"You look like shit, man."
Jasper took a sip of his coffee, running a hand through his hair absentmindedly. "It's finals week," he told Seung-jun.
"Yeah, but you looked like shit before you started worrying about finals too. Is this about Valentina?"
Jasper slammed his cup down on the table, hot liquid sloshing onto the dark wood. Seung-jun leaned back, avoiding the coffee. He was remarkably casual about all this. "How can you not think about her?" Jasper demanded. "You were her friend. How can you be so okay with her just disappearing?"
Seung-jun sighed. For a moment, he looked genuine. "Do you know what I honestly think?"
"What."
"She probably had to leave because of something illegal. I wouldn't be surprised. She's always been so secretive about shit. I like Valentina, but that's it. You know how I am. Live and move on. Look, Valentina's probably fine. You, however, are not."
Jasper stared at the drops of rapidly cooling coffee. He was not fine. He had liked Valentina. Genuinely, obsessively, fallen for her. She'd been everything. One moment, she had been there, silhouetted against low lights for that last night together, the next moment, she was gone. He couldn't get that last conversation out of his head. He had it memorised.
My favourite colour isn't red. It's yellow.
Had he ever really known her? How many lies had she fed him?
He hadn't told a single soul about that conversation. He'd tried calling her forty times at least after that, but she hadn't picked up. She'd just taken his red car, the one she'd driven on Halloween, and left.
They'd found the car a couple days later. Someone had driven it off the road and parked it in a copse of trees. It was clearly intentional. Not some sort of crash—the car was pristine—but meant to be hidden.
There had been some trouble with her father too. He didn't know the exact details, but his dad was in a panic the last few weeks. He had been demanding if Jasper knew anything about Valentina leaving, telling him to keep his mouth shut about his investment or else. It was probably something illegal. But they hadn't been caught, to Jasper's knowledge. His dad had been panicked, but not in the way someone would be if they were caught in a crime by the cops. Panicked in the way someone would be if they woke up and found their house had been robbed while they had been sleeping.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed.
Jasper picked it up, barely glancing at it. It was probably Mia begging him to take her back.
Then he did a double take. It was his dad calling. "Hello?" Jasper said, picking up.
"Come to Manchester," his dad ordered.
Jasper frowned. It was the morning. He had class in seven minutes. "Now?"
"Now," his dad insisted, through gritted teeth.
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"What is it?" Jasper asked, stepping out of his car. It was the second-fastest one he had, a sleek black racing car. Every time he tried to drive the red car, he felt physically sick, so he drove this one now.
They were outside a sky-rise apartment building in Manchester. This was the kind of luxurious penthouse that his dad would buy to meet his mistresses at. His dad thought he was super good at hiding it, but Jasper had known about it since he was ten.
His dad looked drawn and pale. "Follow me," he ordered.
Jasper followed his dad into the lobby. It was weird. There were police swarming all over the place. "What's going on?" he asked as they got into the elevator.
His dad was stony silent.
They stopped at the thirtieth floor. The elevator doors slid open into a pleasant-looking apartment. What was not pleasant about it was the police officers examining every inch of it. "See for yourself," his dad snapped.
Jasper stepped out of the elevator, looking around. It looked lived-in. The police hadn't moved anything, it seemed. Several surfaces were dusted with dark powders. It looked like someone had gone out for an afternoon walk and just never came back. There were papers scattered around the glass coffee table in the centre of the penthouse.
He moved closer, looking at the papers.
What are these?
They were a lot of things, all at once. News articles about the Rochester family. News articles about the Mnisi family. News articles about the Rivera family. He picked up one of the papers. One of the police officers made a noise of complaint, but was silenced by a harsh glare from his dad.
This one was what seemed to be a list of every single character detail about Noelise Mnisi. Jasper didn't even know how someone would find out some of this information. Likes caviar. Likes bluefin tuna. Dislikes global warming. Good relationship with father. Et cetera et cetera. Picking up more pages, he realised that it went on for at least five full pages of bullet-points.
He tossed the pages about Noelise aside, looking deeper. There was another page, listing all Italian families with above one billion dollars in income. There was another page, listing details about just about ever important Italian heir or heiress that existed. There was another page, listing the places where all of the most important billionaires and children of political pundits went to school. The names that corresponded to Arbourne had been bolded.
There was another page, listing every single personal detail about ... John Rochester.
His father's age. His middle name. His exact birth date. There were even pictures of him printed out with his mistresses, listing every name of them and the dates from when his relationship started.
Then there was a set of papers which looked like bank forms. Jasper picked those up, frowning.
"Forged statements," his dad snapped, taking the paper from his hand. "False proof of collateral for massive bank loans."
"So—what?"
"Look at the name on the statements." His dad shoved the paper in his face.
Jasper read the name.
Marco Bianchi.
Suddenly, the elevator dinged again. Jasper turned around. Three people stepped out. Teddy Rivera. Anathi Mnisis. Noelise Mnisi.
Slowly they pieced together what happened.
The police had documented every paper and scoured every surface for fingerprints. They were totally clear. The only evidence left behind was what Marco Bianchi had willingly left. Fake passports. Fake birth certificates. Fake vaccination certificates. Fake collateral. Fake bank statements. Lies on top of lies.
And most of all?
A fake company.
Jasper didn't know how much his dad had invested. Others must have been in on it too. Anathi looked drawn and worried. Teddy looked as if he was about to faint.
"How much are we talking?" Jasper heard his father whisper to Anathi.
"I put in three billion."
His father paused. "I put in four."
Jasper turned to look at Teddy. "My parents put in six," he whispered.
At least thirteen billion dollars. And hadn't his dad gone around, convincing their acquaintances to pitch in? Advertising it to anyone he knew wouldn't mind getting involved in something just a tad bit illegal?
They couldn't press charges. His dad's lawyers told them that much over the next few days. There was no record of the company, no record of Marco Bianchi having ever existed. The only records were of them, investing money into what appeared to be a Ponzi scheme. And the evidence was against them, the lawyers told them. There was nobody to sue. If they took it to law enforcement, the state would sue them. And they would lose.
They looked into trying to catch Marco on their own, but it was impossible. The footage they managed to get ahold of showed two people—maybe Marco and Valentina—getting on an economy-class flight to Germany. According to connections in Germany, they never got off. They just disappeared into thin air.
After one particularly bad meeting, Jasper went and just sat in the red car in the garage.
Teddy's family had lost the most. They were also scrambling to cover it up, paying massive amounts to everyone involved. They were political and not particularly wealthy in terms of billionaires—they risked far more than Jasper's dad or Noelise's dad. Four billion was a lot, but it wasn't life-changing for Jasper. Six billion for Teddy? That was a little more life-changing.
Maybe he deserved it. Valentina had always talked about how Teddy's life would be ruined by the summer. He was withdrawing from Arbourne next year, because someone had left a mysterious USB with essentially a spoken confession from Teddy admitting to what he did. If Nandika pressed charges, not only did she have solid evidence, but she also had far more money to throw at lawyers. If she decided to sue, she'd win. Teddy definitely deserved it.
And maybe Jasper deserved it too.
He'd really liked her though. He wondered how much of it was real. The kisses, the smiles, everything about her. He'd been right from the start—it was all lies. He just hadn't realised how deep the lies truly went. She'd outsmarted him.
There was a noise behind him. Jasper twisted around in the driver's seat. He saw Noelise walk into the garage, opening the door to the passenger's seat.
"Why are you here?"
"My dad's meeting with your dad."
She was carrying a laptop. She slid into the passenger seat, opening the laptop. Without a word, she handed it to Jasper.
Jasper looked at the screen. It was a document of pictures and text.
His breath caught in his throat as he looked at the document. All the pictures were ...
"Valentina," Noelise explained. "I did my research. She has just about a thousand names."
This one was Valentina, under a different name, caught in a blurry picture from an insurance scam case. She'd clearly grown a little since then and had some surgery, because in that picture she had monolids and a different nose. Her hair was blonde in that picture too. It was so convincing that Jasper would have believed that it was natural.
This one was also Valentina, under a different name, looking different.
This one was Valentina too.
And this one.
And the next.
"She's ..."
"Good at this kind of stuff," Noelise said quietly. "I think she's been complicit in a lot of crimes. Definitely hasn't gotten caught yet. She and her dad—Marco, I don't even know if he's really her dad—are a regular crime duo. They ran an insurance scam in Silicon Valley. They also did a con over in Japan. They're no stranger to pyramid schemes either. I counted two of those."
Jasper's throat had gone dry. He opened his driver's compartment, looking to see if he'd left a water bottle there. But instead, two things greeted him.
Cartier sunglasses. The ones he had watched Valentina put on and take off so many times, whenever he went driving with her. And a crumpled sticky note.
He picked up the sticky note. He hadn't bothered looking in the compartment after she stole his car, but he immediately recognized Valentina's handwriting.
Hi Jasper. Sorry I stole your ring. 4bil isn't going to affect you that much so don't worry about it. We did our research on your finances. Tell Teddy he's human trash and get him away from Nandika. Hang out with Es please she's really nice. Pls be a better person than Teddy or your dad or whatever. Tell Noelise I'm sorry we scammed her dad because he's actually a good person. Sorry, Jasper. I really like you.
Jasper read the note, then read it again.
He put it in his pocket, staring at the closed garage door.
"I'm going to drive," he told Noelise abruptly.
Noelise shrugged. "Sure."
He didn't speed on the roads that time. He drove slow, steady, and let the wind brush away everything he felt.
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