The blue light of the system screen faded, leaving the dim lounge lights to wash back over the floor.
Alex took a slow, steady breath.
This was a jackpot. If someone like Raymond Cole ever agreed to stand behind Eclipse Holdings, the building would become the smaller prize.
An independent Ascended-realm magnate, unaligned, brave enough to refuse the best offers in the city, dangerous enough that even Sacred Families had learned not to press him in public. That kind of man could change the weight of an empire overnight.
But the problem was the same as the value.
Cole did not look like a man who took orders.
Earlier Alex had taken him for what the file suggested, a wealthy old pervert burning through money on women and pleasure.
But that picture no longer held.
