else’s pain.

John put the bat in the footwell of the truck instead of his hands.

He was not going to Mark’s mansion to become a criminal in his daughter’s name.

He was going there to make sure a violent man said the truth out loud before he had time to hire people to bury it.

The Sterling house sat on the highest lot in the development Mark liked to call The Ridge, which was how men like him renamed hills and sold them back to other men like him for twice the price.

Every light in the place was on.

Music pulsed faintly from somewhere inside.

Rain silvered the stone steps leading to the front doors.

John climbed them and knocked three times.

Mark answered with a glass of scotch in his hand and annoyance already on his face.

The annoyance turned into amusement when he saw who stood there.

He was in his early thirties, handsome in the hollow magazine way that depended too much on expensive shirts and white teeth.

His cuff was stained.

His collar was open.

He smelled like oak-barrel whiskey and the rotten confidence of a man who believed consequences were for other people.

Well, Mark said, leaning against the frame, if it isn’t the gardener.

John let the rain soak his jacket.

He let his shoulders round.

He let age hang visibly on him.

Lily is hurt, he said.

Why did you do it?

Mark barked out a laugh.

Did she run to you? Seriously? She always does this dramatic exit thing.

Give her an hour and she’ll come crawling back.

They always think they mean it the first time.

John had already started recording on his phone in his coat pocket.

She said you pushed her down the stairs.

I said she forgot who pays for her life.

Mark swirled the ice in his glass and took a slow sip, enjoying himself.

You old men always think this stuff is complicated.

It isn’t.

You set terms early, they either learn them or you remind them.

Lily likes the house, the clubs, the trips, the last name.

She’ll take a little yelling to keep it.

A little yelling? John asked.

Mark smiled.

Let’s not pretend she’s innocent.

She knows how to push.

Tonight she got dramatic, I got angry, and now everybody gets to act shocked.

That’s marriage.

He would have kept talking if John had needed him to.

Men like Mark loved the sound of their own cruelty when they thought they had an audience too weak to challenge it.

But then John asked the one question he knew would strip away any last performance.

So throwing her into the rain half-conscious was your way of teaching her a lesson?

Mark’s face changed—not into remorse, but into irritation that the old man in front of him had failed to stay in his role.

Watch yourself, he snapped.

You don’t know who you’re talking to.

John’s voice stayed level.

I know exactly who I’m talking to.

That was when Mark tried to slam the door.

John’s boot stopped it.

For one second the two men stared at each other, both understanding the shape of the moment.

Mark set his drink down on the entry table and shoved hard.

John did not move.

Mark