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RHAIM

I followed the evolving news of Zane St. Clair’s crimes all day.

Sable had made an EMS call after I’d left, and when they’d gotten there they’d trampled all over the scene, she said, still monitoring the cameras—which was perfect.

The more confusing things looked, the more the police would opt for the obvious story, which would be backed-up by Sable’s faked phones.

It wouldn’t matter that Zane St. Clair had no idea who Bix was in reality—because if you were being convicted of a crime, wouldn’t you say the same?

As much as I wanted to run to Nero with the news, like a dog bringing a bone, I knew I needed to wait. He would need time to consider all the angles. And to think.

He needed to think it was his choice. Not something forced on him.

I dressed myself that night in a black Isaia tux, with patent leather oxfords so shiny they would reflect Lia’s pussy back at me if I tucked them under her skirt, which I fully intended to, by the end of the night.

And towards that end, I showed up early to the Rainbow Room in Rockefeller Center, the location that Nero’s people had rented for the occasion. I wanted to make sure I didn’t let Lia down, in case she was forced to attend with Marcus—and I also hoped I’d be able to talk some sense into her old man.

My car let me out, and I took the elevator up to the 65 th floor, and got out.

All of the tables and chairs were already arranged, and caterers and florists were scurrying around like ants. The space was a flashy, egregious display of wealth, with the best city views—but, I realized, tonight wasn’t just about Nero’s birthday.

It was a celebration of one man’s determination to make something of himself at all costs.

At seventy, Nero Ferreo was old enough to not only believe in the American Dream, but to have had the opportunity to live it, in a way that you didn’t get to anymore—America had moved on, letting go of hope and embracing cruelty.

But he’d ridden that wave of believing in himself, and in his people, and, occasionally, in violence, until he’d washed ashore here, at the end of his life, in a beautiful room, in a beautiful building, with a beautiful daughter, and hundreds of people who wanted to celebrate him.

Some of them selfishly, yes, because they wanted him to make them money, but some of the love was genuine.

Like mine.

I scanned the room, spotted Rio looming at the back, and went to join him.

“Old man’s not here yet,” Rio muttered, watching everyone’s activities.

“You on active threat duty, or what?” I assumed Nero wouldn’t show up until the seats were half-filled—it was his birthday party, he deserved to make an entrance.

“Well, seeing as some violence has entered into recent personal equations,” Rio said, giving me a look.

“Oh, I saw the news,” I said, conversationally. “Just terrible. Tragic, really. Drugs are so bad.”

I was laying it on so thick that even Rio had to snicker. “Yeah.”

“So you’re here early to make sure no one drops off a corpse, like someone dumping a body at a waterpark in summer?”

“That’s oddly specific.”

“It is, isn’t it,” I agreed. “Is the bar open?”

“Should be,” Rio grunted, jerking his chin behind my shoulder.

People trickled in, in twos and threes, and I kept an eye on the door waiting for Lia, milking a Negroni, doing my best to be civil.

I’d had one eye on our numbers all day—the news about Lia’s psych history hadn’t hurt the IPO, since she’d clearly already been sidelined—although it was going to make it a lot harder for me to get her on the board.

But the news about Zane St. Clair’s overdose and subsequently becoming a murder suspect hadn’t made a dent either.

It’d hit the gossip columns hard, but there were enough rich, sullen, ill-tempered children in New York to go around—if stock prices depended on people liking you, or your family, the bottom would fall out of everyone’s 401k’s.

What I was counting on was Nero’s sense of old-world propriety. He loved Lia. She was infamous enough as it was, merely by virtue of being his daughter.

He wouldn’t want to condemn her to any more infamy.

And then Nicholas Samson came in. He surveyed the scene, spotted me, and came straight over.

“What the hell are you drinking?” he asked, his large round face breaking into a smile as wide as a generous wedge of pie.

“Depends, are you buying?”

“Yes. Tonight? Yes,” he repeated.

“I take it you’re happy?”

“Impossibly.”

“Well that’s good,” I said, bowing my head. “Now we never talk about it again. Except for the part where you owe me a bottle of Macallan seventy-two year old Lalique.”

He clutched his chest like he’d been struck. “I should’ve known you’d have good taste.”

I tilted the bottom of my current cocktail his direction. “It’s why you fuckin’ hired me.” I was grinning back at Samson, when I saw Freddie Jr sneaking up.

“Hey, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think this was insider trading,” he said, on his way to the bar. Both Nick and I ignored him—but I realized if Junior was here, Senior was sure to follow.

I’d already had to deal with Freddie Sr. being smug earlier in the week, during the interminable board meeting we’d had, the day I’d found Lia in the stairwell. He’d asked questions just to hear himself talk—and that proved he hadn’t read a single goddamned IPO related email.

But he was feeling good about himself, clearly—because he knew his exile in Asia was nearly over. The second Nero died, all of Nero’s shares would go to Senior, and then my personal nightmare would begin.

“Excuse me,” I told Nick, and then went to the bar to talk to Jr. “Where’s your dad?” I asked, after he finished his order.

“Anything you want to say to him, you can say to me,” Jr said, giving me a shit-eating grin.

After his fiasco setting up Lia for him to “rescue” I wanted to curbstomp all his teeth in, so I made a show of looking over his shoulder some. “Where’s your shitbird friend?”

I knew for a fact that Bobby was still “hoping to walk” someday, with the on-going help of physical therapy.

“Which one?” Junior asked. “I have so many.”

If he’d managed to play it cool and leave it there, I might have had a fractional moment of grudging respect for him.

I might’ve believed he knew how the game was played.

But that slim chance evaporated, the second his idiot mouth went on. “You know how Nero’s sick, right?”

I said nothing. I moved nothing. I kept imagining punching in his teeth.

“You’d better keep an empty box under your desk, Rhaim. The second Nero dies, my dad’s in charge—and his first order of business is going to be to firing you.”

I stared Junior down. “No one sane switches chief financial officers right before an IPO.”

“Yes, but, after?” Junior pressed. “Everything’s going to change for you.

No one’s going to hire you—you don’t have a degree, you’re just a lucky monster with a reputation.

” He took a casual swig of his drink. “You’ve coasted long enough on my uncle’s soft, loyal heart—good luck when you hit reality. ”

“Well, you know what they say about reality?” I asked him, then answered my own question. “Sometimes it hits back with a hammer.”