"What's so funny?"
Nas questioned me. I covered my mouth with my palm and laughed discreetly, so I did not respond. He looked where I was looking and saw Kay making her way to the bar to get herself a drink. I laughed so hard at the revenge red outfit that she had worn a few nights before to seduce me.
"You better tell the servers not to serve any drinks to her," Nas commented. I sighed.
"Yeah, I already told them that," I assured him. Nas took a deep breath and puffed his vape a bit, an aroma of apple lingering in the air with white smoke.
"Rita is here," he said to me. This announcement made my heart beat like a drum.
"Shit!" I muttered.
"What?" Nas asked me, taking another puff.
"She will drag Kay into a shithole in front of everyone if she sees her here wearing that," I admitted, looking at Kay at a distance
"No, she won't. I don't think she dares to stand in front of Kay after that dinner," Nas commented. I turned to him.
"Who else is coming?" I asked.
"I don't know; I haven't seen the guest list. Aunt Maria invited a few of her pals," Nas replied. I nodded mechanically.
I needed to talk to Kay, so I approached her and found her in a heated discussion with the bartender over serving her alcohol.
"Who did this?" Kay hissed at the bartender. I approached quietly from behind and leaned in closer to her neck.
"I did," I confessed.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kay spun around to face me, her voice seething like a snake's.
In that moment, my heart skipped a beat as I met her gaze. Her eyes were adorned with beautiful makeup; the black irises reflected my own shadow. Her lips, painted a deep maroon, perfectly complemented her olive skin tone. Her hair, curled and swaying in the breeze, cascaded down her back.
Then, my attention fell on her dress; the neckline was daring, accentuating her allure.
It was so hard, so hard for me to raise my eyes from her breasts to her face, but I had to do it. I knew I would do anything to be intimate with her, but that was not the time or place. I could not forgive myself for what I said to her that night. I had zero intention of losing the rest of the respect that Kay had for me.
I only wished this small little lady, who loves hissing at people like a small, cute snake, knew how much I am in love with her. But I knew for a fact that it would take me months, if not years, to gain her trust.
"Why are your tits out like that?" I asked involuntarily.
Shit, Rhys!! Are you fucking crazy? Why the fuck did you ask her that question??
Within a second, Kay's eyes turned like steel, devoid of any emotions. She again hissed at me.
"Why do you care?"
I stumbled a bit, having no clue how to deal with my mistake. My little viper sometimes scares me off.
"You were pretty shy that night. What happened to you today? Why show off your assets?" I tried to act naturally. Kay seemed to be pissed off by my remark.
I wish I could show her how adorable she looks whenever she gets angry. My heart bursts with happiness when she frowns, scrunches her little button nose a bit, and makes her face like a bunny. If our relationship were normal, I would have showered her chubby cheeks with kisses. But I messed up everything. However, she lowered her gaze and tried to avoid me. I had no control over me; I grabbed her and lifted her face closer to me.
I was begging God to stop me from kissing her. Her cute, big eyes were filled with anger for me, and I felt bad.
"Kay, I know you're mad at me, but be aware; Rita is here. She'll make a scene, given the opportunity. You should have worn something a bit more modest. A lot of our employees and business affiliates are here," I whispered to her, and her expression changed from anger to sheer disgust.
"Why does it bother you, Rhys? Everyone's wearing the same thing as me. Why do you care?" Beautiful Kay hissed at me like a rattlesnake.
Whoa, my baby got angry!
I started to laugh in my mind, but I composed myself and tried to explain, "Rita will say something that will..."
Kay didn't let me finish; she hissed at me again.
"I can handle Rita. Besides, I don't think your employees will care about my dress, as I am Rhys Volkner's girlfriend, isn't it? I doubt they would even dare to lay their eyes on me."
This....This made me chuckle so hard that I could not mask my emotions anymore. I started to laugh at her face. I wish I could hug her tight with me to calm her down from being so angry all the time.
I love this little pet viper of mine way too much. So I decided to annoy her a bit more, just for my sheer amusement.
"I fucking love the way you talk to me, little Viper. As if you are spitting your venom in my face, and I fucking love that!!!"
I complimented her as I struggled hard to suppress my laughter, fully aware that it would infuriate Kaya so much that she might try to bite me with her beautiful set of teeth.
As she turned to leave, a pang of regret swept over me, realizing I may have pushed her away with my teasing. But as she walked away, her graceful movements and the way her curls danced with each step made my heart flutter with happiness.
At that moment, I wished I could reach out to her, pull her close, and whisper in her ears that I was sorry and that I loved her. Yet, I could not move a bit, enchanted by the sight of her retreating figure, yearning for the chance to make things right between us.
___________________________________________________________________
John handed me the guest list; a chill sent down my spine after reading all the names.
Eduardo Manuela Contreraswas on the list.
"Who invited him?" I asked John.
"Mrs. Volkner, Sir." John replied like a robot. My voice started to tremble in fear. I could feel my fingertips getting so cold that it felt like frostbite.
Eduardo Manuela Contreras was an affiliate of Carlos Cabral when he started his journey as a drug lord. Carlos created history's most notorious drug cartel in this world. Eduardo started as one of the gang leaders of his cartel. He was the one who used to kill people, chop their bodies into pieces, and put them on trunks filled with acid to dissolve their bodies. He was so notorious that sometimes to teach lessons, he used to put the trunks filled with dead body parts in front of the victim's houses to haunt them. He wanted to take over Carlos's business, so he bribed some high officials and made Carlos get arrested in California. Later on, he managed to kill Carlos in jail before the government could even put him on trial. Carlos had a son, Pedro. He threatened Pedro to work for him; otherwise, he would have killed the rest of the Cabrals. Now that Eduardo controls and manufactures South America's largest opium production and smuggles it all over the world, he makes Pedro do his dirty work. Meanwhile, Eduardo shifted to London a few years ago, pretending as if he had done nothing. Now his eyes fell on the weapon industry, as he was smart enough to expand his shipping business across South America and Central Africa. He wants to work with Volkners as one of our shipping affiliates.
But, in hell, I would never let this man go anywhere near my business.
I shuffled over to Mom like a zombie, her conversation with friends a distant murmur. When she turned to me, her expression was a mix of concern and apprehension. She hurried towards me with a fake smile so that no one could raise any concern about her being irritated.
"I know what you're gonna ask," she said calmly, her eyes betraying the worry within.
"Mom, Kay's here. She's already a target, and now you want Eduardo to know..." My voice wavered with unease.
"As if Eduardo doesn't already know about Kay?" Mom retorted with a hint of frustration. I felt a bead of sweat trickles down my back.
"Why did he have to show up?" I demanded.
"We invited our affiliates here. If we don't cooperate with him, he'll align with the Mittals. And his dealings with Tokushima are hanging by a thread," Mom replied, her tone hushed.
"You could've warned me," I choked out, holding back tears.
"Rhys, everything's out of our hands now. No matter what, we have to play nice with Eduardo," she urged, a shadow of resignation in her voice.
"You shouldn't have let him in. He's connected with the Harakat Rimal Al Tahrir rebels in Anubiah ..." I protested.
"I didn't invite him. He invited himself; I couldn't say no to him," Mom said with her fake smile, walking away from me to raise further attention. A fresh wave of fear washed over me; if Eduardo was here, word had spread from the palace.
John stood behind me as he came silently, a pillar of strength amidst the chaos.
"We need to let go of all the security from Volkner Palace," I declared to John.
"Not possible, sir. We'll have to relocate them and bring in new blood here," John responded, his concern mirroring mine.
"Contreras's security team is equipped with tech that bypasses ours. Our IT team's monitoring their communications here on our premises, though," John added, a glimmer of hope in his words.
I breathed a sigh of relief. John had always been my rock, knowing just what to do in moments of crisis.
"I'll personally escort Ms. Rashidi with Giuseppe; we are watching everyone's every move, Sir," John asserted. I nodded, following his gaze.
Kaya, Marco, Nina, and Emilie made their way to the stage with Leo in a wheelchair, drawing every eye in the room, including Eduardo's.
I hurried to the stage, determined to shield her from Eduardo's gaze.
________________________________________________________________
30 minutes later...
After introducing Kay to Eduardo, I was on the verge of tears. Nas practically dragged me to the back of the palace, into one of Ralf's reading nooks, to console me.
"Why are you crying?" Nas asked, noticing the warm tears of sheer anger streaming down my cheeks.
"I'm not crying," I insisted, taking a seat on a chair. My hands clutched the ornate handles, and I felt my nails digging deep into the polished wood.
"Rhys, calm down, we have to behave," Nas urged, his deep brown face appearing darker in the dimmed light of the library nook. This room was attached behind the palace, offering a secluded space. Yelling at Nas here would still carry beyond the walls.
Dad's voice floated down from a distance as he began to sing for Mom.
My brain exploded in anger. I left the room and headed for my suite. Nas didn't make any effort to stop me from walking away.
After reaching back to my suite, I locked the door of my bedroom and sat down on my bed for a few minutes to calm my nerves. Eduardo had invited himself to our super-private family dinner, indicating that news of our party had leaked to people like Eduardo. Someone, either from the palace or among our invited guests, had betrayed our trust.
I called John, asking him to email me the guest list while I sat down at my desk. Within 5 minutes, the list arrived. I meticulously searched for each and every name on the list. Not a single person had a history of disobedience to Volkner Corp., except for Rita and her husband. However, Rita didn't have the audacity to orchestrate something like this within the family.
Without hesitation, I dialed the Director General of the CIA, Ryan McCrory, paying no mind to the time difference in Washington, DC. I urgently requested a file on Eduardo Contreras, detailing any latest information the CIA had on him.
It took him 10 minutes to send me all the details. Those were the longest 10 minutes of my life as I sat in front of my laptop, anxiously waiting. The confidential CIA file arrived with a passcode to enter. I set up a firewall on my laptop to prevent any malware from penetrating the device. I informed our in-house IT team that I would be accessing a classified CIA file, and they took the necessary steps to prevent any potential trojan attacks.
With all precautions in place, I entered Eduardo Contreras' file. The CIA was well aware that I would be copying their data for our personal intelligence evaluation.
This marked the first step in my latest investigation of Eduardo.
All I knew about Eduardo before was already present in that file. New information peaked in; in the CIA's investigation, Eduardo was already working with the Tokushima group, which Mum might have had no idea about. Eduardo used his fishing freight to supply deep-sea fishing facilities to the Tokashima group. I chuckled a bit, knowing that he supplied drugs in all those freights without a doubt. Eduardo had three girlfriends in three different areas. One of them was Russian. Her name was Annita. Annita was an ex-military member of the Russian Navy.
This piqued my curiosity.
I called my dear friend, Ryan McCrory.
"What's your opinion on this matter?" I asked him about Eduardo's Russian fling. He laughed in reply.
"See in that data that Eduardo sold all of his assets in London last year and laundered all his money to Dubai and Russia."
"So he is using Annita as a proxy?" I asked him.
"Maybe, no intel on her bank account in Russia. We need better friends in the Kremlin, Rhys. Why don't you talk to your dad? Heard he is good friends with the president himself," he told me. I silently giggled at his remarks.
"What about his Dubai transactions?"
"It seems like our pal has an interest in black-market diamonds and gold. Check the files, you'll see the photos of Eduardo taking one of his sugar babies on the gold souks. He seemed to be enjoying the life of a sheikh in Dubai."
This made me laugh silently, ofcourse; I was already chairing the position at the International Gemological Institute (IGI) after Volkner Corp. re-acquisited it last year. So whatever Eduardo was doing in Dubai will be easily traceable.
"Our team will work on Eduardo's intel," I admitted. He didn't ask me further questions as he perfectly guessed that Eduardo tried to penetrate our circle.
"Why crush the dreams of a man? Let him enjoy the lives of the rich and wealthy billionaires," Ryan mocked on the other side.
"Have you heard his British accent? "I asked him
"Oscar-worthy," Ryan replied. But then he added something with a cold tone: "Eduardo has his people working in homeland security."
I felt a grunt in my stomach. Ryan further added, "Eduardo will do anything to get his hands on Anubiah's oil deposit. Also, he has his eyes on the lithium mines. His people in homeland security showed great interest in Volkner Corp.'s business practices in America."
"Let them do anything they want. Many people have their eyes on Anubiah," I admitted. Ryan sighed deeply on the other side.
"You should not have come to the public; half of the world now knows your name," Ryan warned me. The image of Kay's innocent face flashed in front of my eyes.
"I had to. The whole Volkner Corp. is in jeopardy," I mumbled.
"Does Eduardo know about Kay?" He asked me. I felt the tears of agony welling up in my eyes.
"He came to Dad's birthday party today and forced himself in. Mum let him inside, he met Kay here."
"My gosh!" Ryan mumbled. My eyes fell on my security phone; Marco texted.
Nina wanted to take Kay to a bar for drinking, I insisted but, Nina said that she would take care of her. Julia will accompany them as well. Sending them to Coup DE Reve.
I used my other hand to text Marco,
Ok. I am busy talking with McCrory, getting intel on Eduardo, don't tell anyone.
Marco was smart enough to send them to one of our bars, and I decided not to worry about it further.
If Kay gets drunk, I can handle that situation. Her alcohol intolerance was the lesser worry of mine in that situation.
We chitchatted a bit over the phone. Then Ryan disconnected, and I called John to report constant updates with Kay. Meanwhile, I got a call from our Tech department.
"Someone tried to breach the security in our external database," my senior executive Shanon informed me over the phone.
"Did you manage to secure our database?" I asked her. She replied in affirmation.
Then a plan played in my brain.
I told Shanon to make a folder in our database that could be easily breachable by those mid-quality hackers, but it should not be that easy to breach. There, she would put some information on our future business deals. For example, I told her to put details and numbers of rockets that were launched on the Egypt borders, knowing very well that if this information leaked out, our partners might judge our business policy; especially our partners in alternative investment areas. Also, only a few of us are in Volkner corp. knew that those numbers were fake, made by whoever launched these rockets to tarnish our names.
If the breach was done by our rivals, then they would publish this info to the media. CIA could handle that chaos if this breach was done by the CIA. Shanon was smart enough to install Trojans on those files. Whoever downloads them, we would get the IP and MAC address of that device if they can remove their footprints.
I went live with my tech team and saw Shanon working overtime in our Paris HQ. Her hair was all messy, and the ceiling lights illuminated strands of it. Others didn't turn on their cameras as they became agitated to see their bosses on their "work-from-home" workstations at this hour.
Seconds went by, and every minute felt like an hour. Both my team and I were watching every move that the hacker was making on our external database. The moment he downloaded something, we would be able to track him.
But the hacker might have realized that something was fishy; the firewall was not strong enough. A rookie mistake made by Shanon. Whoever they were, it seemed like they logged out of our database.
SHIT. I mumbled, removing my headphones from me.
"We can try to track whoever it is," Shanon said from the screen, the speaker on. Then a thought hit me.
"Shanon, can you give me intel on Paramount shipping? How do they track their freight in the deep sea?"
"Volkner IT in Switzerland HQ is already working on it. Should I connect you with them right now?" Shanon replied.
Oh, mother!
This work was done by my mother, Maria Fucking Volkner herself.
I knew she would not invite Eduardo without any cause. I smiled unintentionally, and Shanon noticed, reciprocating it. Within seconds, I was connected with Volker IT head, Elijah, over a video conference.
He was shocked to see me on screen, working. Shanon told him to give me data about Paramount Shipping.
It was stated in the CIA files that the part of Paramount Shipping working with Tokushima for their fishing freight was not catching many fish. Instead, they were depositing their goods in some ports of Saudi Arabia, especially in Ras al Khaimah ports. Very few freights were moving back toward Japanese ports. The movement of their ships was abnormal for fishing ports. But at the same time, they neither interacted with ships with links to South American goods or companies nor with fishing vessels from South America. Instead, they were also fishing in the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, making occasional stops in exactly these 3 ports- Colombo Ports, Chittagong Port, and Pondicherry Port.
"Do they have business affiliates in these ports? Like, do they buy fish or smuggle something from these ports and resell it in KSA?" I asked Elijah. I could feel his dread through the screen.
"All those fishing trawlers were bigger than average vessels. But we found surveillance footage of one of the ports, from Chittagong port. They were carrying large steel trunks on their deck. The footage was wiped out of the memory database within the next hour, and I only had a few seconds of recordings of that footage. It seems like they only stuffed those goods from these ports and debulked them in Middle Eastern ports."
Elijah showed me the footage, just 15 seconds long.
My brain went thoughtless for a few seconds.
Dad always told me to follow my gut instincts. Now, my instincts were telling me that Eduardo was up to no good. He was involved in very shady business in those areas under the flag of Tokushima's banner. If any of his activities got caught, the Tokushima group would suffer the legal consequences, not Eduardo.
Now, what was Eduardo up to?
Either he was smuggling drugs under everyone's noses—because Chittagong port would be a great choice for dodging international maritime policing and monitoring to smuggle opium from the Golden Triangle. But what the hell he was doing in both Colombo and Pondicherry?
When I sent John and his team to search for Kay's intel from Bangladesh, John mentioned how hard it was to track her background, as Kay was from the northern part of that country and the area was densely populated. Also, her parents had relocated from the north to the capital after Kay left Bangladesh. Bangladesh is so densely populated that if anyone goes missing, nobody will notice a bit. It was impossible for people like John and his team, all once trained in Quantico, to get any single piece of information about Kay's private life other than her school and academic career as long as she was there. Like, nobody knew her, as if she did not matter to anyone; as if she did not have any friends or best friends, romantic flings back in her schools. Though John was able to give me details about Kay's failed romance with a half-Bengali-half-Iranian senior from her med college, that was it. Kay was so isolated from her people that if Kay had gone missing from the face of the earth, nobody would have noticed it a bit.
The same overpopulation issue thing applies to India and Sri Lanka—congested cities, and rampant corruption.
Eduardo might have been involved in human trafficking.
The surveillance video played again, showing that each trunk was perfect for one or two children to hide in perfectly.
At that moment, my blood curdled in fear.
"Sir, are you okay?" Shanon asked me. I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't respond properly.
I need to talk to John right now.
But the moment I ran from my suite and opened the main door, Eres was standing there, one of Mum's security personnel. He was pale and panicked. My heart skipped a beat when I saw his face.
"Sir, John called you but you were unreachable. Ms. Rashidi has become too drunk," he said robotically. I was astonished to hear this.
"Mr. Alvarez is on the phone," he handed me a cell phone, and I took it and replied,
"Hello?"
"Shit!! Rhys! Where the fuck are you??" Marco's frantic voice came floating in.
"What happened?" I asked him.
"Kay's lap-dancing on some French dude, she is drunk as fuck and almost half-naked! We removed a few people from the bar, but shit hit the fan!! You need to come here ASAP!! No one will lay a finger on her without your permission, so come fast!!!!" Marco yelled at me from the other side, so loud that Eres heard them from a distance.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!
How much did Kay drink within these few hours??? Where is Nina?? Where is Julia???