“And I assume you would like to have a relationship with your granddaughter? I think you want a relationship with her more than almost anything. That you’d be willing to make arrangements with your former colleagues to allow that to happen. From what you’re saying, you can insist they leave us alone, let us keep living our lives,” I say. “If you want to know your granddaughter, I think you know it’s your only play. Either that or letting her disappear again. Because that is the other option, that is what I’m being told is the option I should be considering. WITSEC, starting over. Your granddaughter no longer allowed to be your granddaughter. Again.”

And, like that. It happens. Like a flip has been switched, Nicholas’s eyes going dark, going empty. His face pulsing red.

“What did you just say?” he says.

He stands up. I push back my chair, almost before I know I’m doing it. I push back closer to the door, as if it’s possible he’s going to lunge for me. It feels possible. Anything feels possible suddenly unless I get out of this room. Until I get away from him.

“I don’t like to be threatened,” Nicholas says.

“I’m not threatening you,” I say, trying to hold my voice steady. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“So what is your intention?”

“I’m asking you to help me keep your granddaughter safe,” I say. “I’m asking you to put me in a position where she can know her family. Where she can know you.”

He doesn’t sit back down. He stares at me. For a long time. For what feels like a long time.

“These other gentlemen,” he says, “my former employers… I could potentially work something out with them. It would cost me quite a bit of capital. And they certainly would wonder who I am becoming in my old age. But… I think we could make sure they leave you and my granddaughter alone.”

I nod, my throat catching as I start to ask the question, the next question I need to ask.

“And Ethan?” I say.

“No, not Ethan,” he says.

He says it without equivocation. He says it with finality.

“If Ethan were to return, I couldn’t assure you of his safety,” he says. “His debt is too large. As I said, I can’t protect Ethan, even if I were inclined to. Which, to be clear with you, I’m not.”

I was prepared for this, for this intractable position. I was as prepared as I could get—a tiny part of me believing I wasn’t going to have to acquiesce to it. To do what I came here to do. A tiny part of me in disbelief even as I start to do it.

“But your granddaughter,” I say. “You could keep her safe? That’s what you’re saying?”

“Potentially, yes.”