“Oh, I wouldn’t have it any other way, Benjamin. I’m enjoying this too.”

If Mr. Painter was busy giving Nicholson excellent video material to work with, his good friend from their days together at NYU Law, Mr. Suiter, was all but writing a blank check.

Suiter had two of the prettiest Asian girls, Maya and Justine, in the spa. Maya was lying across the tiled soaking-tub platform, on her back, with her small, shapely legs wiggling in the air—while Suiter drilled her furiously. She seemed to be enjoying it, which was doubtful, since Maya and Justine lived together and were a couple—recently married in their home state of Massachusetts.

Justine, in fact, was just now providing “the money shot.” She stood over Suiter, knees slightly bent, gripping a hold bar on the ceiling and letting nature take its course down the client’s shoulders and back.

Suiter panted out in time with his own thrusts, his voice rising toward climax. “That’s right…. That’s right…. That’sa girl, that’sa fucking girl.”

Nicholson rolled his eyes in disgust and muted the mating sounds. He didn’t need to hear this idiot’s twaddle right now. Later in the week, he’d pick out a nice thirty-second clip to send to Mr. Suiter at his home office. Something with full frontal and choice words always seemed to do the job best.

Because as much as these men were willing to pay for getting spanked on a Saturday night, or even just to fuck a woman who wouldn’t ask what they were thinking about afterward, Tony Nicholson knew that they were always— always—willing to pay even more for the privilege of keeping those dirty little secrets to themselves.

All of them—except Zeus.

Chapter 30

“WHAT HAVE YOU got?”

“License DLY 224, a dark blue Mercedes McLaren. Leased to a Temple Suiter.”

“The lawyer?”

“Presumably. Who else would it be? Guy’s got more money than God.”

Carl Villanovich put the camera down and rubbed his eyes vigorously. It had been three straight nights of surveillance in the woods of Blacksmith Farms, and he was stone-cold sick of the duty.

He unfolded a tripod from his pack and mounted the camera to give himself a break. The image played on a laptop next to him as he zoomed out for a long shot of the house exterior.

The place was huge, limestone from the look of it, with three-story columns in front. It had probably been a plantation house at one point. There was a converted barn in the back and several other outbuildings, all of them dark tonight.

“Here comes another one.”

His partner, Tommy Skuba, fired off several shots with a high-speed digital SLR as a wine red Jaguar coupe came rushing out of the woods. Villanovich went in tight on the Jag’s license number when it swung around the oval loop in front of the house.

“Got that?” he asked.

“Got it,” came the voice on his headset. Command Center was seventy-five miles away in Washington, watching everything in real time.