“No,” I said, and I was surprised by how steady I sounded, how far away his voice had become.

“Some of it was mine.

Some of it belonged to your company.

And none of it — none of it — belonged to the clinic administrator you bribed to break me.”

His arrogance cracked, finally, all the way through, and underneath it was nothing but a frightened man who had run out of paper to hide behind.

“Please,” he whispered, and he had the gall to reach for the oldest key he had.