“See what?” I ignored his dig. Homophobia was beneath me. Besides, he wanted to get a rise out of me. It wasn’t my first or last rodeo with a pompous prick. I always came out on top (all puns intended).

“What my successor looks like.”

“Your successor? Color me confused, blushing, and deafened by my ringing bullshit radar.” I smirked, scratching my face with my middle finger.

We were polar opposites. A single-parented, middle-class spawn sitting across from a trust fund baby. I had a blond man-bun, enough tattoos to cover the better half of North America, and today’s attire consisted of a Primitive shirt, black cargo pants, and muddy boots. He was wrapped head-to-toe in Brioni, with sleek black hair and porcelain white skin. He looked like a Michelin-starred steak, and I looked like a greasy drive-thru cheeseburger. Didn’t bother me one bit. I loved cheeseburgers. Most people would opt for a McGreasy double cheeseburger over a tiny piece of tartar.

Vicious stretched in his seat. “You do understand that I cannot, in good conscience, help you build a shopping center—focused around surfing or otherwise—in Todos Santos? You’ll nibble at my business.” He ignored my question, and I didn’t like it. I dropped the joint into the whiskey glass and got up to my feet.

He stared up at me. Serene, sincere, and utterly blasé. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not rooting for you, Bane. I’m just not going to equip you for the war you’re planning to enter. Because I’ll also have an army in this battle. Whoever is opening a shopping center there is going to bite into my shit, and when people bite into my shit, I devour what’s theirs, too.”

I scratched my beard, allowing it to sink. Of course Vicious and his like didn’t care for me. He was at the top. I was getting there. Squashing me was survival instinct.

Spencer looked down, jotting something in a golden notepad with the logo of Fiscal Heights Holdings, his company’s name. “But here’s someone who could help you. He’s been trying to lay down roots in Todos Santos for years now. He needs to build a rep here, and is getting pretty desperate. He might not have the street cred, but he’s got a clean name and the Benjamins.” He glided the note across the black and gold chrome desk, and I reached for it with my inked, callused fingers.

Darren Morgansen, followed by a phone number.

“Oil money.” He smoothed his tie over his dress shirt. “Even more important—he’ll actually hear you out, unlike the vast majority of businessmen in this town.”

He was right, and that irritated me.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked. I liked Baron Spencer. He was my first choice of business partner when I’d decided to make a bid on those acres. I knew other rich, influential people in this town, but no one was quite as ruthless as he was.

“I’m merely giving you a head start. It makes things interesting, and I like the element of surprise,” he said, twirling his wedding band on his finger. “Open this surf park, Bane. I dare you. It’d be nice to finally meet my match.”

Before I left his office building, I made it a point to take a shit in the restroom and tuck a few of the fancy Fiscal Heights Holdings pens into my pocket, just for funsies. Oh, and I might have fucked his secretary, Sue. She emailed me the contact details of all the service providers working for her boss’ mall. They’d become handy when I opened the surf park. The one that was supposed to rid me of the bullshit and pay for my mom’s mortgage.

Baron Spencer thought he was going to war with me.

He was about to find out that I was the war.

I met Darren Morgansen that same evening.

First cue that he was overly eager? He invited me to his house. As I said, business tycoons rarely ever meet with you in their private domain. Morgansen completely ignored the act. Said on the phone that he was excited for the opportunity to get to know a key player like me, which almost made me cancel on his ass. I was the one who needed to wine and dine his ego, not vice versa. But I was willing to overlook the weird dynamics if it meant putting together the world’s biggest surf park and making Todos Santos the next Huntington Beach.

Mostly, I saw an opening with the potential to make me as rich as the people who looked at me like I was trash, and I was happy to have a go at it. Not gonna lie—I hadn’t expected to get half this far in my journey into buying the lot. People actually paid attention to what I was saying, and that surprised me a little.

Morgansen lived in El Dorado, a gated community on the hills of Todos Santos overlooking the ocean. The neighborhood was the home to most of the heavily loaded brats in town. The Spencers. The Coles. The Followhills. The Wallaces. The kind of money one couldn’t make in a lifetime, but rather inherited.

The Morgansen house was a colonial mansion sprawled across a mountainside. Nothing like living on a cliff to inspire you to want to jump off it. There was a small pond and cascading fountain with (real) swans and (fake) angels shooting arrows of water at the front driveway, a garden, a hammam and a sauna next to the kidney-shaped pool, and a load of other crap I bet my right nut no one in the house had ever used. He had huge-ass plants lining up each side of his double-door entrance. This asshole’s gardening bill for a month is probably what I’d paid for my entire houseboat when I purchased it.

Morgansen greeted me at the gate of the neighborhood, and I pretended to not already have an electronic key for it. He then showed me around his mansion like I was contemplating buying the place. We strolled through his front lawn, backyard, and the two downstairs kitchens. Then we climbed up the curved staircase to the second floor—“let me show you my offith”—he had a lisp. I inwardly let out a thank fuck breath. Finally, we were going in the right direction. We walked past a closed door, and he stopped, brushing his knuckles over the wooden door with a hesitant knock, pressing his forehead to it.

“Honey?” he whispered. He was lanky, crouched like a beatdown teenager, and morbidly WASP-y. Everything about him was mediocre. Brown, lemur-like eyes, bony nose that stood out like a weakness, lips narrow and pursed, salt and pepper hair, and a bland suit that gave him the unfortunate look of a Bar Mitzvah boy. He looked like an extra in someone else’s story. I almost felt sorry for him. He had the kind of inborn averageness no money in the world was going to fix.

There was no answer from the other end of the door.

“Thweetheart, I’m in my offith. Let me know if you need anything. Or…or tell Hannah.”

Breaking news: rich guy has a spoiled daughter.

“Okay. Going now.” He stalled, loitering against the sound of silence. “Jutht down the hall…”

Morgansen was a peculiar creature in the three-comma club. He was submissive and contrite, two things that inspired my inner bloodthirsty bulldog to chew him like a squeaky toy. We walked into his office, the door closing shut behind us on a hiss. Darren pushed his hair back then proceeded to wipe his palms over his dress pants and laugh nervously as he asked me what I wanted to drink. I told him I’d have vodka. He pressed a switchboard button on his oak desk and sank into his cashmere seat. “Hannah, vodka pleath.”

I was seriously starting to second-guess why Baron Spencer had given me this clown’s number. Maybe it was a joke at my expense. This dude may have been rich—correction, he was swimming in it, and had a house the size of the marina to prove it—but he was also a goddamn wreck. I doubted a scaredy-cat like him would shell out a cool six mill for twenty-five percent equity to a total stranger with a dubious reputation. I made myself comfortable in my chair, trying not to think about it. His eyes trailed my movement. I knew what he was staring at, and what I looked like.

People often asked me why. Why did I insist on looking like I was auditioning for Sons of Anarchy, with tattoos covering a good portion of my body? Why the man-bun? Why the beard? Why the fuck-you attire of a beach bum, with pants still stained with surfboard wax? Honestly, I didn’t see the point in making an effort to look like them. I wasn’t them. I was me. I was an outsider, with no lineage, fancy last name, or historic legacy.

Looking like every father’s nightmare was my way of saying I was out of the rat race.

“You’re quite the character in Todoth Thantoth.” Morgansen fiddled with the edges of his thick planner. I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to my professional reputation or my personal one. The rumor around town was that Café Diem and the hotel had been bought so I could smurf my protection money, and they weren’t exactly wrong. I porked every chick with a pulse, sometimes venturing to blowjobs from guys when I was feeling drunk and adventurous, then proceeded to engage in paid-for affairs with whomever could get me an inch closer to the total domination of Todos Santos’ recreational venues. I entertained the forty-year-old wives of men I looked up to professionally for the sole purpose of pissing them off and was the shameless arm-candy of even older women whom I knew could sponsor my brand and me. I was a manwhore in the biblical sense of the word and people viewed me about as trustworthy and loyal as an ounce of coke.

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, just as Darren’s housekeeper pushed the door open, entering with a tray, two glasses and a Waterford vodka bottle in hand. She poured me a glass, then whiskey for Darren from the bar behind him, all meek silence and bowed head.

“P-pleath do,” Darren stuttered. “I’ve been meaning to network with you for quite thome time. My family moved here four yearth ago.”

Like I didn’t know. Todos Santos was known as an upper-cruster: a morosely white town that put one’s pedigree above their morals and reputation. Every time someone moved in, people knew. Every time someone moved out, people jumped on the gossip train, wondering what they were trying to hide. The Morgansens had managed to fly under the radar thus far. Not necessarily a good thing. It meant that they hadn’t managed to form strong connections despite coming from oil money, and that was suspicious.

“How are you liking it here?” I snapped my gum, looking around in boredom.