I had seen it a dozen times in my career, and it never stopped being sad.

Gavin had not needed to become this.

He had simply been too proud, on one ordinary afternoon, to say the words we fell short. Everything else had grown from that.

Chapter 13 — The Gala Plan

There was a gala the next evening — Gavin’s gala, the crown of all his months of bragging.

He had rented an enormous ballroom in a luxury hotel on Nicollet Mall and invited everyone who mattered: the major shareholders, the board, the bankers, the private equity managers, and, crucially, the business press.

It was to be the public announcement of the Crestview investment, the night Gavin Pierce stepped into the light he believed he had earned.