She stomped away.
Colleen rolled her eyes and followed her friend.
Tristan checked on the brie, which was ready.
Charcuterie could probably smooth this over.
He grabbed another bottle of wine just in case brie and crackers weren’t enough to pacify Anjali.
47
Community
Tristan
As the private jet streaked through the sky toward Europe, Tristan put his life in order.
The jet had internet access through a satellite link, so he sipped a double shot of excellent, smoky scotch whiskey from a cut-glass tumbler and made minor tweaks to his will.
Material goods didn’t matter. Everything he owned would be liquidated and sucked into the hungry maw of Mary Varvara Bell’s promissory note. His yacht, his car, his stock portfolio, and most of all, his computer programs would all be consumed by Mary Varvara Bell’s holding company, White Holdings, Inc.
White Holdings, Inc.
It was weird that the company wasn’t called Bell Holdings, or Evil New Yorker Holdings, or Malefactor Holdings, or something. Back when Tristan was twenty-two, he’d signed the promissory note so fast that he hadn’t noticed Stanley Bell’s holding company’s name.
Not that it mattered.
And especially, not that it matterednow.
Putting together a few sentimental but monetarily worthless things into a list to mail to his friends Tuesday, things they might like to have as mementos, took just a few minutes.
He planned to send a skiing medal that they’d won together as a team in intramural sports at Le Rosey to Micah, because Micah was sentimental about items with a history.
Blaze had always admired Tristan’s Patek Philippe Celestial watch, and surely Mary Varvara Bell didn’t have an inventory of Tristan’s watches and cufflinks that she was going to check off when she took everything he owned.
For Logan, Tristan should find something personal. There was a non-zero chance that Logan Bell would inherit everything Tristan owned as part of the Malefactor’s sprawling business someday, if he could muster the spleen and muscle to fight Mary Varvara Bell for it.
Logan wasn’t the brawling type, in bars or in businesses. He was the laughing type, who charmed people and joked around. In high school, Logan had had a new girlfriend every week, sweet-talking another one of the girls into his arms and his bed.
But Logan might walk away from the Malefactor’s empire as his father had done, and Tristan wanted to give him something to remember their friendship by.
Tristan didn’t know any way that he could send Logan his gun collection stashed behind his desk in his computer den, especially across international borders. The Monegasque post office would refuse to ship it.
And the only person Tristan knew who was probably involved in smuggling guns was Mary Varvara Bell.
In some ways, Tristan knew Logan the least out of all his friends, like he was always one step removed from the other three of them, which was why Tristan was having so much damn trouble trying to figure out the perfect memento to give him.
If Tristan had time, he would’ve written Logan some Anti-Anonymity malware, a program to ensure Logan’s name was prominently displayed in every scanned picture of him.
That was the problem.
Tristan had thought he’d had time.
He’d have to figure something out.
And Colleen.
Tristanneededsomething to give Colleen to remember him by.
