Chapter 3
"The principal is fully briefed and monitoring our discussion," Mathias said smoothly, taking his seat at the head of the table and opening a slim leather folder. "Astraea's principal values discretion above all else. In Zurich, Mr. Rhodes, visibility is considered an operational risk. We prefer results."
Dominic’s jaw ticked. Just once. A microscopic betrayal of his frustration.
He was used to looking men in the eye, reading their tells, using his pedigree and charm to close the gap. Being forced to negotiate with a proxy was an insult to a Rhodes. But he had no chips left to play, and he knew it.
Slowly, Dominic pulled out a heavy leather chair across from Mathias and sat down. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the marble, clasping his hands together.
"Very well," Dominic said, locking his hazel eyes onto Mathias. "Let’s dispense with the pleasantries. You know why I’m here, and you know what’s at stake. Hudson Wharf is eighty percent leased on its commercial footprint. Google, BlackRock, and two sovereign funds have letters of intent for the primary towers. The asset is sound. The fundamentals are pristine."
"The fundamentals are irrelevant, Mr. Rhodes," Mathias countered, reading from the notes I had placed in his file. "Your capital structure is broken. You financed an eight-year asset with eighteen-month paper. When the benchmark rate moved five hundred basis points, your interest coverage ratio dropped below zero-point-eight. In thirty-six hours, you face an uncured event of default on four-point-two billion dollars."
Dominic didn't blink, but his fingers tightened until the veins stood out like cords against the back of his hands.
"Which is precisely why Astraea is sitting across from me," Dominic said, his voice dropping into a persuasive, urgent rhythm. "You didn't buy up three-point-five billion of my syndicated debt on the secondary market out of charity. You bought it because you know that if Hudson Wharf defaults, the city freezes the development, the municipal tax abatements evaporate, and your paper is worth thirty cents on the dollar."
"Astraea can afford thirty cents on the dollar, Mr. Rhodes," Mathias replied calmly. "Can you?"
The silence that followed was suffocating.
In the dark observation room, I watched Dominic swallow. The bravado flickered, just for an instant, revealing the hollow, terrified abyss beneath.
"No," Dominic admitted. The word was quiet, scraped raw from his throat. It was the first time in his life, I suspected, that Dominic Rhodes had ever admitted vulnerability in a professional room. "I cannot."
He reached into his leather briefcase, pulled out a thick dossier bound in navy leather, and slid it across the marble toward Mathias.
"This is the restructuring proposal," Dominic said, his voice tightening with a desperate intensity. "Rhodes Enterprises is prepared to offer Astraea forty percent of the common equity in the Hudson Wharf operating entity. In exchange, you roll the four-point-two billion into a seven-year mezzanine facility at eight percent payment-in-kind, and you inject three hundred million in fresh liquidity by noon tomorrow."
Mathias didn't even open the binder. He simply rested his palm on the cover.
Inside my earpiece, Mathias waited for my instruction.
I leaned forward in my chair, pressing my lips close to the microphone.
"Mathias," I commanded softly, "tell him that forty percent of a sinking ship is still driftwood. Tell him that Astraea does not do joint ventures with men who let their boards hold them by the throat."
Mathias looked up from the table, his expression impassive. "Mr. Rhodes, forty percent of common equity is an insult. Driftwood is still driftwood, no matter how much gold leaf you paint on it. Astraea does not partner with executives who allow their family trusts to dictate operational solvency."
Dominic flinched as if struck across the mouth.
"That's my family's legacy you're talking about," Dominic snapped, a flash of his old arrogance flaring up before he caught himself. He took a slow breath, forcing the fire down, his hands trembling slightly against his knees beneath the table. "Look... Mathias. You don't know what this firm is to me. I built this portfolio. My grandfather broke ground on these lots. I have given everything—my personal life, my marriage, my sanity—to protect this company."
*My marriage.*
The words hit the glass between us like a physical blow.
I felt a cold, sharp ache bloom behind my ribs. *He had given his marriage.* As if it were a sacrifice he had gallantly offered up on the altar of his family’s dynasty, rather than a cowardly betrayal he had executed to save his own skin.
"Ask him," I whispered into the mic, my voice dropping an octave, razor-sharp with five years of buried iron. "Ask him what that sacrifice bought him."
Mathias didn't hesitate. "You gave your marriage, Mr. Rhodes? And what did that purchase for you? A boardroom that is currently preparing to vote you out onto Park Avenue tomorrow morning?"
Dominic closed his eyes for two full seconds. When he opened them, the hazel irises were glassy, clouded with an exhaustion so deep it looked like grief.
"It bought me five years of hollow victories," Dominic said. His voice was barely above a whisper, devoid of posture, echoing through the empty boardroom. "It bought me five years of answering to an uncle who thinks real estate is still played with country club handshakes, while the woman who actually understood the numbers was driven out of my life because she didn't have a trust fund."
I stopped breathing.
Behind the glass, my fingers gripped the armrest so hard the leather groaned.
Dominic was looking down at his own hands, staring at the bare skin of his left ring finger, where a faint white indentation still lingered after half a decade.
"I made a catastrophic mistake five years ago," Dominic continued, his voice heavy with a dark, bitter self-hatred that caught me entirely off-guard. "I thought loyalty to my blood was the same thing as strength. I let them convince me that Serena was a liability because she didn't come from old money. I traded the only person who ever truly saw me—the only person whose brilliance actually built the risk models that saved this firm in the first place—for the approval of a board that is about to slit my throat tomorrow at dawn."
He looked up at Mathias, his eyes fierce, desperate, stripped of every shred of Rhodes vanity.
"I will not let them destroy Hudson Wharf," Dominic said, his voice shaking with fierce conviction. "If Astraea wants blood, take it. Take my board seats. Take my personal guarantees. Take my voting shares in the parent holding company. Take every asset I own in this city. But save the project. Keep the doors open. Protect the people who work for me."
He leaned across the table, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the black marble.
"Tell your principal in Zurich," Dominic breathed, his voice raw, pleading, begging the empty air of the room, "that I am not asking for a favor. I am asking for an execution or a resurrection. I will give them whatever they want. Just tell me what she demands."
Inside the darkened booth, my heart hammered violently against my ribs.
