As I stepped out of the car into a crowd of reporters and officials, I saw a familiar figure across the street.

It was Conrad.

He looked almost unrecognizable — a rumpled off-the-rack jacket, his hair thinned and unstyled, a worn messenger bag on his shoulder.

Blacklisted from every major firm in the country, he had taken a mid-level job at a small independent broker across town.

He watched as the mayor handed me the golden ceremonial scissors, as the crowd applauded, as the cameras flashed for the woman he had once dismissed as weak and quiet and dependent.

Chapter 27 — Nothing