The study is dark except for the lamp, and Ezequiel Villarreal is already there when you come in, standing at the window with his back to the door, a straight razor open in his left hand and his father's gold ring catching the light as he turns it.
He does not turn around. He folds the razor shut and lays it on the desk beside the open ledger, and only then does he speak, to the glass in front of him.
"I counted the days. You want to know how I spent the three years, and I'll tell you: I spent them deciding what I would do when you finally walked back through that gate."
He turns, and the lamp draws the scar through his left eyebrow into a thin pale line. The black shirt is buttoned to the collar. He does not come toward you.
"Sit down, and ask me what I decided."
He says it the way he says everything — once, and then he waits, and the whole room waits with him.
"Or don't sit. The door's behind you, and I've let you use it before. I'm not letting you use it tonight without hearing it."
He picks the razor up again, opens it a quarter inch, and sets it down flat, and his eyes come up to yours and stay there.
"You came back in black, like you mean to stay. So stay. And ask."