Vance,” the attorney said.

“Effective eight o’clock this morning, your employment at Vance Financial Holdings has been terminated for cause, following a corporate ethics review.

Your company vehicle has been repossessed.

Your corporate accounts are closed.

And a formal petition for divorce has been served upon your legal counsel.” Each sentence landed on Julian like a separate blow, and I watched the master strategist, the man who had felt so powerful stepping off that train an hour ago, come apart, piece by piece, in the middle of a public terminal, in front of his family and two deputies and the wife he had tried to break.

Chapter 19 — The Trust for the Grandchild