Page 46 of Iridescent
It was the first thing I noticed about him when we became roommates at Bankside House. Theo could enter any room and assume it would rearrange itself around his comfort. I entered rooms by measuring exits.
I don’t begrudge him that. He had been raised in a world where money insulated men from consequence and bad decisions became anecdotes beneath the right family crest. His father could turn a Mayfair dinner into a funding round before the second course; his mother collected museum boards and titled acquaintances like pearls.
So when Theo said he knew a way to reach Dominic Karras, I believed him.
True to his word, one call was enough. Access, I am learning, has less to do with merit than proximity. The man every founder in the city was trying to reach had agreed to hear my pitch.
Conditionally.
Dominic Karras is the founder of Karras Meridian, the private investment firm capable of making or burying the acquisition I have spent six months building. He also holds a silent stake in The Ninth Bell, which makes his condition less surprising and no less insulting.
Twelve sessions with the house coach. Three rounds under his observation. If I am still standing afterward, he will review the term sheet and decide whether Karras Meridian anchors the acquisition.
That is the part Theo keeps reminding me of, as if repetition can make humiliation palatable. Dominic is the first seriousyesAureon Capital has come close to securing. Without him, Helix Ledger remains exactly what everyone else sees when they look at it: a failing compliance platform with brilliant code, dying cash flow, and founders too exhausted to keep lying to themselves.
With him, it becomes leverage. A company I can acquire before the market understands its value.
One signature from Dominic Karras could give me control of the first thing in my life no one else can take from me.
Worthless.
You will come crawling back once the world is finished indulging your delusions.
The last of my reluctance hardens into resolve.
I need this.
I pull in a breath through my nose and adjust the strap of my duffel higher on my shoulder. The rain has soaked through my hoodie and the white T-shirt beneath it, turning the cotton cold against my skin.
Theo had refused to put the roof up the entire drive here, grinning through the drizzle, imperiously convinced that discomfort was reserved for people without heated seats.
“I’m going in.”
“Thank fuck.” Theo claps a hand against my back, too hard to be encouraging and too careless to be gentle. “I was two seconds away from dragging your arse in myself.”
“No one asked you to stay.” I flick a look over the dark suit under his open overcoat. “You look dressed for something far more offensive than moral support.”
“I am.” Amusement cuts across his mouth. “I’ve got a date at Chiltern Firehouse with a woman who thinks I’m a misunderstood gentleman, and I’d rather not ruin the fantasy before dessert.”
He winks. I watch him saunter back toward the Aston Martin idling at the curb, one of several exorbitant machines he rotates through with the fiscal discipline of a bored prince. Tonight’s is a DB11 Volante, roof still down despite the rain, because Theo Mercer would rather drown in style than arrive sensibly dry.
He slides into the driver’s seat and lifts two fingers in a lazy salute. “Try not to ruin your pretty face. I’m told investors like symmetry.”
“Charming.”
“Relentlessly.”
???
The Ninth Bell contradicts every expectation I had brought across its threshold.
I expected noise. A crowded floor, given what Theo had told me about the place. Gloves striking leather. The usual choreography of a boxing club in motion.
Instead, silence waits inside.
The foyer is narrow and dim, paneled in dark wood that has seen better decades. A brass reception bell sits abandoned on a black marble counter. Beyond it, a corridor stretches into the building, lit by low amber sconces that turn the air sepulchral. The place smells faintly of leather, antiseptic, and old sweat.
My sense of displacement refuses to recede. I retrieve my phone from the pocket of my joggers and check the email from Karras Meridian for the umpteenth time. The same details stare back at me. The address. The time. The appointment. The instruction that makes my jaw tighten every time I read it.
