REKT - Chapter 1

Diamonds Dollars Gold

I reach into my backpack, unzipping an inner pocket to produce the key to the safe deposit box. Nikola's name is on it. There's nothing to keep her from clearing it all out and running. This key is not an impediment. She's made it clear how easy it is to drill the box. Two pieces of paper are all that's required, a passport and an affidavit. Still, we play this game of trust, relying on the most basic of checks and balances. They remind us of morality, what we owe to each other.

When I think about it, that's all Icarus is. What we owe each other.

We are at Cyprus Commercial Bank to raise the stakes in our game. Nikola has a pouch full of diamonds in her purse. The bank reflects the gilded age glory of a century ago. Polished brass, marble columns, a grandeur reserved for the trusted few. That trust is not based on any underlying morality, but instead on being a steady source of business that won’t bite the bank in the ass. The box is in Nikola’s name because her family has walked across this lobby for decades. We are leveraging their reputation for discretion to safely stash these diamonds. No one, not even the bank’s relationship man escorting Nikola, will know of this illicit layover.

I'm relaxing in a leather chair, the Financial Times folded on my lap. My eyes are fixed on Nikola. We’ve become close to the point that I am considering whether I could be her relationship man one day, but that is not where my mind should be. Andy is in Switzerland trying to swap these diamonds into gold. There's a matter of the discount to negotiate given their provenance. That's a polite way of saying we might pay more for the gold because these are conflict diamonds, then again, we paid less for the diamonds because we got them from the source. It’s a good deal all around, at least for those of us still dealing.

The three of us are partners in Icarus. Hustling diamonds is not our main gig, but we are not averse to moonlighting when opportunities present themselves. A touch of gray is okay. It will be some time before our legitimate gig as a crypto stablecoin pays off. In the meantime, we need to eat, and aspiration cannot fill our hungry entrepreneurial bellies.

I feel a twinge as the banker places his hand on the small of Nikola’s back. They walk off, out of view, heading down a corridor to a vault I'll never see. I need to search my feelings when it comes to her. Our entanglement is already deep enough, attraction should be put to the side given the repercussions from a fallout. We agreed that the one-night thing would never happen again, but words said a morning after fade from memory with each spark that passes between us.

My phone vibrates. Andy is messaging me. "Did you two wake up together? Don’t hold out on your boy." "That’s none of your business." I answer. "I beg to differ and will take that as a yes." "No. Nikola is in the middle of a risky proposition on our behalf. We have priorities."

"I bet you'd like a risky proposition."

Always the worst timing with this guy, but he is not wrong.

"Fuck off Andy."

I click the screen off and look up to the ceiling. There's a fresco painted on it, an actual honest to God fresco of the Cypriot countryside filled with rolling hills, gentle brooks, the clouds lit by a rising sun. My phone vibrates again and again, ugly and insistent, oblivious to the serenity above. Andy is back, "Show some respect. I just closed our deal."

I don't want to bother with him, but that is huge news. These diamonds are a trial run that our man in Rotterdam put us onto. We took a good bit of money out of the Icarus operational budget and used it to buy dirty diamonds in Kinshasa. Rotterdam fakes the papers on them, and we swap the diamonds for bona fide Swiss gold. Andy securing an off ramp into gold was the final piece we needed to make this little caper go.

"How much?" I ask.

"Five million every three months."

"Jesus, we’ll clear a million each load."

"Indeed, I got to run. Celebration lunch with the lads." Andy replies.

"Stay inbounds. This isn't the time to throw three martinis to the wind."

"Roger that."

Nikola is walking back into the lobby. She's beaming, but still nervous. As shaky as this business is, the intangibles are undeniable. Private jets, continent hopping, diamonds. Private armed security. We really do ball the fuck out. She's discovering the rush of living so far beyond what most can imagine. She's realizing the further we push out, the more the world gives us. It's intoxicating to know you are pulling the wool over everyone's eyes. It's how Andy got me hooked, now we are redpilling her. I take her trembling hands in mine, steadying them as I look down. Her eyes are enormous and dark. A deep dreamlike dark that I want to drown in.

"How did it go?" I ask.

"No problems. The diamonds are under lock and key."

“Wonderful.”

She's lifting herself up, her heels coming out of her pumps, the weight of her body balancing on her toes. I'm bending down, my arms wrapping around her, the gravitational pull of success bringing us together. She's so smart, so sassy, such a cunning dear. Even though we said we wouldn't, we are both helpless at this moment. The entire enterprise is scooping us up, smashing us together, making our mistake as clear as day in the lobby of the bank. She tastes so good. We fit so well together. I’m pulling her to me. Her curves pressed against my chest, my hand on her hip. We lock in a perfect moment. This is so wrong. She is so right. I wish this would last forever.

A guard clears his throat. Nikola pulls back, the message received.

"Let's go back to my place," she says.

We walk out of the bank arm in arm. My phone vibrates. I try my best to ignore it, but my brain won't let it go. There's nothing there that can improve the moment, but still, my brain won't let it go. It's Andy.

"I bet you two are already snogging."

***

The Swiss are with us, Hans and Stefan. Andy tells me not to worry, they are cool. Lunch bled into a night of running around Budapest. Budapest is not in Switzerland, that much I know. I've decided to stop worrying about Andy’s geographic inconsistencies. Asking for explanations will only end with Hans slapping me on the back and sharing too much. He's dying to talk about some chiseled side of Ukrainian man beef, like I care about his thing for demeaning sex workers. This is the flip side of the coin, the bad part of pushing out to the edges. The people you find there have a predilection for risk, they lack certain impulse controls. Mostly they are big fucking assholes.

"Swiss Hans is actually German like Fritz, but Hans is cool German because he is from Cologne and not Frankfurt."

Andy is pointing a cigarette at me while he says this for the fifth time. I cannot get over how white his teeth are, how his blue saucer eyes glow in the dark. He is distorted, everything is distorted. A black light turns his dark hair into a snow speckled meadow. A disco ball dissects his compact

body into silver geodes. Andy says it again. He really wants me to understand just how cool Hans is. How cool Cologne is.

"Listen to this music, isn't this the best?"

It's Cologne disco. At least that's what Andy keeps calling it. There's no such thing as Cologne disco. Italo disco is a thing, Brazilian disco is a thing, this is not a thing.

I'm coming down, coming down hard. This is the part I hate, when the euphoria wears off and senses numbed for a dozen hours wake up on full red alert. Benny Benassi's Satisfaction kicks on to the speakers. The high-pitched echo, a million fucking alarm bells in my head. Electronic nails assault my ears, ugly drug ASMR.

Stefan jumps up on the coffee table.

"Classic anthem! I love this one," he shouts.

Andy is inspired. "Let's do a bump, bitches."

The never-ending compulsion. The constant need for more. He can't control himself. He doesn't know where his limits are. He'll be the last man standing. Sometime hours after Hans and Stefan run out of steam, he'll still be up, wandering around, being so into all the new things he's learned from the Swiss. Pills are crushed on the counter. euros rolled into tight bundled tubes. I simply cannot. Mentally, I cannot continue. Physically, snorting ecstasy makes me shiver, then it makes me puke. Andy knows this, so I am immune from his expectations. Even this fucked up, he knows not to take me there. His lizard brain fears vomit.

Hans, Stefan, Andy. Two fat rails each. Chest bumps and hugs. They are all the best. This is the best. How could anything get any fucking better than this?

"Niko, come get some!" Andy shouts.

She's chain smoking, lazy eyed, stone cold out of gas. The only reason she's still with us is a hostess' sense of duty. I am horrified that Andy brought this scene here. That he fell out of the sky with the Swiss and commandeered her villa for a getting acquainted bacchanalia.

We are all so cool, so we should all be together. We are all so cool that we should all be together forever. I hate this side of Andy. I hate that he has access to a private jet, that nowhere is out of reach, that nothing is beyond his need to bond everyone he knows to his insatiable pleasure center. That such a special day for Niko and I is capped off by Andy's nightmare of cool. Nothing can happen without him in the middle of it.

"I'm good Andy. In fact, I've got a little something waiting for Ryan downstairs."

She smiles, takes me by the hand and winks. She's engineering our escape. I was only staying for her. She was only staying for me. Finally, one of us is sober enough to realize we both need to get away from these awful insatiable people.

"Stefan, Hans, do you know what I call this place?" Andy asks.

"No, what?" Hans asks back.

"Le Villa du Snog."

"Viva La Snog!" Stefan screams.

We flee. If there are party supplies waiting downstairs, I pray it’s for another day. I need ear plugs and NyQuil. I need ten hours of oblivion. I pray that when I wake, the jet is on its way back to Basel. I pray that Andy insists on taking them home.

"Push me and just touch me until I can get my satisfaction." A female robot repeats over and over on the stereo. How horrible this moment is, I wonder what Nikola thinks of us now.

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