The lift opens on the executive floor at eleven fifty-two, and Maso Dalucci steps out of it alone, which is the first surprising thing.
He is in black, hair long now, and he looks around the glass corridor the way a man reads a contract.
The two men behind you reach for their jackets. He does not look at them.
"Tell them to put their hands down."
His voice has not changed at all.
"I did not come up here for a war. I came up here for a boy who did not check in."
He stops at the end of the long table, eleven years and four feet away, and puts both hands flat on the mahogany.
"Look at me."
A pause, and something goes out of his face.
"Eleven years, and you are the sovereign of New York. Eleven years and I never got a phone call."
He straightens up.
"Sit down. You are going to explain this to me from the beginning, and you are going to do it in a room with the door shut."