“I need to talk to you, Maisie,” he said when I opened the door.

Shawn rose at once, but my father gave him a calm look — let them decide. Tristan and I sat in the small courtyard, and he was crying before he could finish his first sentence.

“Maisie, I made the worst mistake of my life.”

I said nothing.

“My family lost everything in one morning,” he sobbed. “The accounts, the offices, the contracts — all gone. My dad’s giving a statement to the police, my mom won’t stop screaming, and the lawyers say they can charge me too.

I didn’t know it would go this far.”