Three days after we sat in that conference room and named the man behind everything, he
came to me.
Not directly. Of course not. Men like Charles Blackwood do not knock on doors themselves.
They send intermediaries with clean business cards and polished explanations, and they wait
to see what you do with it. The message arrived through a contact of Lucas’s, a private wealth
consultant who said he represented an independent investor, someone interested in my
restructuring methodology, specifically the approach I’d taken with the Nakamura acquisition
gap.
Lucas set the brief on my desk and watched my face. “You don’t have to take it,” he said.
“I know,” I said. I read the brief once. Then I said, “Book it.”
He gave me the look he reserves for moments when he thinks I know exactly w
