Chapter 16 Chapter 16 – The Spy in Couture

Chapter 16 Chapter 16 – The Spy in Couture
Mya
The bandage on my palm is stark white against the charcoal suit. It’s tailored to perfection, hugging my waist, emphasizing my hips, screaming his wealth in every expensive stitch. The suit manages to look professional and incredibly sexy simultaneously.
The pain from the cut is a dull throb. Nothing compared to the sharp, humiliating ache he left throbbing between my legs last night.
Sober enough to beg. The smug bastard. He thinks if he denies me long enough, I’ll crawl to him, sacrificing my pride for a few minutes of release. He's wrong. The denial isn't breaking me, it's hardening me. If I keep telling myself that often enough, hopefully it will become true.
I lift the phone that I found on my bedside table from my purse. It’s sleek, cold, and utterly useless.
I immediately tried Steph's number this morning when I saw it, hope rising in my chest. The call didn't even connect. Just a dead line, confirming my cage is soundproof. He hasn’t just cut off my communication, he's given me a toy that only calls him. It’s an elegant kind of tyranny.
In retaliation, I didn’t go down to breakfast, missing the eight o’clock deadline he gave me. When he hadn’t come upstairs to demand my presence by quarter past, I stomped downstairs, only to find him gone.
For a moment I worried I’d no longer be allowed to go to the office, but Nico informed me he’s waiting to drive me when I’m ready.
Clearly throwing a tantrum isn’t going to win me this fight. I can’t risk losing access to his operations. I’m going stir crazy locked up in the house and this is my golden opportunity. I’d be stupid to let it go to waste.
Nico stands at the car door when I walk out, massive and silent. He doesn't look like an ordinary man, he resembles a granite statue that happens to move. He opens the back door and I slide in, the movement of the tailored fabric whispering against the leather seats.
The drive takes a while, winding through city traffic before finally arriving at a building that dominates the skyline. It’s not just tall, it’s also aggressively modern, all dark glass and unforgiving angles. The Cardello Tower. A monument to Dante’s cold, calculated authority.
The lobby is polished marble and expensive paintings, staffed by a small army of security personnel and three receptionists in matching white shirts and black pencil skirts. The employees move with an unnerving efficiency that mirrors the mansion staff. This isn't just an office, it's a fortress, and I'm walking right into the heart of it.
I’m escorted to the sixty-fifth floor by Nico. Right into Dante’s private realm. He’s sitting behind a huge oak desk, papers spread in front of him when we enter. His glacial blue eyes roam over my body, lingering on the hand with the bandage for a second, before his gaze meets mine. He seems satisfied.
"Welcome to the engine room, Mya," he says, his voice a low, husky rumble. "I expect great things from you."
He leads me past his office to a slightly smaller one next door. It's minimalist, furnished in dark wood and chrome, but just as luxurious. The only difference is the glass wall facing his office, allowing him a perfect view of my entire workspace. I’m not just next door, I’m an exhibition in a terrarium.
"This is your office," he states the obvious, leaning against the doorframe. "The builders worked overtime to have it done in time. It's soundproof, secure, and monitored. Just like home."
He gestures to a massive desktop computer. "Access is already configured, nothing is off-limits. No external drives, no printing, and no personal accounts though. Everything you touch is logged on my server."
He then places a thick binder on the desk. "This is your first assignment. The shipping and logistics division’s full financial data for the last three quarters. Find the inefficiency. Find the leaks and come up with a way to stop them."
My pulse leaps. This is it. He’s giving me the keys to the vault. Sure, he’s making it challenging to get actual proof out of the building, but I can see every pie his cruel fingers are stuck in. I’ll find a way around the restrictions. Or gather intel that can be verified from the outside.
I look at the binder, then back at him. He’s watching me, waiting for the flicker of something. Probably fear or gratitude. I give him neither.
"You're giving me everything," I observe, allowing a sliver of mocking disbelief into my voice. "A risk, even for the self-proclaimed apex predator."
"Not a risk," he corrects, walking to my desk. He stops right beside me, leaning over the chair until his cologne, sharp and expensive, takes over my personal space.
"A containment strategy. Where better to hide the truth than in plain sight? You have hundreds of thousands of transactions to go through, Mya. If you want to find the five percent of my operation that's criminal, you'll have to read the ninety-five percent that's legitimate. It will take you weeks. Months."
He taps the edge of the screen with a manicured nail. "And all that time, you'll be right here. Unsupervised access, but constant supervision. You won't find a single USB port. The phone you carry is a homing beacon. You can't take a photo without tripping an alarm on my side. You can't copy a single file. You can't even print a page without Nico approving the output. By the time you find a way around my restrictions, you won’t want to escape anymore."
He’s daring me. He’s showing me exactly how impossible it is. And that knowledge, that sheer scale of his control, ignites the furious determination in my gut. He thinks a mountain of data will bore me into submission. He thinks his security will stop me, but I will keep digging until I find the evidence to put him away.
He straightens, placing a hand on my shoulder, his large thumb pressing gently into my collarbone. "You have all the information at your fingertips, have fun finding the five percent.”
I stare at the monitor, a vast, dense ledger of numbers and figures. This isn't the romanticized violence of the dinner table with capos and guns and the Don reigning supreme. This is the calculated, tedious labor of a global criminal empire.
"I will," I say, my voice steady. "And when I find the pattern, Dante, I’ll ensure that consequences aren't just for my father."
He smiles, a slow, predatory curve of his lips. "I expect nothing less, Mrs. Cardello. Now, start working. I'm waiting to be impressed."
He walks into his glass-walled office and sits at his desk, facing, but not watching, me right now.
His presence is a physical weight. A constant reminder of the denial that still aches, hard and unforgiving, like a beating heart between my legs. The game is on, and I’m armed with nothing but determination and mental acuity.
I boot up the system, clicking on file after file, testing his assertion that nothing is off-limits. He wasn't exaggerating. This is less an audit and more an archaeological dig through a mountain of legitimate transactions.
My eyes skip over the lines, trying to absorb the sheer, terrifying scope of the Cardello empire. It's legitimate wealth layered over illegal operations like ice over freezing water. I need to find the cracks and widen them so I can slip under the surface.
My mind is already calculating angles. How do I get evidence out? I can’t rely on technology. I need something analog. I need a way to transcribe, to memorize, to physically hide information once I find it.
I open the digital file and start scrolling through the first quarter's import manifests. My brain clicks into analytical mode, sifting through the noise. It’s hard, tedious work, but the numbers are clean.
Almost too clean. A legitimate business would have minor errors, rounding discrepancies, human mistakes. This ledger is unnervingly perfect, like a photograph that's been doctored to hide a flaw. That perfection, I realize, is the flaw.
I turn back to the screen, determination hardening my focus. He wants to play containment? Fine. I’ll start memorizing the data. Line by line. Digit by digit. I'll become a hard drive he can’t wipe. And then, I'll find a way to transmit the virus.