And I want to note, for the record of my own heart, that I felt no thrill saying it — no hot rush of vengeance, nothing like the satisfaction I had once imagined this moment would bring.

I felt only the cold, level calm of a job being done correctly.

This was not revenge.

It only looked like revenge from where Preston was standing.

From where I stood, it was simply justice, arriving on schedule, through the proper channels, just as I had built it to.

The distinction between revenge and justice is one people love to blur, usually because they want to enjoy the first while claiming the credit of the second, and I have become careful about it, because the whole shape of what I did depends on it being real.

They can look identical from the outside.