Two dozen relatives had been in that room; asking them to stay quiet was asking a hurricane to hush.

And Warner had spent three years building a loud public brand as a family-first visionary, so the fall was steep and gleeful.

Aunt Gail’s gossip network moved faster than any post: the second that screen showed the wire transfer I nearly had a stroke — Adelina looked like a corpse — that daughter-in-law is the only one in the room with a spine of steel.

The shockwave reached Warner’s boardroom.

His senior partner, Rex Winterbourne, called an emergency meeting and was merciless, by Dinah’s account: he didn’t care who Warner saw on his own time, but three flagship investors had heard about the dinner, and it painted a man who was reckless and easily compromised. Step down from client-facing work until this passes.

Clean up your mess.