The silence in the grand, cold sitting room stretched, heavy and profound, after Alexander’s confession. He still stood over me, the photograph of his childhood self nestled stiffly in his hand, a tangible artifact of his emotional ruin.

I looked at his face, now stripped of the fierce control he usually wore like a suit of armor. I saw the eight-year-old boy in the photograph—rigid, seeking approval—hiding beneath the thirty-eight-year-old billionaire. This was the chink in the armor ...