Two Birds, One Stone

I gun through the late-night Hollywood traffic, weaving past the stream of luxury cars bearing their swanky riders to who knows where. The streetlamps at night are a white blur as I speed up the winding road to Tiffany’s mansion on my bike.

I come to a screeching halt in her driveway, plunking my helmet down on the seat as I slide off the side of my sleek black Ducati. I walk up to the front door and hammer the doorbell a half-dozen times. It takes a minute for one of the staff to peek out and stare at me. It’s Tiffany’s bodyguard, Elias. The prick who was suspicious of me before.

“Ms. Najbreit said that she’s not to be disturbed this evening,” he says.

He slams the door in my face.

I would try dialling Tiffany’s number, but my phone’s broken now. Plus, she’s turned her phone off for the night.

I press the doorbell a half-dozen times more. The door swings open again. Elias stares down at me.

“I’m going to call the cops on you if you don’t leave after this,” he says.

The door slams shut again.

I knock on the door again.

“It’s urgent!” I yell through the door.

I hear noises behind the door. It sounds like Elias maybe talking on his phone, and I wonder for a second if I’m going to, despite my best efforts, spend the night at jail. Then, the door bursts open, and I see Claire standing there.

“Claude?” she asks, sounding surprised. “What’s happened? Come in!”

She’s dressed as casually as I’ve ever seen her (when she’s had clothes on, that is), wearing a faded graphic tee and sweat pants, a bag of chips in her hand. The clothes, though no more than mediums, look oversized on her, the sight is strangely arousing to me. With the residual adrenaline from the fight and the bike ride after still coursing through my brain, it takes me a second to compose a sentence.

“Is Tiffany in there? I’ve got something to tell her. Good news,” I say.

“Yeah, I was grabbing a snack, but heard something going on by the door and came to investigate,” she says, turning back and glaring at Elias.

He gives her a stony-faced look.

“Just following orders, ma’am,” he says.

She scoffs at that, shaking her head. I head into the house and follow Claire through its familiar corridors to Tiffany’s home theatre. It’s no surprise that Roman Holiday is playing on the big screen again.

“Claude!” Tiffany almost shouts, throwing off the heavy blanket she’s snuggled under, surprised at my appearance. She looks a little peeved. “This was supposed to be a girl’s night…”

“You’re free!” I say, a wide smile on my face.

“Free?” she says, confused.

“The deal’s done. Bob Simonds is going to sell his company for a billion. You don’t need to do anything tomorrow.”

“But… how?” she asks, confused, slowly standing up from the couch she’s been lying down on. I see the small pile of candy and chocolates she’s been hoarding under the blankets as she does so.

“Eric Simonds is riding an ambulance to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as we speak. I might have given him a taste of his own medicine, and made him call his daddy,” I say. “Bob Simonds signed the original contract we gave him.”

“Really? Oh my fucking god, it’s really over!” Tiffany screams, running up to me, grabbing me, hugging me tight.

She buries her head in my chest and lets out what must be the biggest sigh of relief that I’ve ever heard.

“I believe that Eric would be a wimp, but Bob? He wouldn’t give up the deal just because his son got a little beat up,” Claire says.

“He’s more than just ‘a little beat up,’” I say. “But yes. The injuries alone wouldn’t have done the trick. Remember Lucia? I figured that Eric would be at the party, doing the same thing to underaged girls this year too. And I asked myself, how could I get Eric Simonds to fight me again? Well, sleeping with his girlfriend and her twin seemed like one sure way to do it. Then, once I beat him up, I clobbered him with the one piece of leverage that we had—the evidence that Lucia gave us.”

“She didn’t tell us anything,” Claire says, confused.

“I made it work,” I smile. “And so Eric, fearing that he would be outed as a pedophile, had to go running to his dad and beg him to sign the contract. And you know what else is good? Eric’s face is real messed up right now. He’s going to need go to a certain plastic surgeon to get it fixed.”

“Oh my god, you saved me, and then you saved yourself,” Tiffany says, hugging me tighter.

“I killed two birds with one stone,” I smile. And then Tiffany tilts her head up and kisses me on the mouth. I kiss her back, lost in her soft lips, holding her tight against me, before Tiffany abruptly pulls away.

“Uh… wait… you saw nothing, Claire,” Tiffany says, blushing furiously, looking at her half-sister.

“What’s so wrong with what I saw?” Claire asks, hiding a smile behind her hand.

“Because… because he’s…” Tiffany starts to say, and then she looks at me. “No, uh, nothing, I just… got self-conscious.”

I hold up a hand, asking for silence, and walk over to the speakers to place my broken phone there—the screen might be shattered, but the point is symbolic; Tiffany follows my lead and Claire quickly catches on too.

“No. She pulled away because you’re not supposed to let other people know when you fall for someone in your own family,” I say, once they’ve done the deed.

“What?” Claire says, furrowing her eyebrows, followed by Tiffany grabbing my hand in shock.

“You’re telling her?” Tiffany gasps.

“She deserves to know the truth,” I say. I pause, knowing that I won’t be able to take these next few words back. “Claire, you know me as Claude Ashworth. That is me—it’s my legal name—but before that, I went by another name. I was born as Markus. Markus Najbreit.”

I see her eyes widening as everything snaps into place for her.

“Oh fuck,” she mutters, “give me a second to process this, oh fuck…”

We give her close to a minute while her eyes dart back and forth between us, before Tiffany finally breaks the silence.

“You’re not… you’re not going to tell Father about this, are you?”

“I wouldn’t dare dream of it,” she says, shaking her head, and then she holds up a hand. “But how did you get past Vidocq? And how does Father not know about you?”

“We might want to have another movie loaded up and ready to play,” I say. “This is going to be a long story…”

At the end of it all, Claire lets out a long sigh, and nods.

“I should have known that Father would write me out of the will,” she says. “Fucking bastard, it makes too much sense in hindsight. But it never feels that way when you’re with him, you know? He always makes you think that he’s right there with you, every step of the way, until he takes it all away…”

“I know you liked your old job,” I say quietly. “Can’t have been easy, being **** to leave it like you were.”

“But you don’t say no to Father,” Tiffany sighs.

“Or do you?” Claire says, thoughtfully. She looks at me. “You did it, Markus. You’re doing it.”

“Sometimes, you’ve got to learn your lessons the hard way,” I chuckle darkly.

“But if there’s anything I can do,” Claire says, putting a hand on my arm. “To help you fight back against Father. And I’m not just saying this because I want my share of the pie back, either…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure everyone gets their just desserts,” I say, meeting her eye. “But it’s going to be a lot of work before we’re in a position where we can get what we want.”

“So you’ve got a plan?” Claire asks.

“You could say so.”