PROLOGUE
Richard Garrison had always believed that success was best savored alone.
He stood in his home office on the second floor of his Paradise Valley mansion, a glass of eighteen-year Macallan in one hand and a printed financial report in the other, watching the Arizona sunset paint the mountains in shades of copper and gold. The view from this window had cost him three million dollars—or rather, the house had cost three million, but really, he'd bought it for this view.
The rest was just square footage and marble countertops.
The Sunset Ridge Resort financial projections looked even better than he'd anticipated. Despite the protests, despite the negative press about those damned petroglyphs, despite the hand-wringing from environmentalists who treated every rock carving like the Sistine Chapel, the numbers were extraordinary. Pre-sales on the luxury units had exceeded projections by forty percent. The spa and restaurant reservations were already booked solid through next spring. And the property values in the surrounding area had jumped fifteen percent the moment they'd broken ground.
Richard took a sip of scotch, letting the warmth spread through his chest. This was what victory tasted like. Not the hollow political victories he'd watched other men chase, or the fleeting satisfaction of a good quarterly earnings report. This was legacy. This was a transformation. He'd taken a useless stretch of desert—beautiful, yes, but economically inert—and turned it into something that would generate wealth for decades.
That it had required destroying some ancient rock art was regrettable, certainly. Richard wasn't a monster. He appreciated history and culture as much as the next person. His wallsheld three original paintings by southwestern artists, and he'd donated generously to the Heard Museum over the years.
But there was a difference between preservation and paralysis. The world moved forward. Progress required difficult choices.
The environmental lawyer—Hatathli, his name was—had made those choices seem criminal during his protests. Standing outside city council meetings with his signs and his righteousness, giving interviews about sacred heritage and cultural genocide. Genocide. As if building a luxury resort was equivalent to mass murder. The hyperbole had been almost funny, except that it had delayed the project by three months and cost Richard's investment group nearly two million in additional permits and environmental studies.
Richard had met Thomas Hatathli once, at a community forum that Richard's PR team had insisted he attend. "Show them you're listening," they'd said. "Show them you care about their concerns." So Richard had sat through two hours of testimony about the spiritual significance of the petroglyphs, about ancestors and sacred sites, and the responsibility to future generations. Hatathli had been articulate, passionate, and convincing to those predisposed to be convinced.
But Richard had looked at the financial models and seen something Hatathli couldn't or wouldn't see: the petroglyphs weren't generating any economic value sitting out in the desert. They weren't feeding families or creating jobs or contributing to the tax base. They were just there, had been there for centuries, would continue to be there for centuries if people like Hatathli had their way.
Static. Unproductive.
The resort, though. The resort would employ three hundred people when fully operational. It would bring tourism dollars into the region. It would—to use Richard's favorite phrase—"unlock the value" of land that had been locked away from economic use for far too long.
He moved to his desk, setting down the financial report and picking up another document. This one was from Margaret Hoffman at the city planning office, confirming that the final permits had been approved. Margaret had been invaluable throughout the process, navigating the bureaucratic maze with the kind of efficiency that only came from two decades of experience. She understood that sometimes the rules needed to be interpreted... flexibly.
Not broken, never broken. Just interpreted in ways that allowed important projects to move forward.
Richard had taken Margaret to dinner at Durant's last month, a thank-you for her help. She'd been pleased but not surprised by the gesture. They both understood how the game was played. She facilitated the right approvals, he made generous donations to causes she cared about, and everyone benefited. That was how civilization functioned, regardless of what naive idealists like Hatathli believed.
His phone buzzed with a text message. Richard glanced at it—Charles Sterling, the resort's lead developer, was asking if they could meet next week to discuss the timeline for resuming construction. Richard replied with a thumbs-up emoji and a brief "Wednesday works," then set the phone down.
Sterling had been the driving force behind Sunset Ridge from the beginning, the one with the vision to see what that land could become. Richard had simply provided capital and connections, but Sterling had done the heavy lifting—navigating the permits, managing the contractors, dealing with the endless complications that came with any major development.
The man had an almost obsessive dedication to the project, working eighteen-hour days even when his wife had been ill. Or had she been ill? Richard tried to remember. No, it had beenan accident. A construction site accident at one of Sterling's other projects, maybe two years ago? Tragic, certainly, but these things happened in the industry.
Richard had sent flowers to the funeral and a generous donation to whatever charity the family had designated. That was what you did. Business relationships required these gestures of humanity, these acknowledgments that the people you worked with had lives and losses beyond the conference room.
He poured himself another finger of scotch, this time to toast not just the resort's success but his own acumen in choosing the right partners. Sterling was exactly the kind of developer Richard liked working with—aggressive, competent, willing to push through obstacles that would have stopped more cautious men. The environmental protests hadn't slowed Sterling down for more than a few months, and even that delay had been mostly about optics, about being seen to take concerns seriously before proceeding exactly as planned.
Richard walked to the window again, watching the last light drain from the sky. The mountains had gone from copper to dark purple, and the city lights were beginning to dominate the view.
Somewhere out there, the Sunset Ridge Resort sat unfinished, waiting for the controversy to fully die down before construction resumed. It would happen. Another month or two, the protests would fade, Hatathli would find some other cause to champion, and the bulldozers would return.
Beyond the resort, Richard could see the lights of other developments he'd invested in over the years. Paradise Valley was his kingdom, in a sense. Not because he lived here—plenty of wealthy people lived here—but because he'd helped shape it, had been part of the transformation from sleepy suburb to luxury destination. Each successful project had funded the next, building his reputation and his portfolio until he'd becomethe kind of investor developers sought out, the kind whose involvement signaled to other investors that a project was worth backing.
It was a good life. A well-earned life. Richard had come from modest beginnings—his father had been a mid-level insurance agent, his mother a substitute teacher—and he'd built his wealth through intelligence, timing, and an unwavering focus on opportunity. No inheritance, no family connections, just hard work and smart decisions. The American dream is realized through the transformative power of real estate investment.
He raised his glass toward the darkening mountains. "To progress," he said aloud, his voice the only sound in the large room. "And to the people who have the courage to make it happen."
The scotch was smooth and perfect, exactly like this moment. Richard Garrison had built a career on identifying opportunities others missed and having the resolve to pursue them despite opposition. The Sunset Ridge Resort would be another success story in a career full of them—not his last, certainly, but perhaps his most visible.
The project that would cement his reputation as someone who got things done regardless of obstacles.
He was setting his glass down on the desk, already thinking about what he'd have for dinner—there was leftover lasagna from his favorite Italian place, or he could order something new—when he heard footsteps in the hallway.
Richard turned toward the door, expecting to see Elena, his housekeeper. She'd left for the day hours ago, heading to visit her daughter in Tempe, but maybe she'd forgotten something and returned. She had a key, of course. She'd worked for him for eight years, and he trusted her completely.
