Her Corporate Takedown: Entangled with a Billionaire

*CHAPTER 91: SPY ON A SPY*

What did he mean by that?

As far as I knew, no matter how possessive I wanted to be about this man, there was no hope of kicking that woman out of his life. However, even if we had to live with his ex-fiancée for the rest of our lives, he had pretty much reassured me that things were eternally over between them. Now, after all of Ari's failed attempts to get him back, is he saying that she has a chance this time?

Is he saying that this mission is so dangerous that he's forcing me to go with him? Is he that worried that his own self-restraint won't hold against Ari's seductive schemes?

Honestly, that would be interesting to see. It might be wrong of me to think this, but, perhaps I could erase a good chunk of that so-called debt if I caught him cheating. In that case, I'd decline to go with him and ask Kiran to carry me there so I could spy on him from a distance.

"Regardless of how you plan to get there, as long I know you're nearby, I'll be fine." I can never figure out how this mind-reading ability works. Even while I'm looking away from him and he's watching the road while driving, he's still reading my mind.

"Is that how it is?"

"Just so you know, if you want to spy on me, you'd be better off staying here and watching a satellite feed."

Why is he providing alternative methods?

"And just so you also know, the reason I need you to come isn't simply because Ari is planning seductive schemes. It's because she's planning to use her seductive schemes with the excuse that it's all for the sake of the mission."

Not that mantra again. Anything for the sake of the mission. He should have said that first. I didn't need to hear anything else to know that she wasn't planning to hold back in this setting, and he knew that as well.

"Fine. I'll come." Well, there goes my plans to erase the debt I still refused to believe was real.

"I knew you would," he replied with a smirk.

On the way to the safehouse, I remembered a puzzling thought I had during the grand meeting earlier today.

"How did you figure out which top executive was the traitor when Gillian never revealed his identity?"

"No matter what grand plans Gillian had to bring down the company, she couldn't execute any of them without a code from a top executive since that is the only way to gain access to some of the high-level systems that she used in her corporate siege attempt."

"Couldn't she have stolen the access code?"

"Even if she stole it, the code wouldn't work when she used it. The code has to be manually entered by the person authorized to use it because all of my devices have fingerprint sensors associated with them. If the system recognizes different fingerprints entering the code in real-time, it won't grant access."

"But, what if-"

"In addition, there is a thermal recognition system coupled to it that matches the vein anatomy of the pulps of the fingers to that of the person authorized to enter the code. Our thermal recognition system is good at detecting the authorized user even if there are real-time variations in their temperature. With this three-layer system, it was impossible for Gillian to successfully enter the code herself. Plus, whoever entered the code was repeatedly blasted with several warning messages, so they had to be highly motivated to ignore all of them and follow through with the destruction of Bolster."

He shut down the loopholes I thought I had conjured up.

"Well, it's great that you figured out all the spies in the end, but I didn't expect Krystin to publicly announce the fiasco at the meeting today."

"When things like that happen, it's better to announce it to everyone so that they know what we are capable of. That way no one else gets tempted in the future."

"You sound tyrannical when you say that. More importantly, why did you talk about my involvement in the whole thing? I thought that was supposed to be a secret."

"It was a secret during the mission. Once the case was closed, it didn't have to be a secret anymore, since there was more merit in revealing that you helped. Aren't you happy that you were promoted again so quickly?"

"But now it's like I am getting special treatment because of you."

"What's wrong with that? At this point, you've already demonstrated that you're diligent with your work and I'm sure everyone is grateful that you saved their jobs."

"Even still-"

"Besides," he cut me off again, "I made you get the promotion before any rumors about us leaked."

"So, you were the one who spread those rumors?"

"I never said that."

"You essentially admitted it."

He took another bite of pizza while he laughed and brushed my accusations aside. On the way to the safehouse, we stopped for pizza. I chose a normal jerked chicken and pepperoni stuffed crust pizza with extra cheese while Andrei decided to be a troll and order a meat lovers' with pineapple stuffed crust pizza with extra cheese and added deluxe gold shaving and truffles as extra toppings.

It was hard to ignore the fancy pizza he was trying to tease me with. I ended up taking one from his box and it tasted as good as it looked. We finished the pizza while we talked and waited for Ari and Kiran to arrive.

I was happy Kiran did not have a public name different than his real name. It was getting difficult to keep up with everyone's fake and real names and I had barely met a handful of people. I couldn't imagine having to remember two sets of names for everyone at the Klehr family estate. I quickly banished the thought before I gave myself more excuses against being with Andrei. Thankfully, the others arrived and our meeting served as a nice distraction from my negative thoughts.

"There are different kinds of missions that we do as spies. One is called profiling. It is a more passive mission, where we simply observe a target and make note of their behaviour, tendencies and patterns."

I was surprised that he waited until Ari and Kiran got here to talk about this. Even though they already knew this, they sat at the table quietly and listened attentively to Andrei.

"The next kind is a provocative mission. It's a more active mission, but it is still one-sided, where you are not only observing a target but influencing their actions to generate a favourable outcome. This is the kind of mission you are doing at Merz."

"How's that going so far?" Kiran asked.

"So far, so good," I replied confidently.

"For now," Ari tacked on with a giggle.

What does she mean? Even if she doesn't like me and wants to see me fail, that would ruin Andrei's plans. She should at least be concerned about that.

"And the last kind of mission," Andrei said loudly to refocus everyone's attention, "is a mission of reprisal. This most commonly occurs when you have to face enemy spies who are also manipulating the pieces on the board to fulfil their objectives. Most often their objectives clash with your own."

If all reprisal missions were as traumatic as our encounter with Gillian, I would like to opt out of those.

"Most times, when dealing with enemy spies, those missions usually start with profiling and progress to provocative, then to reprisal missions in phases, such as when we dealt with Gillian. A long mission can progress through all the phases, but you don't have to be involved in all of them. For example, in the mission with Gillian, you became more actively involved in the reprisal phase."

Now that he mentioned it, both Andrei and Gillian executed all three phases on their own agenda while trying to hide it from each other. I'm not sure I'm suited for these kinds of intricate missions.

"And as you'll notice, your mission at Merz will also progress through these phases. So, that's an overview of the different missions. Let's now talk about our next job."

Wait just a minute. Did he just incinerate my ears with a casual announcement that we would eventually be going to war with Michelle and then try to blow right past it by changing topics? Did he forget who was the only person on the frontline of that mission?

Ari and Kiran couldn’t control the occasional spit noises as they tried to laugh silently as my face that looked up at Andrei contorted in ugly proportions with a look of aversion to his last statement.

Andrei's blinding smile hid his inner face that was most likely laughing at me. His smile instantly dispelled my thoughts of rebuttal and quietened the laughing duo that sat across from each other. After a few minutes, silence returned to the room and we got into the meat of the matter.

"Our client this time is Melberlin Corporation. They are concerned that a new start-up company called Imprezio is stealing their products and marketing them as their own. They want us to investigate and, if possible, help them shut down the operation."

"Any sign that we might face retaliation?"

"Not from what I found."

"So, it's really a boring mission then."

I am perfectly fine with that.

"And, our assignments are?" asked Ari.

"Since Leiya was eager to participate…"

Said who?

"Let's assign her to the field, and Kiran will be her back up."

"Are you both fine with that?" Andrei asked politely, but wasn't actually giving me a choice.

"Sounds good," Kiran replied.

"That's fine, but what exactly do you need me to do?"

"It's simple. Investigate the products they're selling and determine whether they're original or a knock-off? Ari and I will work on the backend to correlate the evidence and find more information. We usually play it by ear until we find a direction we should take and then plan the end-phase of the mission. So, don't worry too much about it. Kiran will also guide you."

Tuesday evening came and I met Kiran outside Imprezio's main office to begin the mission. He was in a different disguise than the other two times I had seen him.

"So, we are supposed to be investigating these products the company, Imprezio, is selling, correct?"

"That’s right," Kiran replied.

"Then, how the heck did we end up at an underground boxing arena in the middle of the night?"