I’m the one who taught Fiona how to negotiate, undermining my personal interests when she needed to sell a painting—the Picasso that hangs in my living room—very quickly. I even took her personal marker when she didn’t have the cash to close a related deal.
Of course, I know why I’ve bent my rules for Fiona. She’s a version of my sister—tough, smart, damaged—but Fiona Moran has learned from all her mistakes. Megan just keeps dragging her disasters to my doorstep.
Fiona’s eyeing me now, her lips twisted into a tiny smirk. She knows she caught me off-guard. I say, “I’ll talk to him.”
“I’ve already done that. Three times. He’s out.”
The customer’s always right. “I’ll have someone else assigned to your account by Monday.”
“Thank you,” she says, helping herself to another massive bite of eggs. I’ve watched her eat her weight at plenty of meals; there’s no reason she should make an exception for breakfast. She eyes my untouched apricot with an interest that’s close to indecent.
“You’re welcome,” I say, passing her the fruit. I’m not hungry anyway.
While Fiona’s been trimming my workforce, other members of the Diamond Ring have filtered into the tent. Roger Turner is telling the sort of off-color joke I stopped laughing at in middle school. Braiden Kelly and Connor Boyle—captains ofthe Irish mob in Philadelphia and New York respectively—look like they’re plotting to take over the entire Atlantic seaboard. Braxton, the international arms dealer, stands next to Steve Torrington, an insurance tycoon, both of them taking advantage of the open bar to spike their Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee.
“Let’s go, motherfuckers!” Prince calls from the entrance to the tent. He always has a way with words. “Time and tide and all that goddamn shit.”
We tumble out of the tent like half-trained puppies.
Every person here could buy a small nation, if so inclined. Together, we make more business decisions before noon than the average CEO makes in a month. We play hard, and we know how to reward ourselves when we’ve won a game, set, or match.
But there’s a little kid inside all of us. We love surprises. And with our wealth and privilege, it can be damn near impossible to deliver a true bombshell.
The betting begins as we climb the stairs to Prince’s extravagant jet. Gage Rider suggests we’re heading to a rodeo, somewhere in Texas. Arsene Dubois, owner of a chain of premium international hotels, guesses we’re going to a dude ranch. Roger Turner hopes we’re heading to a Nevada whorehouse.
Trap won’t say. He just tells us we have two and a half hours before we touch down. Speculation rises faster than the jet as we leave Dover behind.
There’s another open bar onboard the plane. That means we won’t be driving at our final destination—or riding horses either. White-water rafting is out, and I suspect fly-fishing is tabled as well.
Turner is still campaigning for that whorehouse—which is either wishful thinking or a very poor grasp of US geography, given the promised flight time. Probably both.
Helping myself to a soda water with lime, I search out the one member of the Diamond Ring I most want to do business with today.
Sawyer Best looks comfortable in worn jeans and a nondescript shirt. The scuffs on his steel-toed work boots say he’s worn them for years. His cropped gray hair makes him look like he’d be equally at home in a boardroom or a battlefield. In fact, the former soldier is the president and CEO of Sawgrass Corporation, a private mercenary army.
And I need to talk to him about deployment.
“Got a minute?” I ask, dropping into the massive leather seat across from him.
He finishes a message he’s typing on his phone with a decisive tap on the screen. Taking care to set his device face-down on the arm of his chair, he meets my gaze dispassionately. “Of course,” he says.
Best may be the one man I’ve met with a tighter laser focus than my own. I cut straight to what I need. “What staffing would you recommend to protect against a home invasion?”
Something sharpens behind his dark eyes. “Where’s the home?”
“DC. Georgetown.”
“Any existing physical defenses?”
“A twenty-foot fence topped with concertina wire and full biometrics at the gate.”
His eyebrows arch, but his tone remains detached. “The greatest risk to home security is the people inside the home. Your household staff. Your family. Your guests.”
“Noted,” I say. At least my staff is above reproach.
“What size force do you need to deter?”
“So far, one overconfident asshole with a pistol and zipties. But that fucker has friends.”
