Tonight, in front of his most important investors, that stability had been exposed as a fragile, cruel illusion.

I looked at my brother, then at my nephew, then out the window at the rain.

My father had once sworn I’d never amount to anything without the power of his name. He’d been wrong. About the name. About his power. And, most of all, about me.

By the time he understood the full size of that error — standing amid the ruins of his collapsing deals — I would already be gone, back to a life where I had never needed him to survive.

THE END.