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“He gets that from you, you know,” Chase said to Shay, who offered Luke a consolatory fist bump from across the table. “At least my favorite daughter had my back.”
“The bet wasn’t that you didn’t screw up, Dad. Only that you didn’t screw up in that particular way.”
“Appreciation rescinded.”
Two large pies, each missing several slices, stood on pizza stands. The family had started without him. He didn’t mind. Madison had dusted her pizza with enough parmesan cheese to conceal the tomato sauce. Luke folded his slice in half lengthwise and took a massive bite.
Shay squeezed Chase’s hand under the table. He returned the squeeze, then leaned over to kiss his wife. She kissed him back.
“How did the approach go?” she asked.
“It was going just fine until all hell broke loose.”
“You didn’t alienate Daniels?”
“Have a little faith, babe. I’m actually quite good at my job.”
“Just ask him,” quipped Madison.
“Don’t bother,” added Luke, “he’ll tell you anyway.”
Chase reached across the table and pinched them both.
“Seriously though, it wasn’t contentious?” asked Shay.
“He knows we’re on the same team.” Chase leaned forward. “You could say he even embraced me.”
Madison looked suspiciously at her father, then reluctantly slid the five-dollar bill back over to a delighted Luke.
They spent a long, leisurely time at Angelo’s. Shay ordered some wine for the two of them and gelato for the kids. Chase stepped to the front of the restaurant to pay the bill, then, as he waited for his family at the exit, pulled out his phone.
Though by now the afternoon’s embarrassing mishap had bloomed into a very public black eye for Avalon, he ignored the news and social media to scroll through his missed messages.
Starting at the top, Chase read the All Clear notice from AlertDC, the District of Columbia’s communications system, as well as fire, police, and EMS, all of which he subscribed to. He went backward in time, noting how and when the various agencies sent the emergency warnings of a potential active shooter at Avalon Park. He reread Shay’s text from earlier, letting him know that she and the kids had safely evacuated the park and would rendezvous with Chase at the pizzeria. An earlier text caught his eye, one he had missed during the melee. It was from a blocked number and displayed just two words.
BANG BANG.
Chase stared at the message. It seemed to have been sent simultaneously with the first warnings displayed inside the park.
Just then, Shay sidled up to him and wrapped her arms around one of his. “You okay?”
Chase gave her his most winning smile, then leaned in for another kiss.
“Couldn’t be better,” he lied.
CHAPTER 5
“TEAM, I HAVE some good news and some bad news…”
Chase stood at the head of the main conference room table in FIRST Group’s headquarters, in an eleven-story high-rise in CityCenterDC, the District’s $950 million mixed-use development. The neighborhood, encompassing ten acres in the heart of downtown, was one of the most ambitious real estate projects of the new century.
Shay had chastised him for leveraging so much of their personal capital to secure such premium office space—complete with terraces and a landscaped roof—until she saw the boutiques lining the street. Hermès, Dior, Gucci, Kate Spade, even a Tesla dealership. It wasn’t long before her disapproval thawed and she began visiting the offices more frequently for lunches with Chase, followed by a retail digestif.
In for a penny, in for a pound, Chase had thought. If FIRST was to be the first name in tailored risk assessments toFortune100 companies, he needed to look the part, and that included a prime address.
He looked around the state-of-the-art conference room, equipped with an expensive bank of 4K display screens opposite the floor-to-ceiling windows, and tried not to dwell on his family’s future financial well-being. He didn’t even want toconsiderthe ceiling, embedded with invisible speakers and microphones, or the wall behind him that acted as a capacitive touch surface—a high-tech whiteboard.
“Why do you keep saying ‘team’?” asked Madison, FIRST’s only other employee. “It’s just the two of us.”
