The world was a blur of black shadows and the rhythmic, bone-deep thrum of the rotors.
I didn't look at the city below. I didn't look at the sprawling grid of lights that usually represented my kingdom,the markets I manipulated, the properties I owned, the people I controlled. From three thousand feet up, New York looked like a circuit board, and for the first time in a decade, I wasn't the one holding the soldering iron.
I was the one being short-circuited.
"Five minutes out, Mr. Sterling," Hendricks’ voice crackled through the headset. He was sitting across from me in the cabin of the Bell 429, his face a mask of tactical neutrality. He was checking the action on his sidearm, the metallic clack-slide a grounding sound against the roar of the wind.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My thro
