I took the flash drive from the safe and slid it into my father’s computer, and a video file opened, and there he was — my father, seated at this very desk, thin and tired but entirely clear-eyed, looking directly into the camera.

The whole room went silent at the sight of him.

It is a strange and terrible thing to hear a dead man’s voice fill the room where he died.

“Leon,” my father began, “if you are watching this, then it means you chose greed over the last chance I gave you.

I hoped you wouldn’t.

I want you to know I hoped, right up to the end, that you wouldn’t.”