*TACK.
TACK.
TACK.
*
I opened my eyes.
Standing on the asphalt outside my car, leaning down with his hands on his hips, was **Nick Sterling**.
My boss.
The thirty-six-year-old managing partner of Vanguard Creative Group.
He wore an unbuttoned, two-thousand-dollar slate-gray Zegna sports coat over an open-collar Italian linen shirt, tailored trousers with razor-sharp creases, and Gucci driving loafers without socks.
His dark hair was pomaded into an immaculate slick-back; his face was flushed with that ugly, post-adrenaline arrogance of an insecure middle-manager who has just executed an underling to mask his own structural incompetence.
Beside Nick stood **Carter Holbrook**.
The Senior Vice President of Commercial Acquisitions for **The Holbrook-Vance Syndicate**—the ten-million-dollar prospective client we had supposed to pitch at eight-thirty.
Carter was sixty-two years old, tall, lean, with silver hair cropped into a severe military high-and-tight cut, wearing a double-breasted navy blazer with gold anchor buttons.
Across his wrist gleamed a platinum Patek Philippe.
