He tried, again, to explain himself — that he had never let them do the worst things, that he had been in that room to keep things under control. And I felt the air leave the room, because I finally understood that he genuinely believed these were defenses.

“Do you hear yourself?” I said.

“You’re telling me you helped manage how badly I was hurt, and you think that makes you the good one in the story.”

He wept.

He told me his father had promised the whole thing would end once I signed the waterfront deal.

He told me he had been planning to give the money back.

And I told him the thing I had realized, which was the cruelest truth of all.