The First Pour
The first concession is the only one that looks small.
Eddie Keane has always believed he won clean. When his small contracting firm takes the bid on the Mercier, a glass tower on the Brooklyn waterfront, he thinks he has finally made it. Then he is summoned to the back room of a pork store, where Frank Calabro lays out the terms: twelve names on the payroll, a concrete supplier of his choosing, and no questions.
Eddie says yes for his family, the schedule and the contract. On the night of the first pour, the foundation takes in more than steel and cement. Caught between an architect who stamps only what she has read, a controller who knows what every piece of paper costs, and a wife who asks for limits she can verify, Eddie learns that the first concession is the only one that looks small.
The First Pour opens the RED IRON series: construction, mob, union, and the price of a tower that rises while the debt beneath it can never be undone.
New to the series? Start with Book I, The First Pour.