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understand. Preparing to leave the den and confront Daniel, he rubbed his face to gather his wits. Only then did he notice the tears.
    “Did you know what was in this envelope?” Wilson questioned as he strode into family room.
    Daniel was listening to voice messages on his BlackBerry. “Yes. Your father’s instructions were for me to review the contents of the envelope before giving it to you.”
    “Would you like to tell me what it means,” Wilson said, his head still churning with his own interpretations, replaying conversations from years earlier. His father had told him that Fielder & Company was considering a radical approach to humanizing capitalism, but that he would need a decade or so to see if it actually worked. But that’s as far as his father went, even when Wilson had probed for more details.
    After a few moments of watching Wilson stare past him toward the chalet’s arched windows, Daniel responded. “Are you aware that your father’s estate is worth over seventy billion dollars—after taxes?”
    “What?” Wilson blurted out. The number astonished him. He knew his father was very wealthy, but he had no idea his financial worth had reached such levels.
    His mind raced back to his youth. By the time Wilson graduated from Milton Academy at seventeen, he’d already traveled around the world a dozen times. Then he spent four years at Princeton and two years at Harvard, graduating from both universities with highest honors. All of it should have made him hopelessly full of himself. But surprisingly, his abiding empathy for those who were less advantaged gave him an unusual charm and a curious sort of wise innocence, just like his father. But how, he worried, had my father accumulated this much wealth?
    “It’s easier to hide wealth than you might think,” Daniel said. “Your great-grandfather started by hiding millions during the Great Depression. He was convinced that J. P. Morgan and a group of international bankers had orchestrated the stock market crash of ’29 and then severely constricted the money supply in order to buy up depressed assets at a fraction of their value. The result was a massive transfer of wealth to Europe and the megarich, along with the humbling of America. All agendas served the world’s money interests. Your father decided to continue his grandfather’s wealth concealment practices. The family’s seventy billion dollars is distributed across a wide range of stock positions, investment partnerships, and offshore accounts—a result of brilliant money handling for many years. KaneWeller has offered five billion dollars for Fielder & Company. They called me yesterday as soon as they heard the news about your father, wanting to make sure the deal was still on. As I mentioned, they want to close by the end of the week.”
    Still feeling off-kilter, Wilson gawked at Daniel and then at the white tape on the floor. He motioned for Daniel to follow him to the den. He felt more comfortable there. They both sat down next to the fireplace, Wilson in his father’s chair and Daniel on an adjacent sofa.
    “What’s motivating KaneWeller?”
    “Fielder & Company is better at preparing clients for Initial Public Offerings than anyone in the industry. Even in bad markets, the firm stays fully booked with spin-outs, roll-ups, PIPEs …”
    Wilson cut him off.
    “What I don’t understand is what makes Fielder & Company’s approach to IPOs, spin-outs, roll-ups or PIPEs worth five billion dollars.”
    Daniel looked around the den hesitantly, as if seeking Charles’ approval to proceed.
    “What few people appreciate or understand about Fielder & Company is its ability to structure public offerings so that CEOs maximize their own personal wealth,” Daniel said, pausing. “Everything on Wall Street is plagiarized, almost immediately—so Fielder & Company is relentless at keeping secrets and devising new strategies for restructuring businesses without raising red flags with