One

      Another month, another breakfast. How many of these business breakfasts had they shared? Jonas Halstead had been the CEO of Halstead & Sons for five years... He did the calculation. Sixty Wednesday breakfasts.

      Sixty three-hour meetings with the man commonly known as “The White Shark of the West Coast.” Jack was reputed to be the most ruthless, occasionally morally ambiguous, businessman on this side of the country. He was also Jonas’s grandfather, and Jonas would rather be water-boarded than sit through this monthly meeting.

      When he’d first started as CEO he’d banned his staff from dealing directly with the chairman of the board because few people could deal with Jack’s harsh manner, his interrogations and his dire warnings about possible disaster situations. Few, even those who were corporate animals, could handle Jack’s aggression and his pursuit of perfection. Jonas had long ago realized that if he wanted to keep his key staff then he had to shield them from Jack.

      But that meant it was his ass in the hot seat.

      Jonas was a big boy, being paid the big bucks. He could deal with Jack. But, hell, he could not wait for the day when he could run Halstead & Sons without Jack’s constant input and criticism. Thanks to Jack’s ruthlessness and Jonas’s father’s reputation for cutting corners, the Halstead name was not one to be trusted, and while that didn’t bother Jack in the least—Let the bastards fear us,