By January 2021, Lincoln's life had settled into a routine he would have laughed at as a young man, if you'd tried to convince him that's where he would end up. Getting up at 8.30 a.m. – extraordinarily late to most working Americans, no doubt, but earlier than Lincoln had ever been up before in his life – to a small but not ludicrously filthy apartment, for which he only paid 700 dollars a month.

Abruzzi had helped him find it, as he'd helped him find the decent job he'd promised would be his reward for years of loyal service.

The man had been true to his word, so far – you had to give him that.

"I want to do right by you, Burrows," he said, "because part of me still believes one day you'll get tired of your retirement. And if you want back in the game, I want to be the person you go to. That sounds fair enough to you?"

It did. What sounded even better was the deal Abruzzi was offering – work at one of the fanciest restaurants in Chicago, the sort of place where Lincoln never would have wanted to work or eat at if you'd paid him for it, but things had changed, and now, the place sounded to Lincoln like an opportunity.

Not really to become a decent waiter (which he undoubtedly had).

"All the best restaurants in town," Abruzzi had said when promoting his new job to Lincoln, "are mine." What exactly Abruzzi's ownership over the restaurants consisted in, Lincoln found it cleverer not to ask. "And I can place you with the best of the best, where tips alone will pay for your expenses. If that's the sort of environment you want, of course."

Was there some secret note of caution in Abruzzi's tone? Was he testing him?

Careful to look nonchalant, not to break from his usual coolness, Lincoln shrugged his shoulder. "I can wear a suit, boss, and serve caviar to snobs."

"I thought it might amuse you," Abruzzi answered. "I'll tell you what. I can get you an apprenticeship at the Everest. Lower pay, for a few months, but in ways that's even better – you'll earn all you need from tips, anyway, and reduce your income taxes. A win-win."

Lincoln nodded.

"The Everest isn't where I take my wife for dinner," Abruzzi went on. "I promised no more ties to me in your next line of work, and I mean that. I've no desire for that sort of crowd in broad light, anyhow – that restaurant is where the crust of society meets, you understand? Celebrities. Politicians. Now, the place has an elevated decency standard. I don't expect you to mention your time in Fox River, of course. We're talking about a place that's unforgiving of waiters who trip on their shoelaces. You screw up, you're on your own."

"Fair enough."

But Lincoln had done much better than Abruzzi had predicted, had actually stood out as the number-one apprentice – it wasn't so hard to dress up nice and smile in the face of people who nibbled at tiny platefuls of salmons and crab cakes and other unthinkable things to eat for dinner. And, after a near twenty-year crime career, Lincoln found he had steeled himself to become a good enough waiter. He did great under stress, hands that wouldn't shake even if he was carrying plates to a table where the Obamas sat surreally chatting. He could act fast, was quick to rebound in the case of unexpected situations; he never panicked. The first time Lincoln (a three-week apprentice at the time) calmed down a whole kitchen after a batch of twelve crème brulées had been burnt, or brulées, beyond salvaging, Lincoln discovered with some amazement that Michael wasn't the only brother to have inherited some leadership skills. Solutions, even in a kitchen under high pressure, were easy to Lincoln, who was used to admittedly higher pressure, like running for dear life as the police hounded at his heels.

And, what was maybe most shocking of all, Lincoln was good with the clients.

The sort of people that had stuck their noses up at him for most of his life now laughed pleasantly at his jokes, and eyed him like he was some unusual gem, a rough diamond, all the more precious for its irregularities. It was easy to earn their admiration, even easier to maintain it. It wasn't only that Lincoln could memorize the menus or the regulars' habits – wine on Wednesdays but champagne on Saturday nights for the Joneses, that couple of millionaires who'd won the lottery the previous year, and who loved to be called nouveaux riches as much as they loved to pretend to hate it. Lincoln also remembered their life stories and what sort of chat they liked with their dinner.

Most enjoyed gossip and turned such an eager ear to Lincoln, you'd think he was the high school queen sharing rumors on her lowly subjects.

Ah, you waiters pick up some good stuff on people, dropping in on their conversations with petits fours in the one hand and a bottle Cabernet in the other.

And Lincoln would say, "You bet," with a charming smile, just the right amount of cocky. These rich people were so used to a tame, exaggeratedly respectful behavior, to really impress them, you had to take them out of their comfort zone, smile in ways they hadn't been smiled at since fame happened to them.

In truth, he really did learn some interesting things about interesting people. It wasn't just movie stars but congressmen and congresswomen, or men Lincoln had never heard of before until one of his fellow waiters would grab his arm and speak into his ear, "See the guy at the bar in the white striped suit? That's Steve Easterbrook." When Lincoln didn't bat an eye, "The guy who owns McDonald's."

"Fucking hell," Lincoln mumbled.

These people, Lincoln found, the CEOs, the owners of worldwide industries, had much, much to say about politics, and about the new president.

"Poor little thing," he caught one of them saying once, as he was going around the table, serving champagne. "Thinks she can ban us from the schools, does she?"

School lunches, Lincoln was astonished to learn, wasn't just the matter of kids getting through the day and splashing food at people to blow some steam in between classes, but an affair worth billions of dollars.

"Give her time," another answered. "She's only a few weeks in. It's fashionable to talk about every little issue going on – soon, she'll see she has more important things to care about than what we feed American children. I say we wait a little. Probably, she won't even see this through with legislation."

"If she tries –"

"Dissuasion. Like we did with the Obamas."

"Would you like ice with that, sir?"

"Thank you."

It was crazy the sort of things people said around him, as if being the person that poured their drinks provided him with some kind of invisibility.

He was just a smile and a twinkle that went with the meal.

The Everest was a strictly evening restaurant, opened at 5.30 p.m., so there was no reason for Lincoln to get up in the morning at all. It was true that many nights ended up taking him to fancy bars, where most of his colleagues would spend their ludicrous tips on cosmopolitans and martinis – buying them for themselves and for girls, because showing off was as much part of the fun as getting wasted. It was their well-earned reward to act like big guys, as if waiting on some of the richest people in the country somehow trickled down on them like fairy powder.

Lincoln drank with them, but not much. Most of the money he earned, he would stash under his pillow, along with the notebook he'd recently purchased – already, he'd gone through nearly half of the pages with his drunken, likely undecipherable scrawling. He'd have to write a cleaner version, one of these days, but right now, the notes were just for him; the fewer people could read his handwriting, the better.

For sure, his clients at the Everest wouldn't be too happy to know he kept notes of their conversations, which he technically wasn't even supposed to hear.

As he wrote down everything he remembered on the lined pages, flashes of primary school came back to him – it'd been such a long time since he'd written anything by hand. But after all that had happened – how he'd seen Roland access the computer and cell phone of a US Senator easy as pie – Lincoln felt it was safer for this to be inside a notebook, which no one would look on twice, than on a Word document, which he could just email to his brother when he felt it was time.

Who knew who was watching, these days – after Edward Snowden, after Russia's play in the 2016 election, how could you trust anything online?

Besides, handwriting had an old-fashioned feel, not without its charms.

Lincoln had no clear idea what he would do with these notes – only that Michael might need them, in the big enterprise he'd thrown himself into.

And whatever he could give Michael to start repaying the unpayable debt he owed him, Lincoln would give without flinching.

Life was not all about redemption, to Lincoln. There were fine moments – satisfaction and pride that he could manage this lifestyle at all, that rich people liked him, like you like the most thrill-providing ride at a funfair. To them, he was sensational, exciting. The women at the tables would look at him like he was actually of a different material than whatever men they were with – like he was more alive, more dangerous, more sexual. Like a wall existed between rich and normal people, and the latter were simply more animal than the other.

Lincoln enjoyed this, in a little twisted way. He enjoyed drinking, not as a way to show off like most of his colleagues, but as a palliative. And he actually enjoyed doing legal work and earning good money, though much of it came from wheedling millionaires at their dinner tables.

Guilt didn't come as you hear it does, before sleep, denying rest to your soul as well as your body. At night, when he came home and crashed on his bed, Lincoln was often too drunk to think about anything, let alone, what he had done to his brother and Sara Tancredi one night of Halloween.

But when he woke up – early, so he could look up the guests that had made a reservation at the Everest – when he opened his eyes and lay still in his bed, a wave thick as tar flooded Lincoln's spirit, and he would see himself crouching in that deserted building, trying to get decent shots of the naked bodies moving around in the motel room opposite him, and the horror that filled him as recognition dropped the curtain from before his eyes.

My brother.

Lincoln endured the torment steadily, like a rock weathers the beating of the waves during a storm.

It was fair he should feel like this, if only once during the day.

Lincoln had heard of worse punishments.

Michael stood motionless for a moment, before his living room wall, which now looked abnormally crowded in his near-empty apartment. On the wall were the faces of the main political actors that led the country, whether from the front or from backstage. The good ones, among whose Sara's face was a smiling red-haired beacon, an ice pick in Michael's chest, every time that he looked (only the sort of ice that melts and burns its way inside your system). And the bad ones, more numerous – Theodore Bagwell and John Abruzzi's pictures were like drops in an ocean, unnoticeable, a sea of silent scandal and corruption.

It didn't matter how long it took, Michael thought, calm, as he stroked his fingers over the cobweb patterns on his walls. Someone in this country needed to bring these people to justice, one way or another – and maybe it wouldn't just be him. Maybe he would only expose a handful.

"But you have to start somewhere, right?" He said to his empty apartment – or maybe to the avalanche of faces on his living room wall.

Then, Michael sat on the chair before his desk, got ready to work and switched on the TV, in case anything should happen he couldn't miss out on. No sound, only images.

His mouth broke into a smile as he recognized the program by Sarah Silverman – I Love You, America.

End Notes: Again, thanks to all the guests for the incredible feedback. Please keep sharing your ideas!