My mother had spent two years inside that fog, being told that the thing crushing her was actually good for her, and I could see, even in that first confrontation, how much of it she had half-swallowed, how uncertain she had become about her own right to object.

Julian was not just a thief.

He was a man who stole reality and handed his victims a more convenient version, and I was not going to let him do it to me the way he had done it to her.

I had met people like Julian in boardrooms all over the world, people who could look you in the eye and calmly rename the thing they were doing to you while they were still doing it.

“You have thirty minutes,” I said, “to pack your clothes and leave.” I did not raise my voice.