the country could make disappear.

“Shut up, Trent,” he whispered, his voice cracking, and then he turned his hollow eyes to my father.