Grayson slowly closed the binder. He didn’t yell. He picked up his desk phone.

“Cancel my morning,” he said into the receiver. “Call Legal, Compliance, and Owen Rusk from Acquisitions. War Room B, right now.”

He hung up and looked at me. “We have exactly thirty-five minutes to stop a truck. Let’s go to war.”

Chapter 4 — War Room B

War Room B sat on the forty-third floor, behind frosted glass and biometric keypads — a cavernous space dominated by a massive mahogany table and wall-spanning screens.

Within minutes it filled with the apex predators of Pierce Meridian Group.

Owen Rusk, the Head of Acquisitions, swaggered in last. A red-faced man whose expensive suit barely contained his posture.