"Sterling," David said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "Richard Sterling. He brought six guests. The house manager said if anything goes wrong tonight, we’re all getting written up. Go get their water order."
Maya checked her vest, straightened her cuffs, and picked up a silver water pitcher.
"Room C," she said quietly. "I'm on it."
Private Room C was a vault of dark teak and green leather, tucked behind a heavy acoustic door at the rear of the restaurant. It was designed specifically for conversations that were not meant to appear in SEC filings until the following morning.
When Maya pushed the door open, the room smelled heavily of hand-rolled Nicaraguan cigars, damp rain coats, and aged scotch.
At the center of the room sat a massive oval table made of dark mahogany. Seven men sat around it.
At the head of the table was Richard Sterling.
At sixty-four, Sterling was a man whose presence in a room felt like a physical weight. He was broad-shouldered, with a thick neck, cropped silver hair, and a face that was permanently flushed red from high blood pressure and expensive bourbon. He was the founder of Sterling Industrial Capital, a private equity firm that specialized in buying distressed manufacturing assets, stripping them of their pensions, and selling them off in pieces.
To Sterling’s left sat four of his junior partners—younger men in identical tailored gray suits, their faces pale, watchful, and desperate to laugh at Sterling's jokes before anyone else did.
To Sterling’s right sat two men who looked entirely out of place in the room.
The first was Mr. Han Guoqing, a sixty-year-old logistics magnate from Tianjin whose company controlled three of the largest deep-water shipping terminals on the Bohai Sea. He sat back in his leather chair, dressed in a plain, unbranded black woolen suit, his hands folded quietly over his belt. His face was entirely devoid of expression, his dark eyes observing the room with cold, calculating detachment.
Beside Mr. Han sat a twitchy, twenty-four-year-old assistant named Tommy, who was sweating through his collar while frantically adjusting a laptop screen and shuffling through thick stacks of translated contracts.
"I’m telling you, Han!" Sterling roared, slamming a thick, ringed hand onto the mahogany table, making the water glasses chime like tiny bells. "You're overthinking the port access fees! In New York, we don't fiddle around with three-year municipal reviews! We buy the land, we clear the concrete, and we put the cranes in the ground!"
Mr. Han didn't blink. He waited for Tommy to whisper a frantic, broken English-to-Mandarin translation into his ear.
Tommy leaned in, his voice trembling: "He says... he says the municipal permission in New York is fast, sir. He says we shouldn't worry about the three-year timeline."
Mr. Han listened, his mouth tightening into a thin, hard line. He spoke a few quiet words in Mandarin to Tommy, his voice flat:
"Tell him that without a written exemption from the Port Authority regarding dredging rights, the contract is worth less than the napkin he is wiping his mouth with."
Tommy swallowed hard, his hands shaking as he turned back to Sterling. "Uh... Mr. Sterling... Mr. Han say... he say he need paper from port... for digging water deep. If no paper... hard to say yes."
Sterling blew a thick cloud of white smoke toward the ceiling and let out a loud, contemptuous snort.
"God damn it, Tommy, tell him we’ll handle the port authority!" Sterling growled, leaning forward until his heavy chest pressed against the table. "I’m sick of playing telephone through a kid who sounds like he’s reading a cereal box!"
Maya stepped forward smoothly, her black shoes making no sound against the thick wool carpet. She set down seven crystal goblets with silent precision, placing a carafe of iced water in the center of the table.
"Good evening, gentlemen," Maya said, her voice dropping into a warm, polite register. "Welcome to Vanderbilt & Prime. May I take your cocktail orders, or would you prefer to review the wine list?"
Sterling didn't look up at her face. His eyes flicked to her nametag, then down to her hands, and finally up to her dark skin with a brief, dismissive squint.
"Just bring two bottles of the Silver Oak, sweetie," Sterling barked, waving his hand toward the door like he was shooing a fly. "And get some more bread out here. The stuff on the table is already cold."
"Right away, sir," Maya said.
She offered a brief, neutral nod and turned toward the door. As her hand touched the polished brass handle, Sterling leaned over to his executive vice president, a thin man named Henderson, and spoke in a boisterous voice that carried easily across the enclosed room.
"Look at this place, Henderson," Sterling chuckled, shaking his head. "You pay two grand a plate for a private room, and they give you a server who looks like she just got off the night bus from Newark. You’d think for six figures a year in dues, they’d hire people who look like they belong in a club."