18 Target Two
Jerico Thorne sat in the darkness.
The blue light that poured from his laptop's screen blinded his eyes.
The office around him was a climate-controlled mausoleum with abstract oils on the walls, carpeted floors, a smoked-glass desk so polished it reflected the ceiling's gridwork like an interrogation room.
A single tulip vase perched at the center.
In the corner stood a massive monitor with a playback of the security footage from the night of the gala.
Nothing here seemed out of place except for Jerico, slumped in the Eames chair, barefoot, jaw clenched.
It was almost midnight. He could feel the hour in his teeth as he reviewed the footage and read a news article about his buddy Ronan Wick. The headline was like a generous portion of acid just above the mugshot.
Famed Investment Prodigy Ronan Wick Arrested for Embezzlement and Tax Evasion
Jerico read the article three times. The words didn't change. He zeroed in on the photo, on Ronan's face that didn't look like it belonged to him anymore. It belonged to someone scared.
Jerico's own pulse spiked. His breathing quickened, every intake scraping the inside of his throat.
He closed the tab. Opened another.
He saw half a dozen stories, all variations on the same theme—Ronan Wick caught siphoning clients' money. One pundit wrote that Wick's days at the top of the food chain were officially over.
It was too familiar.
Jerico thumbed at the side of his iPad, screen-swiping through social notifications.
Institutional panic, ex-clients scrambling for comment, memes already springing up to mark Wick's rapid fall.
Jerico had been meme fodder for a full week himself after the forgery debacle, but the stench of someone else's scandal felt colder, cleaner.
He shut his eyes, massaged the bridge of his nose, and exhaled. On the credenza across the room, a bottle of Yamazaki and a heavy crystal glass waited—untouched, but threatening to break his resolve.
He fought it. He still had a chance to turn this around, to find proof that he wasn't involved in the swap. He had a gut feeling that he was missing something, a crucial piece.
Jerico hesitated for a good minute before dialing Ronan's number. He wasn't sure Ronan would answer. He'd been released on bail, but who knew what the conditions were?
He set the phone on speaker and waited.
Once, twice, then a click and a static-riddled breath.
"Jerico?" Wick's voice was less voice, more throat. "Been a long time."
"You're home?"
"My lawyer made sure. The indictment is bullshit. It'll fall apart." Wick forced a laugh that had the texture of an ulcer. "How have you been?"
"I'm glad you made bail," Jerico said.
"You know Don Paisley is a rabid dog and a genius."
Jerico, of course, knew. He'd referred Don himself.
"Anyway, what's this about?" Ronan asked.
"You tell me," Jerico said. "I assume you've been following the coverage of my predicament."
"The fake Picasso?" Ronan guessed right away.
"Someone replaced the original with a forgery."
"Why would someone do that?"
"Maybe the same reason they went after you."
"You're right, Orson Nash is too dumb to do this on his own," Ronan mused. "He would have never obtained any of the documents without external help. Whoever did this knew my moves, down to the decimal point. They even knew the offshore. That's not luck. That's some tight hacker job."
Jerico let the silence simmer. He'd been sitting on similar thoughts for a few days now.
He wasn't certain whether his own theory about being targeted was correct, but he didn't believe in coincidences.
On the wall behind him hung a modernist art piece—charcoal lines over copper leaf.
It had cost more than most cars. Jerico realized that if the dominoes kept falling, he'd be hocking the artwork he'd been collecting for years for lawyer fees.
"So you're saying someone is targeting us?" Jerico asked.
"It seems that way," Ronan confirmed. "We both have a streak of bad luck? Not likely."
Jerico waited.
Eventually Ronan supplied, "Remember that blondie from a few years back we banged at Grabler's penthouse party?"
Jerico had gone through hundreds of women in the past ten years. Some jumped his dick and some played hard to get. A couple of them even tried to accuse him of assault after they realized he'd never date them. Thankfully, he had enough money and connections to put out the fires as they came in.
"Which girl?" Jerico wracked his brain for the right memories.
"That dumb bitch from three years ago who went to the cops."
Kimberly Holt.
He remembered her alright. She was one of those who felt offended.
She'd taken photos of herself too. Even did a goddamn rape kit.
She was fucking persistent. Burying the case and removing all mention of it from the Internet was the kind of stress no one needed.
Especially since Caius had to get involved.
Bitch created more problems than the rest.
"Why are you bringing it up?" Jerico asked, dumbfounded at Ronan's tendency to rehash their past escapades even at the most inconvenient of times. "What about her?"
"She was at the event the night I was arrested."
Jerico's mouth went dry. "Are you sure?"
"I talked to her myself," Ronan replied. "Then the cops showed up."
Jerico closed his eyes, processed the information. "She's not a threat," he finally said, but the words felt thin. "Didn't we make sure? She was expensive." He found himself staring at the security feeds again.
Ronan exhaled on the line. "I put a private eye on her. Just in case. If someone is behind this and that someone is good with tech, you need to get your shit sorted."
"I see."
"Talk to you later." The line went dead.
Ronan was right. They had a lot of secrets that could never come out.
It took several minutes for Jerico Thorne to lose control.
He stared at his smeared reflection in the monitor replaying the security footage from the night of his downfall, watched the twitch of his own hand as it reached for the iPad, and then—without thinking—he sent it hurtling at the wall.
The crack of the display was gunshot-loud, and the iPad dropped, screen spidering, before landing face down in the corner.
Papers leapt from the desk as if startled. The tulip vase went next, spinning in a slow, mocking arc and then shattering against the arm of the chair.
He swept everything off with the back of his arm, then he braced both hands on the desk and stood motionless for a moment, chest heaving. Then he found his voice, low and hoarse.
"Fuck," he said.
And then, quieter, "Fuck."
He reached for his phone, thumbed through the contacts, and landed on a name Bozak.
He called.
A single ring and a pickup. "Mr. Thorne," the man answered, voice as oily as always. "It's been a minute."
Jerico's tone was arctic. "I need a full background run. Kimberly Holt. H-O-L-T."
A silence on the line before the man asked, "Timeline?"
"Now," Jerico said. "I want actionable data in twenty-four hours."
"Understood." Bozak's voice vanished, the call terminating with a click.
Jerico set the phone down, exhaled again.
It was only then that he noticed the photo.
It had been in the same spot for years, on the floating shelf by the window.
Jerico, Ronan, and Caius, arms slung like brothers at some charity gala.
All teeth and suits and the easy confidence of men who had never lost a single thing.
They were barely out of college then, only starting to make waves.
Jerico moved to stand in front of the shelf and stared at the photo, his face in the picture more open, more alive, than he could remember.
He reached out, cupped the frame in both hands, and regarded it for a long moment.
Remembered the wild night the three of them had.
The women they fucked, the drugs they messed around with.
Those were the good old times. When the future was ahead of them.
Now that the future was here, both he and Wick had been on the way to ruin.
And Kimberly Holt was somehow there when Ronan got arrested.
No, definitely not a coincidence.
Jerico set the photo back on the shelf but face down.
He wondered if Caius was next.