The next morning, Jason woke up to the feeling of being watched.
He opened his eyes and saw a figure standing in the doorway of his bedroom. It was John D. Rockefeller Jr., dressed in a severe black suit, his face pale and grim in the morning light. He held a small, black Bible in one hand, his thumb marking a page.
He looked like a Puritan inquisitor who had come to pronounce sentence.
"I spoke to one of my father's men," Junior said. His voice was not loud, but it was low and intense, cutting through the quiet room. "He told me you've taken a dangerous financial position. A massive one. Against the Heinze brothers."
So, the old man had spies. Jason wasn't surprised. He sat up in bed, the silk sheets pooling around his waist. He felt no fear, only the cold thrill of the game being joined.
"I made an investment," Jason said, his voice level.
"You are gambling," Junior corrected, his voice tight with suppressed fury. "It is a sin. I will not stand by and watch you use this family's name to engage in reckless speculation. I will not let you drag us further into the mire for your own ambition."
It was a direct threat. He wasn't just disapproving; he was declaring his intent to interfere.
Jason swung his legs out of bed and stood. He faced his brother-in-law, a small, cold smile playing on his lips. This was a different kind of battlefield than Wall Street, but the tactics were the same. Find your opponent's weakness and exploit it.
Junior's weakness was his desperate, suffocating morality.
"A sin, Junior?" Jason asked, his voice soft and mocking. "Isn't it a moral good to see arrogant gamblers punished for their hubris? They're building a house of cards, and when it falls, it won't just crush them. It will crush thousands of innocent people."
He took a step closer, watching the conflict rage in Junior's eyes.
"Think of me not as a speculator," Jason whispered, twisting the knife. "Think of me as an instrument of a much-needed market correction. A force for stability. Wouldn't you agree that's a righteous cause?"
He had weaponized Junior's own language against him. The younger Rockefeller was momentarily stunned, wrong-footed by the sheer audacity of the argument. He opened his mouth, then closed it. His certainty wavered for a split second.
Then, his resolve hardened again, his eyes filled with a cold, righteous conviction. "I am watching you, Ezra," he said. "And God is watching us all."
He turned on his heel and left. The threat hung in the air, heavy and real. The internal family war had officially begun.
Jason knew he couldn't just wait for the market to prove him right. Junior was now an active threat. He could go to his father, sow seeds of doubt. Jason had to accelerate the timeline.
He had to transform his prediction into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That afternoon, he went to Ezra's private gentleman's club. It was a place he'd read about in Ezra's pathetic diary. A wood-paneled sanctuary of old money and new ambition, where rumors were traded with more care than stock certificates.
The air was thick with the blue-gray smoke of expensive cigars. Jason ordered a whiskey he didn't intend to drink and scanned the room. He was hunting.
He spotted his target holding court by the fireplace. A portly, red-faced man named Atherton, a notorious gossip who moved in the same circles as the Heinze brothers. Atherton's currency wasn't money; it was information. He craved being the first to know.
Jason approached, carefully arranging his features into a mask of the old Ezra—nervous, uncertain, seeking approval.
"Atherton, my apologies for bothering you," he began, letting a slight tremor enter his voice. "You know everyone. I was hoping I might ask your opinion on something."
Atherton turned, his eyes dismissive at first, then lighting up with the patronizing pleasure of being sought out for his expertise. "Prentice! Of course, my boy. What's on your mind?"
Jason leaned in conspiratorially. "It's just… I've been hearing a strange whisper. About the Heinzes' financing for their copper play."
He let the bait hang in the air.
"The word is," he continued, his voice barely a murmur, "that their bank, the Knickerbocker Trust, is dangerously over-leveraged on the deal. That they've extended themselves far beyond what is prudent."
He immediately pulled back, shaking his head as if dismissing a foolish thought. "Oh, but it's probably just baseless chatter. Market jitters. I'm sure it's nothing. You haven't heard anything like that, have you?"
He had presented the rumor as something he was trying to disprove. It was an irresistible hook. Atherton's eyes gleamed with a predatory light. He smelled an opportunity to be the source of a major story.
"Leverage, you say?" Atherton murmured, stroking his chin. "At the Knickerbocker?" He lowered his voice. "Tell me more, Prentice. Tell me everything you've heard."
The seed was planted.
Jason fed him a few more carefully constructed details, then excused himself, leaving Atherton to water the seed and spread its poisonous roots throughout Wall Street.
As he walked out of the club and into the crisp autumn air, Jason felt the cold, clean thrill of a puppeteer pulling the first string.
Two days passed. It was agony.
The rumor was spreading—he could feel it in the nervous energy of the market reports. United Copper's stock (UC) wobbled, dipping a point here and there, but the big players, the Heinzes and their allies, were holding the line. They were buying up shares to support the price.
Jason's margined account was bleeding. Every tick the stock held steady, thousands of dollars vanished. He had a ticker tape machine installed in Ezra's study, its relentless, clattering sound a constant reminder of the money he was losing.
The phone rang. It was his broker, Finch. His voice was a high-pitched squeal of panic.
"Prentice, you have to close the position! We just got the morning figures! You're down sixty percent! You're going to get a margin call any minute!"
Jason stared at the ticker tape. UC 58... UC 57 1/2... UC 58... It was holding.
"Hold the line, Finch," Jason said, his voice utterly calm. It was the calm of a man who had already lost everything once. Panic was a luxury he could no longer afford.
"But you don't understand! You'll be wiped out!"
"Hold. The. Line."
He hung up, the broker's frantic protests cut short. He stood before the clattering machine, the ribbon of paper feeding into his hand. It felt like he was holding the thread of his own fate.
Come on. Break.
He watched the numbers. UC 57 3/4… UC 58… It wasn't working.
Then, it happened.
The clattering sound of the machine changed its rhythm. A block of ten thousand shares sold. The tape read: UC 55.
A gasp escaped Jason's lips.
Then another, bigger sale. UC 52.
Someone important had gotten spooked. The rumor had found its mark. The panic was starting. The dam was breaking.
UC 50. UC 47. UC 44.
The numbers were cascading now, a waterfall of fortunes being destroyed. And every number was a fortune being made for him.
The phone on his desk rang, a shrill, demanding sound that cut through the noise of the ticker. He snatched it up, expecting to hear a triumphant Finch.
It wasn't Finch. The voice on the other end was unfamiliar, cold, and precise. It held the chilling authority of absolute power.
"Mr. Prentice. This is Mr. Rockefeller's office."
A pause stretched, thick with unspoken meaning.
"He will see you. Now."
The line went dead before he could respond.
The summons was not a request. It was an order. Jason stood alone in the study, the frantic clatter of the ticker tape filling the silence—a frantic heartbeat spelling out a future he had just violently rewritten. He didn't know if he was being called to be rewarded, or to be executed for his audacity.