He clicked on an image of the driveway in front of the house and dragged it so that it jumped screens to open full-size on the other monitor. A time signature began to count out at the bottom.

He clicked once more, on a red triangular button in the border, for “record.”

The first cars were just pulling in. The party was about to start.

“Let the fucking begin—mind and otherwise. Whatever their little hard-ons desire.”

Chapter 29

BY ELEVEN THIRTY, the very expensive and exclusive Blacksmith Farms was in full swing. Each of the guest suites was occupied, the massage rooms, the dungeon, even the mezzanine was hopping with hot sex and related shenanigans—girl-boy, girl-girl, boy-boy, girl-boy-girl, whatever the customer wished.

The entire house had been booked for a bachelor party that evening: five pretty-boy escorts, thirty-four girls, twenty-one very horny guests, a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar fee, already transferred into the club’s numbered account.

The host—and best man—was well known to Nicholson: he was Temple Suiter, a partner with one of DC’s most prestigious and well-connected law firms, with clients including the Family Research Council and the royal family of Saudi Arabia, as well as members of the former White House administration.

Nicholson had done his homework, as always.

Benjamin Painter, the bachelor of honor, was about to marry into one of Washington’s dynasty families. Next week, he’d be calling the senior senator from Virginia “Dad,” and one of DC’s most beloved plastic-surgery victims “Mom.” He was also widely believed to be gearing up for a Senate run of his own, all of which made Mr. Painter quite valuable—in Nicholson’s way of viewing the world, anyway.

Right now, the future groom and senator was sprawled on a club chair in suite A. Two of the youngest, prettiest, and least threatening girls, Sasha and Liz, were slowly undressing each other on the bed while a new one, Ana, worked him over through the cotton of his yuppie boxers. The threesome looked to be in their midteens, but all were of legal age. Nineteen, to be exact. Barely legal.

Nicholson ran a finger across his touchpad to adjust the image. The cameras were wireless, pan-tilt-zoom units the size of pencil erasers. This particular one was embedded in the room’s smoke detector.

A microphone, no bigger than a match head, was hardwired through the ceiling and into the chandelier directly over the king-size bed, where Sasha was just sitting up, smiling blithely, cooing.

She straddled Liz, both of them naked now except for expensive-looking costume jewelry, their slinky black cocktail dresses in tiny heaps on the floor.

Sasha reached across to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out a thick flesh-colored phallus. She held it up and waggled it for Benjamin Painter to see. His eyes widened appropriately.

“Would you like me to do Liz?” she asked, smiling demurely. “I’d like to do Liz. I’d really like to do Liz.”

“That’s great,” Ben said, as if praising a useful underling at his father’s firm. “Get her ready for me, Sasha. And you—” He put his hand on the top of Ana’s head as she knelt in front of him. “You just take your time, Ana. Slow and steady wins the race, am I right?”