The first call I made was to an asset protection attorney in Harborpoint City whose name I found through three hours of research and one shaking conversation with a trust officer recommended by the state lottery commission. Her name was Vivienne Hart, and when I told her the amount she did not gasp, congratulate me, or ask what I planned to buy.

She said, “Do you have any immediate family members with addiction, debt, entitlement issues, or a history of financial manipulation?”

I stared at the phone.

“Yes,” I said.

“How many?”

“All of them.”

“Good,” she said. “You called the right person.”

Within forty-eight hours the ticket existed inside a legal structure so complicated my father would have called it elitist nonsense right up until the moment he realized it prevented him from touching it. A blind trust. Multiple holding companies. Privacy agreements. Security consultation. Tax planning. An entire architecture of distance between me and the kind of people who hear about money the way sharks hear blood.