Page 45 of The Session

“To my father?”

“To some extent, especially because you look a lot like him. And to be honest, I’m really surprised you didn’t pick up on that sooner. But I was thinking about his other son, Kevin—your half brother. I assume your mom mentioned him.”

“Yes. I wish I could have met him,” Mark replied.

“Kevin was like a little brother to me. Everybody loved him. He had a huge heart. You could say, emotionally, he’s who Max always wanted to be. Losing him was rough. Things went off the rails for Max after he drowned,” Tru said softly.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Mark said.

“I’m sorry for yours, Mark. And Max’s. Maybe now’s not the time to say it, but . . . I see a lot of Kevin in you.”

“What happened?” Mark asked.

“It was a year ago. The official story is that he drowned. What isn’t in the papers, and what’s not really known inside the organization, is that Kevin had relapsed. He drowned because of the drugs in his system. He had been clean for a while but then relapsed. It wasn’t easy being Kevin. There was a ton of pressure on him ever since he was born. And to be honest, Mark, I know the situation you and your mother went through wasn’t great, but I think you’re the lucky one.”

“Yeah? I can’t imagine.”

He had sometimes considered that he was better off not knowing who his father was, but he’d never considered that being born in his father’s world could have been the bad timeline—and that his life was the lucky one.

“Kevin had become pretty withdrawn from Summit over the last few years. He made a few appearances, but people knew he had been distancing himself.”

They sat in silence until the pilot announced the plane had reached altitude.

“At first, people are going to want to ingratiate themselves to you because of who your father is. They’ll be jockeying for position in the event that you become important. But if you decide to stick around, they are going to insist that you prove you’re worthy,” Tru explained.

“How does that work?” Mark asked.

“There are two ways,” Tru said. “One is internal training, which we call challenges; you’ll have to do some of those that everybody does. The other way, which isn’t expected of you for a while, is to become a provider. What you really need to focus on right now is just understanding everybody around you. Pay close attention, because nothing is going to be accidental.”

Tru continued, “You met Nathan Morris. He’s the one person who knows the whole layout of the organization. He worked for Max and my father for decades and is very loyal—very well compensated. If you have questions, go to him, but he’s going to be looking for weakness.”

“I might be screwed,” Mark said.

“No. To Morris, weakness is vanity, unbounded greed, and the inability to keep control of your vices,” Tru replied. “For example, Blaise Cutler—he’s a legacy; his parents have been involved with the organization forever. He’s hungry and cunning, but he sees everything as competition, which means he’s a terrible collaborator. But he’s been an exceptional provider. Blaise was the first one to realize that a lot of the crypto bro millionaires and billionaires had no idea what to do with their money. He was able to get a number of them on board with us for expensive contracts, ranging from training their employees, providing their chiefs of staff, and facilitating things like jet and yacht rentals. I think he’s just a party boy who got lucky, but I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

Mark recalled from the first meeting: Blaise had been watching him intently.

“So you do employee staffing too?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, and some might consider it one of the sketchier parts of our organization. I’m on the fence. In the case of those crypto guys, they often have no idea how to staff, where to hire, what to do. We take care of that for them. Of course, the people we provide tend to prefer services performed by organizations related to Summit Strategies. It’s not something we necessarily hide, but it could be considered a conflict of interest if our people only recommend Summit-related hires, I guess. But it also makes it easier for everything to just work. That’s another expression you’re going to hear a lot: Does it work? Basically, it means, Is there no friction?” she explained. “For example, the phone number I gave you—the whole point of that is for you to know that if you call, everything’s taken care of. On the other end, somebody has to connect with our staffing service, our private car service, and our aircraft logistics operation. If you were one of our billionaire clients and you dialed that number and it rang twice, that wouldn’t work. If the car was five minutes late, no bueno. Part of the reason people pay so much for what we offer is that we make sure it works.”

“I still have no idea what I’m stepping into,” Mark told her.

“I get it,” Tru replied. “The best advice I can give you is just . . . stay true to who you are. I’m not worried about that. You’re going to see a lot of people who act the same way, use the same language. You don’t need to do that. You need to understand them, know why they’re doing it. But don’t bend to them. Part of what Kevin dealt with was feeling pressure to be like his father. And I think that was a mistake. Max is brilliant and has done a lot of amazing things. But he’s also just a man. But don’t tell him I told you that.”

Mark laughed. “I’m not sure I’m ready to meet him.”

“One more thing: You have to remember the word ‘cult’ comes from ‘cultural,’” Tru said. “And people within the organization take their culture very seriously. Some of them have, well, almost a religious devotion to it—although I assure you, we’re not a religion. That can manifest in different ways. I’m not worried about you, but for some people it can be hard to keep it from going to their heads. I had to grow up in it and finally realize it wasn’t normal for complete strangers to send you presents on your birthday or treat you like you were a celebrity when you hadn’t done anything. That messed with Kevin too. He had it even worse. I guess what I’m saying is that some people are going to be kind of weird around you.”

Mark nodded.

“Okay, on to the good stuff. This jet is nice. We’ve got multiple private islands, not just one. The main one is, of course, the resort facility and conference center. We also have locations around the world. If you want to make a trip, call a number. It’s set up anywhere you want to go. Tomorrow night, you get bored and want to have dinner in Paris—make a call. We can do it. It’s a complete waste of a flight, but just know it can be done. You like football; you name a game, we can get you box seats. We also have screeners for every major Hollywood feature, should you choose, as well as restaurant reservations. If you want some food item in the middle of the night, even though it’s not available in your city, we’ll get it to you. We own two different charter jet services, which makes moving things back and forth easy.”

“I get the perks. Are there any other downsides I need to be aware of right now?” Mark asked.

“Yes. We have enemies within, and we have enemies on the outside storming the gates,” Tru said. “A name you’re going to hear a lot is Eduardo Bolsonaro. He was one of our top providers until he decided to start his own organization and take some of our key people with him. We’re still getting over the impact of that. He would very much like to see Summit fall apart so he can pick up the pieces.”

“Wonderful,” Mark said.