Tristan said, “I wouldn’t have been able to design and deploy that AI if I hadn’t had his seed money. I probably would’ve been tinkering with the idea for thirty years and never managed to get it to work.”
Micah curled up from where he was lying on the deck and rested his arms on his knees. “I used it for the initial investment for Shine Industries. I convinced the angel investors to come on for the second round of financing, but there wouldn’t have been a second round if I hadn’t had his money for the startup.”
Logan raised his coffee mug of champagne toward the wispy clouds threading across the brilliant Mediterranean sky. “Thank you, Grandpa Malefactor, for teaching us that behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
They all raised their cups to the sky and, presumably, the old con man somewhere in Heaven. “Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.”
“But he never told us what his great crime was,” Blaze mused.
“Could have been anything,” Tristan said.
“He seemed to know so much about everyone else’s crimes,” Micah said. “It was probably blackmail.”
The four men celebrated gently the rest of the day and more robustly that night because it was in their nature to mark the accomplishments that any one of them had managed. With Tristan’s AI success and Micah’s IPO, they had plenty to celebrate.
When they’d been at boarding school and surrounded by the children of billionaires and royalty, they’d been made all too aware that they came from nothing and to nothing they would return. Their triumphs were now evidence that all four of them were not the losers they had been pegged as during high school. The scholarship kids had not been treated gently, and they’d toughened up fast.
After supper and carousing that night, Tristan left the rest of them at their hotel and stumbled back to his yacht. When he’d bought the vessel in order to reside in Monaco with its true 5G broadband and lack of income tax, he hadn’t considered the rocking motion of his home when coupled with too much celebrating, but he would just have to survive the night.
As he staggered around the boat, grabbing onto furniture that was, thankfully, nailed to the floor, his hand once again rested on the white card stock envelope he’d received in the mail that morning that bore his full name, Tristan Fortunato King.
Curious and having nothing better to do, Tristan found a knife in his tiny galley and slit open the mailer, dumping the few pieces of paper inside on the small table at which he usually ate breakfast.
Across the top of the first page, in bold letters, was the sentence, Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
That was weird.
As he read the rest of the letter, his skin prickled with cold sweat.
At least he hadn’t opened the letter in front of the other guys. Even his best friends in the world wouldn’t forgive him for this.
2
How It Started
Colleen
TwistyTrader, your post violates forum decorum and Sherwood Forest Stock Market Board’s TOS. I have removed your post, and your account will remain on moderated status for fourteen days. All your posts and replies will have to be approved by a moderator before they appear on the site.
This is your fifth violation in the last three weeks. If you violate community standards again during this moderated period, we will terminate your account. Capiche?
Colleen finished typing in the direct-message box and stabbed the Enter button with her finger to send it.
A green bubble with her message appeared on her computer screen, and her shoulders sagged.
Disciplining forum members was the worst, the absolute worst. She silently screamed and shivered with the ickiness of it, but her apartment’s walls were too thin and it was too late at night for her to indulge in a real response.
She popped open a different window for the moderators’ group chat and typed, TwistyTrader was up to no good tonight. Had to put him on moderation. She uploaded screenshots of the data collection form he’d posted in their chat.
Puking emojis and gifs filled the chat window, followed by messages of support.
You get him, QueenMod. The Killer Whale King needs to be taken down a peg.
Heh heh. You said peg.
OMG stahp, @ModOMatic. You aren’t 13 yo anyho.
Heh heh. You said ho.
