And I would not trade the plain, honest quiet of it for any glittering thing the Vances ever owned.

Chapter 17 — Their Fall

Their downfall had not been cinematic.

It had been slow, and thorough, and administered entirely by the patient machinery of forensic accounting and regulatory enforcement — which is, I have always thought, the most fitting possible end for a man who believed himself above both.

Arthur, stripped of the stolen trust that had propped up his credit for years, and stripped of the company that had been his whole identity, lives now in a modest rented condo in suburban New Jersey, isolated from the high-society world that had once been his kingdom, spending his days dodging civil depositions and living on a restricted pension.

The private jet, the Hamptons estate, the vintage cars — all sold, all gone to the creditors he defrauded.