Peace, Elian found, was not the absence of war, but the space between fights. The battle for the land had been an open skirmish, a test of his authority to wield chaos. The next war would be fought in the quiet, sterile ditches of paper and pencil—a battlefield where his enemies believed they had an invincible advantage.
The summons was from a character by the name of Gabriel Sotunde, a middle-ranking player in the city's property world. He was a known associate of the disgraced consultant Dare Olatunji and had a reputation for "creative" contract law. His proposal was straightforward, even flattering: a consultancy to look over the logistics for a new, high-end residential project. The figure he quoted was high, higher than Elian had gotten from all of his three previous clients combined
