The city was still rubbing the sleep from its eyes when Damian Cross opened his.

No alarm. He never needed one. Years of boardroom battles had trained his body to rise before the skyline blushed with dawn.

Steel-gray light seeped through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse on the seventy-second floor. From here, the world below looked like a circuit board—bridges, headlights, and early trains glowing like tiny currents. Damian liked the view. Distance kept things simple.

He slipped into his routine with the precision of a machine. Shower set to exactly thirty-eight degrees. Suit tailored so sharply it could cut glass. Black tie, black watch, black coffee no sugar,...