The headline was four words, printed in the thick, black ink of an executioner: "KNICKERBOCKER PRESIDENT IMPLICATED IN FRAUD."
Jason read it over a solitary breakfast of steak and eggs, the newspaper spread out on the polished mahogany of the dining table. The article was a masterpiece. A brutal, surgical demolition of Charles T. Barney's reputation. The anonymous source was quoted extensively, painting a picture of a reckless gambler who had betrayed his sacred duty to his depositors.
A newsboy on the street corner outside shouted the headline, his voice a shrill cry that sounded to Jason like a victory proclamation.
He savored his coffee. He savored the cold, clean feeling of a plan perfectly executed.
The telephone in his study began to ring, a frantic, insistent jangle. He let it ring ten times before he rose to answer it.
It was his broker, Finch. The man's voice was no longer panicked, but breathless with awe.
"Prentice, it's a tidal wave! My God, I've never seen anything like it! The line at the Knickerbocker stretches for three blocks! They're putting up police barricades, but it's not stopping them! It's a riot!"
"Is it?" Jason said, his voice calm.
"They're calling you the 'Ghost of Wall Street' down here," Finch whispered. "No one knows how you knew."
Throughout the morning, telegrams began to arrive at the house, delivered by a series of breathless messengers. They were dispatches from the battlefield. Jason laid them out on his desk.
"CROWD SMASHING WINDOWS STOP."
"POLICE ON HORSEBACK CALLED TO RESTORE ORDER STOP."
"BANK HAS SUSPENDED PAYMENTS STOP."
And then, the one he was waiting for.
"BARNEY HAS RESIGNED IN DISGRACE STOP."
It was a total, devastating victory. He had broken one of the city's great financial institutions with a single, well-placed whisper. He stood over the telegrams, a mosaic of ruin, and felt the ice-cold thrill of absolute, untouchable power. This was what it felt like to be a god.
In the early afternoon, another messenger arrived. This one was different. He was an older man, his face etched with worry. He carried a single, pristine white envelope.
It was addressed to Mr. Ezra Prentice in an elegant, but slightly trembling, handwriting.
Jason took it to his study and slit it open with a letter opener. He expected threats. Curses. A demand for satisfaction.
Instead, it was a plea for mercy.
The letter was from Charles T. Barney. It was a desperate, rambling appeal from one gentleman to another, a relic of a code Jason no longer adhered to. The paper was stained in one place, as if from a fallen tear.
Barney wrote of his wife and children. He wrote of his family's honor, of the decades of hard work it had taken to build his reputation. He begged Jason to issue a public statement, to clarify that the newspaper article was a misunderstanding, to give him some way, any way, to salvage a piece of his life.
He offered money. He offered his silence. He offered anything.
Jason read the letter twice. He felt nothing. No pity. No guilt. Only a profound, bottomless contempt for the man's weakness. A man who begs has already lost everything. The moment you surrender your power to another man, you are already dead.
He walked to the large stone fireplace, where a low fire crackled against the autumn chill. He tossed the letter into the flames. He watched the elegant, desperate words curl into black ash and float up the chimney.
As the last of the letter vanished, the telephone rang.
He picked it up. It was Finch again, but his voice was different. It was hushed, strange, stripped of its earlier excitement.
"My God, Prentice... have you heard the news?" the broker whispered. "From the Union Club... Charles Barney. An hour ago. He walked into the library, took a pistol from his desk..."
Finch trailed off.
"He shot himself," the broker finished, his voice hollow. "He's dead."
The consequence was immediate, brutal, and to Jason, utterly irrelevant. It was merely the closing of an account. A loose end tied up.
The news of Barney's suicide left him feeling… nothing. It was the logical conclusion to a series of predictable events.
That night, feeling untouchable, he left his club and dismissed his carriage. The cold night air felt good on his face. He decided to walk the few blocks home. The city was his. He had brought its titans to their knees. He had conquered it.
He turned a corner onto a quiet, gaslit side street, a shortcut he sometimes took. The tall brownstones loomed on either side, their windows dark.
A figure stepped out of an alley, blocking his path.
It was Augustus Heinze.
His face was a pale, haggard mask of grief in the golden light of the gas lamp. His eyes, sunken and dark, burned with a mad, nihilistic rage. He was no longer the blustering fool from the restaurant. He was something broken. Something dangerous.
And he was not alone.
Two large, rough-looking men emerged from the shadows behind him, flanking him. One of them was holding something that hung heavy in his hand.
"Barney was my friend," Heinze hissed, his voice a low, guttural snarl that was barely human. "He was a good man. You killed him. You killed him with your lies."
He gestured with his chin at Jason. "This is for him."
There was no more talk.
The attack was sudden and savage. Jason was a financier, a creature of boardrooms and stock tickers, not a street fighter. His instincts screamed at him to run, but there was nowhere to go.
One of the thugs lunged, his movements brutally efficient. A fist like a block of granite slammed into Jason's ribs, knocking the air from his lungs in a single, explosive gasp. He doubled over, pain flaring white-hot through his side.
He saw the second man move, stepping out of the shadows. He saw the sudden, horrifying glint of gaslight on a crude lead pipe as it swung out of the blackness.
Pain exploded behind his eyes.
The world tilted violently, the golden gaslights of the city smearing into nauseating streaks of light. The cobblestones rushed up to meet him.
A second before everything went black, he heard Heinze's voice, full of a dead, broken triumph.
"Now you have nothing, either."