Around me sat my legacy. My three children and five grandchildren. They were dressed in their finest—silk ties, cocktail dresses, watches that cost more than the average annual salary—yet they looked like starving dogs eyeing a piece of meat.

Tonight was my eighty-fifth birthday. But there was no singing. There were no streamers. There was only a cake in the center of the table, the candles unlit, the icing sweating in the warm room. And there was the briefcase.

Julian, my eldest grandson, stood by the sideboard checking his Rolex for the third time in two minutes. He was thirty-four, handsome in a sharp, predatory way, with the kind of restless energy that usually accompanies a cocaine habit or massive debt. Tonight, I knew it was the latter.