Page 5

I close the file and set the phone facedown on the counter.

Pick it up again thirty seconds later and read the file a third time.

This is not normal behavior. I'm aware of that. I'm a man who runs a $200 million club, who manages a portfolio that requires my attention roughly eighteen hours a day, who has not thought about a woman's face for more than five consecutive minutes in the past four years — and I'm standing in a bathroom reading a waitress's personnel file for the third time in twenty minutes, looking at a headshot that isn't even a good photo and trying to figure out why I can't stop.

I put the phone in my jacket pocket and go downstairs.

Do not look at the file again until I'm in the car.

Fourth time.

The Sunday Whiskey is a tradition I will never, under any circumstances, admit to enjoying.

Every Sunday evening, the core group meets at the Founder's Table — the curved booth in the back corner of the main floor, half-hidden behind a black marble column and a potted palm that we pay a genuinely stupid amount of money to keep alive. Eleven hundred dollars a month for a plant. Jagger has named it Gerald. I pretend not to know that.

We each have our own decanter on the Whiskey Wall behind the bar. Hand-blown crystal, personally engraved, filled with whatever we drink. Mine is Yamazaki 25. Jagger's is Blanton's Gold. Caleb does Redbreast 15, never more than two fingers — the man drinks whiskey like he does everything else, with the precise restraint of someone who's spent a career being paid to stay sharp. Elliot doesn't drink at all but comes anyway. We pretend not to find that endearing. Elliot pretends not to notice us pretending.

I'm late tonight. I've changed suits — the Tom Ford is a write-off — and switched to the navy Brioni, and I've spent exactly zero minutes thinking about brown eyes.

Twelve minutes. I've spent twelve minutes. But I'm rounding down.

Jagger is already sprawled in the booth when I get there, one arm across the back of the seat, tie loosened, wearing that effortless grin that's gotten him on the cover of Forbes twice and cost at least three women their good judgment. Jagger Cross looks like what would happen if you asked a sculptor to carve "charming asshole" and then gave the result a hedge fund.

"You're late." He raises his glass. "I was about to send out a drone."

"I was upstairs."

"Doing what? Firing someone?" The grin stretches. "Wait — I heard. The new girl baptized you in Scotch."

I sit down.

"Macallan 18, wasn't it?" Caleb says from the other end of the booth. He's built like something the military designed on a government contract — huge shoulders, cropped dark hair, a face that's constantly assessing everything in the room for exit routes and structural vulnerabilities. "Could've been worse. Could've been the 25."

"It was the 18," I confirm.

"Still. Direct hit. No evasive action?" Caleb almost smiles, which for him is practically a standing ovation. "Losing your edge, Sterling."

"It was an accident."

"An accident you didn't fire her for." Jagger leans in. The smile stays but his eyes go sharp underneath it. People always see the charm with Jagger and miss the razor. He's been doing it so long the razor is basically invisible, which is exactly how he likes it. "Since when don't you fire people for accidents? You fired the last new bartender for putting one extra ice cube in Aries's drink."

"That was different."

"How?"

"It was her first night."

"You fired the bartender on his first night."

I take a sip of Yamazaki and refuse to answer.

Elliot arrives next, sliding into the booth with the careful efficiency of a man who treats social interaction as an engineering problem he's agreed to tolerate on a weekly basis. Tall, lean, the kind of face that forgets to have expressions unless you specifically remind it. He sets his sparkling water on a coaster — always a coaster, always centered — and says, "The quarterly projections for the new membership tier are in. We're eighteen percent above forecast."

"Hello to you too, Elliot," Jagger says.

"Hello. We're eighteen percent above forecast."

"How about, 'Hey guys, how's your weekend going, anyone see the game—'"