No one would have known if he had quietly taken the money and copied the files; the request had been designed to be deniable, to feel like a small favor rather than a betrayal.

He refused it and reported it not because anyone was making him, but because he was the kind of person who does the right thing when no one is looking, which is the only kind of right thing that really counts.

I made sure, later, that his choice did not go unrecognized.

But I know that most such choices, made every day, go entirely unseen, and that we all depend on them far more than we understand.

Chapter 14 — What the Background Check Found