The billionaire gang

unanticipated exhilaration

Not filled with booze as the Irish study, nor highway robbery cash as the Italians presumed, but with stock instruments. In the shootout that followed, both Billy and Salvatore saw the true power up for heists. Over the coming decades, as Wall Street boomed, they used their road expertise to climb its graduations. charge's boys, with their longshoreman connections, had tips on shipping stocks before news broke. Sal's dogfaces, professed at rooting neighborhood" pretenses ," acclimated easily to aggressive debt collecting. By the 1950s, the families had gone licit — on paper. Kingsley Capital and Moretti & Sons came rising stars, fueled by old- world vendettas. Every request move, every customer coddled, every nonsupervisory disquisition was a durability of that first bloody night. " We were wolves before we ever touched a bone

," Victor muttered to Aria." Do not let the Armani suits wisecrack you. Some effects. some effects do not change." As if to illuminate his point, Victor turned to hail an approaching figure — a memorial that in this spangling jungle, pitfalls lurked far and wide. " Lucas! I was hoping you'd make it." Lucas Gray, impeccable in Tom Ford, kissed Aria's impertinence. At thirty- four, he was a golden boy of adventure capital, known for his visionary tech investments. He was also, until six months agone

, Aria's fiancé. " Victor, always a pleasure. Aria. you look stunning." His smile, formerly fascinating, now felt raptorial. Their broken engagement — the result of his not- so-discreet affairs had been fodder for gossip columns. Yet, in their world, similar particular paroxysms were secondary to business. Lucas's establishment was now a major Kingsley Capital customer. " Thank you, Lucas. How's the new amount calculating incipiency. Wavelock, is not it?" His eyes lustered ." Ahead of protrusions. When it IPOs coming quarter. well, let's just say certain challengers might find the waters choppy." The veiled trouble was clear. Wavelock's success could seriously destabilize one of Moretti & Sons' crucial request positions. This was how their game was played — fiscal ruses as attacks and counterassaults , with Maya's broken heart as contributory damage. As Lucas drifted off to network, Aria felt a need for air — or at least, as much as the New York night could offer. She slipped out onto a deck overlooking the gallery's yard. The space appeared empty until a voice spoke from the murk. " Not enjoying the party, Miss Kingsley?" She strengthened, feting the rich baritone incontinently. Dominic Moretti stepped into the moonlight, his form silhouetted against the megacity's gleam. "Mr. Moretti. I did not realize fiscal debate was your idea of enjoyment." His laugh was low, genuine." Dominic, please. And no, watching elephants like our fathers try to out- maneuver each other lost its charm times agone

." Aria was taken suddenly by his candor. In their world, similar honesty especially with a rival — was rarer than a bearish barricade fund director. " I suppose next you will say you find no satisfaction in your recent. “Non-supervisory cotillion?" To her surprise, a flicker of commodity — remorse? — crossed his face." The SEC affair? A move in a game I am decreasingly questioning." His words reverberated with a disquiet Aria had felt growing within herself. Days spent casting aggressive investment strategies, nights assaying how to outflank challengers — recently, the palms felt concave. "I. I know what you mean," she admitted, also incontinently wondered why she was passing in him. Dominic moved closer, his propinquity transferring an unanticipated exhilaration through her. This close, she noticed flecks of amber in his brown eyes — a particularity, she knew from poring over innumerous biographies, not mentioned in any Moretti dossier. " Do you ever feel," he asked vocally," like we are playing out a script written generations before us? That for all our degrees and technological edge, we are still." he broke. " Street fighters," Aria finished." Just with Bloomberg outstations rather of baseball batons." Their eyes locked, and in that moment, a hundred times of hostility sounded to dematerialize. They were not Kingsley and Moretti, royal scions of a fiscal blood feud. They were just Maya and Dominic, two people who, against all odds, understood each other. The spell broke as voices approached.

Business instincts demurred in, and they easily transitioned to agitating request trends. But as Maya spoke of arising fintech openings, she set up herself fastening not on her words but on Dominic's aspect

— intent, searching, as if trying to break a particularly complex equation. Their tête- à- tête was intruded by a commotion outside. They rushed back to find Lucas Gray pale- faced before her father, Victor. Indeed from across the room, Maya caught particles ". bigwig at the SEC, it's verified. Moretti & Sons, under full disquisition." Maya's heart declined. The look on Lucas's face it was the same he would worn after closing a particularly Machiavellian deal. Her reservations were verified weeks ago when she would eavesdropped him in what he allowed

was a private call". plant the substantiation, make it stick. By the time they clear their name, Wavelock will have eaten their lunch." She'd been floored but silent. In their world, similar tactics, while unethical, were not unheard of. To intermediate would mean undermining her own family's interests. Now, watching the blood drain from Dominic's face as the news spread, she felt the weight of her silence. His eyes set up hers across the room — hurt, wrathfulness, but worst of all, understanding. In his aspect

, she read the bitter verity He would anticipated nothing lower from a Kingsley. Maya stood frozen, the room's substance suddenly gaudy. Then they were, New York's stylish and brightest, draped in couture, belting champagne that bring further than utmost people's rent. Artists' masterpieces peered down, mute substantiations to ultramodern- day plots that would make indeed the Medicis color. Her family's barricade fund, the Moretti investment bank — stripped of pretense, what were they? Their 1920s forebearers smuggled whiskey and ran protection discordances. Now, a century latterly, swathed in complication, they manipulated requests and weaponized nonsupervisory bodies. The playing field had changed from megacity thoroughfares to global exchanges, but the game? The game was chillingly the same. A surge of nausea hit her. Maya hastened out, down from the art, the champagne, the deals struck with grins and daggers. She burst onto the gallery way, gulping the night air. Behind her, the fete continued its spangling facade. Power brokers laughed, tinkled spectacles, maybe indeed now turning the Moretti reproach to their advantage. hereafter, captions would scream of Wall Street warfare, boards would convene in fear, and nearly, an honest business might deteriorate because it stood in the way of a century-old vendetta. Maya goggled out over the megacity — her megacity, her heritage. Manhattan's luminous skyline, each palace a giant domino. One drive, one well- placed trade or cleverly blurted secret, could set off a waterfall. Her ancestors, rising from diggings

, had seen similar power and seized it, tooth and nail. Now, an conglomerate latterly, their triumphant inheritor felt only heavy. She allowed

of Dominic's eyes when he would heard the news. There'd been wrathfulness, yes — the bloodlust of their lineage. But in that unguarded moment, she would seen commodity that imaged her own heart a deep, echoing question. In the shadow of art gauging glories, amid schemes spinning out decades, they'd both glinted the same haunting allowed

When you are born into a game outfitted by ghosts, can winning ever mean anything at all?