Maxim Petrakis’s office is housed on the back end of a strip club, one of the seven he owns in the city, and smack in the middle of a seedy thoroughfare known for its massage parlors and streetwalkers. The parking lot is packed with the predinner crowd, shift workers and folks sneaking in a pit stop on their way home from the office.

Last stop on the desperation highway—for them and for me.

I find a spot at the edge and slide out of the truck into air heavy with noise—the steady bass beating through the club walls, the traffic like crashing ocean waves on the overpass ahead.

I jog across the pavement for a door most patrons wouldn’t even notice. Plain, unmarked, unremarkable. A smooth slice of solid steel set flush into the brick, and painted the same bright white. No handle, nothing at all to grab on to—which is probably a good thing, since whoever tries to bust through uninvited is likely to get shot.

A male voice booms from a tiny speaker built into the wall. “Sir, the entrance is on the opposite side of the building.”

I tilt my face to the camera hanging from the roofline just above the door. “Cameron Lasky. Mr. Petrakis is expecting—”

There’s a buzzing, followed by a sharp click. I lean on the door with a shoulder, and it swings open to reveal a wall of bouncers. Two giant men, both Black, both heavily armed. One of them tells me to spread it, then pats me down with hands the size of my feet.

“I guess it’s a good thing I left my gun in the truck, huh?”

Neither bouncer cracks a smile.

They separate, opening the view down a clean, modern hallway. Glass-lined rooms, polished concrete floors, LED lighting. The music is louder here, but not deafening because these rooms are soundproofed, fireproofed, bulletproofed, every other proofed you can think of. Every dollar that gets shoved across the bar or tucked into a stripper’s G-string gets counted and double counted here, millions and millions of them per year. Unlike in the restaurant business, Maxim’s safes are bursting with cash.

“Third door on the left,” one of the bouncers says.

I thank him despite knowing the way—and even if I didn’t, the cloud of smoke pouring out of the open door would be a big, fat clue. Maxim Petrakis doesn’t give a shit about the state’s Smokefree Air Act. He’s spent his entire career skirting laws and ignoring regulations, and there’s not a politician or policeman in Georgia who can make him stop now. If you don’t like your boss puffing on a cigarette all day long, then don’t work here. It’s as simple as that.