“Sebastian…” the senior creative director stammered, his voice trembling:
“We… we didn’t know… Nick told us you were trying to destroy the agency…”
I didn’t answer him.
I looked down at Nick Sterling, who was currently curled into a fetal ball on the Persian rug, clutching his knees, weeping into his silk cuffs:
“You told me that we are not a charity, Nick,” I said softly.
Every syllable was a twenty-ton iron ingot dropped onto his coffin:
“You told me that we are a business.”
“You told me that I should have kept driving.”
“You told me that a human life didn’t matter because a pitch mattered more.”
I leaned down until my eyes filled his entire field of vision:
“You have precisely twelve minutes to clean out your desk, Nick.”
“Take your Gucci loafers.”
“Take your dry martinis.”
“And as for your agency…?”
A slow, radiant, permanent smile broke across Sebastian Miller’s face:
