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Chapter One
Friday night
Gerard Barrett slid into the driver’s seat of his carbon-colored McLaren F1 and started the engine. The throaty roar hummed through him. God, he loved this car. As much as he loved the monthly poker games. He tossed his phone onto the neatly folded suit jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his Tom Ford business shirt, and ran his hands along the steering wheel, ready to let the day go.
Pulling out of his spot at the Barrett Investment Group building, his pulse pounded with exhilaration as he sped off down the street. In almost no time, San Francisco’s evening traffic frustrated him. It took over half an hour to get to and across the Bay Bridge. Another hour until traffic on the 80 thinned out and he could open her up. Gerard pulled over, removed and stowed the hard top, then pulled back out onto the quiet road and pressed the gas pedal to the floor. The scenery flew by as he left everything from his day, his week, his month behind. A rare grin lifted his lips as he headed for the monthly poker game that was about the only reason he’d tolerate Friday night traffic. It was worth it once he got away from the city.
Noise disappeared, leaving only the wind, the road, and the engine. Man and machine in sync and no emergencies or phone calls to disrupt the calmness that settled him during this drive. And he had a lot that needed settling. With a financial organization the size of his, stress went along with the territory. For him, since his father had retired, he had a lot to prove to a board that didn’t think he and his sister were the right people for the job.
Sometimes, the drive to Solano Stables was too short, not giving him time to think through his problems. His solitude would disappear when he arrived, though he couldn’t complain. Reflective time would be replaced by a camaraderie five years in the making. He couldn’t feel bad about that.
His grin widened as he thought about the week they all met. He’d sponsored a weekend think tank for CEOs from finance, tech, and basically any industry with the desire and ability to shape the future of capitalism in the world. The last night of the conference, he’d sat around the outside fire pit at the ski chalet with five remaining men, smoking cigars and drinking thirty-year-old Glenfiddich. All of them were from the San Francisco area at the time, hungry for growth, and full of ideas.
Now, five years later, they still met monthly for a game of poker and a sharing of ideas. It had served them all well. Except maybe Brody, who’d given up the fast track lifestyle to run his parents’ dude ranch.
A car roared up beside Gerard on the two lane road. A bright yellow Porsche Boxter convertible, so it had to be Mateo. Taking his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the blond-haired man who grinned back at him, Gerard’s smile widened, and he opened up the throttle.
Mateo whooped as he kept pace with Gerard for all of thirty seconds before the McLaren, with its top speed of 240 mph, left him in the dust. Gerard waved, laughing. Every month, Mateo tried to best him. Every month, he failed.
Movement in the rearview mirror caught Gerard’s eye. Mateo slowed, then turned into a side road. Gerard looked around. Shit. He’d blown right past the entrance to Brody’s ranch. Mateo would beat him there tonight.
Well, there was a first time for everything. He slowed, turned around, and soon pulled up beside the yellow Porsche in a small, gravel parking lot outside a one-story, stucco ranch house with a clay tile roof. Mateo, the quintessential Californian with his short, trendy blond hair and blue eyes, leaned against the hood of his car, arms crossed over his chest, and a wide grin on his face.
“All right, all right,” Gerard said, as he turned the car off, then climbed out and ran his hands through his hair to straighten it. “You beat me.”
“Won’t be the last time, either.”
“Ha. We’ll see about that.” He slapped Mateo on the back, and the gesture was returned twice as hard.
“Looks like the others are already here.”
Xander’s white four-door Bimmer sat next to Ben’s black Cadillac, an electric one, of course. That was Ben’s thing, away from the movie business. He followed all the current trends about saving the environment and ecosystems for future generations.
Gerard looked at his watch. Nine o’clock. In spite of the traffic, they were right on time. “We’d better get in there. Otherwise, Ben will ignore the no phones rule, and Xander will be fast asleep.”
Solano Stables’ main house was a sprawling Spanish-style abode. He grabbed his overnight bag, and they strode up the wide steps to a verandah as long as the house, heading inside without knocking. Brody lived alone, so why he needed a six-bedroom home was beyond Gerard. His own tight three-bedroom condo was all a single man needed, right? A bedroom, a spare, and a home office. Perfection, and all in shades of his favorite color. Gray.
Brody’s place teemed with color. This was what Brody had chosen when he left finance to return to his parents’ ranch. A ranch he now owned and operated since his parents passed away a couple years earlier.
“Hey, here’s the latecomers,” Ben said from the bar, brushing his shoulder length hair back. A movie exec, he’d lived the most lavish lifestyle of any of them, in the public eye, at least. Behind closed doors, he was one of the most down-to-earth people Gerard had ever met.
“I have to look like a player,” he’d said when they kidded him.
“About time you got here,” Brody said, sitting next to Xander at the poker table. He grabbed the deck from his friend and shuffled the cards.
Xander, the quiet one on a good night, was positively sullen tonight and didn’t even crack a smile when Gerard nodded a hello. What was up with that?
“We hit traffic,” Mateo said, heading for the ornate bar that spanned one whole side of their poker room. It didn’t fit the motif of the house, but Brody had fallen in love with the antique from a local pub that had been torn down. He’d painstakingly sanded down the mahogany and stained it lighter. It worked in here, a large gathering room he used for guests and poker nights. The only thing missing was the mirror behind the bar. Brody had commissioned a mural of ranch life in its place.
“We all come from cities, kid,” Ben said. “Traffic is no excuse.”
“You moved to L.A. and flew up in the company jet. That doesn’t count,” Mateo said, placing five cigars on the table.
“Hey, I had to drive here from the airport.”
Gerard shook his head and went to the bar.
“The usual?” Ben said.
