Lachlan stood there with his hand in the air and his chest heaving, and I watched him understand, fully, that he had lost — not the argument, but everything, the whole edifice, all at once.

“Vesper, listen to me,” he said, and his voice cracked and turned pleading.

“We can still fix this.

You don’t understand the people behind my firm.

If I go down, a lot of dangerous men go down with me, and they will not —”

“You should have thought about that before you used your child,” I said.