J.P. Morgan's library was not a room; it was a declaration of war, and Jason had been ordered to march directly into the enemy's fortress.
Hours before the meeting, the study in the Fifth Avenue mansion had become a command center. This was not a husband-and-wife moment; it was a pre-battle briefing, cold and brutally efficient.
Alta stood opposite him, her mother's leather journal open on the desk. She was his general, giving him the tactical layout of the battlefield.
"The men in that room tonight believe themselves to be kings," she said, her voice crisp and sharp. "They are nothing but terrified merchants who have lost control of their ships in a storm."
Her knowledge of New York's elite was encyclopedic, her assessments ruthless.
"James Stillman of National City Bank will be Morgan's right hand," she said, tapping a name in the journal. "He talks of strength and stability, but the journal says he is dangerously over-leveraged in railroad bonds. If the panic worsens, he will be the first to drown."
She flipped a page. "George Baker from First National is a coward. A sheep. He will follow whoever seems strongest. Break Stillman's credibility, and Baker will fold."
One by one, she dissected them. Their weaknesses, their secret debts, their hidden fears. It was a masterclass in psychological warfare.
"Morgan will expect you to be my father's mouthpiece," she concluded, closing the book. "A simple lawyer, sent to deliver a message. He will not expect you to know where all the bodies are buried."
As he prepared to leave, dressed in a perfectly tailored evening suit that felt more like armor, she stopped him. Her movements were precise as she adjusted the knot of his tie.
"This was my grandfather's," she said, taking a single, perfect pearl stickpin from a velvet box. She fastened it to his tie, her fingers cool and steady against his chest.
"It signifies that you speak with the full authority of our family," she said. Her eyes, cool and blue, met his. "Do not fail."
Her ambition was now a living thing between them, completely intertwined with his. He nodded, the weight of the Rockefeller name feeling less like a burden and more like a loaded gun in his hand.
He walked out of the house, not as Ezra Prentice, the failed lawyer, but as a king's champion, sent to slay a dragon.
The air in J.P. Morgan's library was so thick with cigar smoke you could taste it. It was a blue-gray haze that stung the eyes and coated the back of the throat, obscuring the faces of the most powerful men in America and pressing down on them with a physical weight.
The room reeked of stale smoke, expensive brandy, and raw, animal fear.
Titans of Wall Street, men who could move mountains of gold with a telegram, were assembled in the grand, book-lined room. They sat in heavy leather chairs, their faces pale and drawn in the dim light. The Panic was a wildfire, and they were the men trapped at its center.
And in the middle of it all, a bull of a man, radiating a power that was almost a physical force. J. Pierpont Morgan.
He was huge, imposing, with a booming voice and fierce, penetrating eyes that seemed to look right through a man and see his breaking point. He stood by the massive fireplace, a cigar jutting from his fist like a weapon.
When Jason was announced and entered the room, Morgan's fiery eyes landed on him. The great man's face soured with contempt.
"Rockefeller sent his son-in-law?" Morgan's voice was a dismissive rumble that echoed in the high-ceilinged room. "His lawyer?"
He looked around at the other bankers. "I asked for principals. Not errand boys."
A few of the bankers chuckled, a nervous, sycophantic sound. They were terrified of Morgan, and eager to be on his side. Jason felt their dismissal like a physical blow, but he kept his face a calm, unreadable mask. He gave a slight nod and took a seat in an empty chair, content to be underestimated.
Morgan ignored him, turning his attention to the room at large. His plan was simple and brutal, delivered not as a suggestion but as an imperial command.
"The city is on the brink," he boomed. "The trust companies are a house of cards. When they fall, they will take us all with them."
He paced before the fireplace, his presence dominating the room. "Therefore, we will not allow them to fall. The sound banks will form a pool. A fund of twenty-five million dollars. We will use that capital to save the weaker trusts, to restore confidence."
He stopped and glared at the assembled men. "This is not charity. This is survival."
He strode to a massive oak table in the center of the room and slapped a single sheet of paper down. A commitment form.
"Sign," he commanded. "We will save this city tonight, or we will all burn together in the morning."
The bankers looked at each other, their faces a mixture of fear and resentment. They were trapped. Morgan was demanding they risk their own fortunes to save their rivals. But to refuse his command, to be the one man who said no, was unthinkable.
The pen was passed to the man nearest Jason, the president of a smaller, but respected, bank. The fate of the American economy hung on this single, forced act of unity.
The man took the pen, his hand trembling slightly. He uncapped it and leaned over the sheet.
Jason spoke.
His voice was calm and clear, not loud, but it cut through the thick smoke like a razor. "A commendable plan, Mr. Morgan. A noble sentiment."
Every head in the room snapped toward him. Morgan's eyes narrowed into dangerous slits.
Jason stood up slowly, the pearl pin in his tie catching the lamplight. "But I fear your plan has a fatal flaw."
He let his eyes scan the faces of the other bankers, men whose secrets he now knew intimately. "You are asking healthy men to give blood transfusions to dying ones. A noble act. But it assumes all the donors are, in fact, healthy."
He turned his gaze directly on James Stillman, Morgan's closest ally.
"Mr. Stillman," Jason said, his voice dropping slightly but losing none of its edge. "My sources indicate that National City Bank's liquid reserves are not nearly what you have led everyone here to believe. In fact, should another major trust fail tomorrow, your own institution would be in grave danger."
A stunned, deathly silence.
It was followed by an explosion of noise. Stillman leaped to his feet, his face ghostly white. "That's a damnable lie! Slander!"
Other bankers started shouting, their fragile, forced unity instantly shattering into a dozen panicked, suspicious factions. They stared at Stillman, and then at each other, a new, terrible doubt poisoning the air.
Jason had broken the gentleman's code. He had brought the brutal, ugly truth into a room built on polite, unspoken fictions.
Morgan's face, normally ruddy with power, turned a deep, dangerous purple. He looked like a man about to have a stroke.
He slammed his massive fist down on the oak table. The sound was like a gunshot.
"SILENCE!" he roared.
The room fell quiet, the air thick with tension. Morgan's eyes, blazing with a furious, incandescent rage, fixed on Jason.
"You are a snake, Prentice!" he bellowed. "A Rockefeller snake, sent here to poison the well!"
Jason met the great man's furious gaze without flinching. He stood his ground, a calm island in a sea of chaos.
"I was sent," he said quietly, his voice carrying to every corner of the room, "to inspect the plumbing. And I've found a leak."