It was only the one he had, with great care and over many years, built for himself, and then handed to my brother’s name to hold, until the night I handed it back.

Because that was the true geometry of what he had built, and it was the part the newspapers never quite captured.

He had not merely stolen.

He had arranged, with great care, for the theft to wear someone else’s name, to rest its full weight on a person he had recruited and then frightened into staying.

What I did in that ballroom was not take anything from Damian.

It was lift the weight off the name he had hung it on, and set it back, where it belonged, on his.