Chapter 16
The amber liquid in the crystal tumbler caught the low light of the office, refracting it into a spectrum of burnt orange and deep gold.
I swirled the glass, a methodical, rhythmic motion of the wrist that required zero conscious thought.
The ice chimed against the expensive crystal—a singular, sharp note that punctuated the oppressive silence of the room.
Thirteen hours.
It had been thirteen hours since the incident at the Celestial Sanctuary.
Thirteen hours since the tectonic plates of my reality had shifted, revealing a chasm of incompetence so profound it threatened to swallow my entire operation.
I sat in the high-backed leather chair, the material groaning softly as I shifted my weight, my eyes fixed on the dossier spread out on the mahogany desk before me.
The dossier labeled ALEIZHA GARCIA.
The face in the photograph stared back at me. Cool. Sophisticated. Tall. A woman of 165 centimeters. A woman of poised elegance.
I looked at the empty space in the room where the other girl usually occupied space—the chaotic, pink-clad anomaly who was currently detained in the penthouse.
The one who was 152 centimeters of pure, unadulterated nonsense.
The one who had poked my palm and talked about the botanical classification of bananas while sitting in volcanic mud.
I took a slow sip of the whiskey. It burned on the way down, a welcome sensation that grounded me. The flavor was peat and smoke, aged for thirty years, yet it did nothing to wash away the bitter taste of error.
My eyes lifted to the heavy oak doors at the far end of the room. I didn't need to check my watch to know they were there. I could hear their breathing. I could sense their hesitation.
The door creaked open.
They entered in a single file, a procession of failures. Sean. Marcus. Ronan. Luca.
These were men I had handpicked. Men I had pulled from the gutters of foreign legions, from the back alleys of covert ops, from the rosters of the dishonorably discharged but highly skilled.
For six, perhaps seven years, they had been extensions of my will.
They were precision instruments. They were the fingers on my hand, the bullets in my chamber.
Tonight, they looked like children called into the principal's office to explain a broken window.
Sean entered first. Usually, he walked with a swagger that bordered on insolence, a cocky grin plastered on his face that suggested he knew the punchline to a joke everyone else missed.
Tonight, his shoulders were hunched. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, the sound audible across the expanse of the room.
Marcus followed, his stoic mask cracking around the edges. Ronan and Luca trailed behind, their eyes fixed firmly on the Persian rug, studying the intricate patterns as if the secrets of the universe were woven into the silk.
They stopped five paces from my desk. The standard distance for reporting.
I didn't speak.
Silence is a tool. In interrogation, it creates a vacuum that the subject feels compelled to fill with truth. In leadership, it creates a weight that crushes the spirit of the subordinate. I let the silence stretch, pulling it taut like a garrote wire. I watched them. I dissected them.
Sean shifted his weight from his left foot to his right. Marcus nudged him with an elbow, a subtle, desperate motion urging him to break the standoff.
Sean cleared his throat. It sounded like tearing sandpaper.
"Boss," Sean started, his voice cracking. He winced, cleared his throat again, and tried for a lower register. "Sir. About the... about the acquisition."
I raised a single eyebrow. Just one. It was a minimal expenditure of energy, yet it caused Sean to flinch.
"We..." Sean ran a hand through his hair, his eyes darting to the whiskey in my hand, then to the gun resting on the leather blotter, then back to my face. "We know who the target was. We had the file. Aleizha Garcia. We went to the location you specified. The university."
He paused, licking his dry lips.
"She wasn't there," Sean continued, the words tumbling out faster now. "There was... there were school activities. A seminar or something. We waited. We had eyes on the exits. But the timeline... you were clear about the deadline, sir. You despise lateness. You said—"
"I recall what I said," I interrupted. My voice was low, devoid of inflection. A flatline.
Sean flinched again. "Right. Yes. So, we were running out of time. If we waited for the seminar to end, we would have been forty minutes late delivering the asset to the safe house. We couldn't... we didn't want to fail the schedule."
"So," Marcus interjected, stepping in to salvage the sinking ship of their explanation. "We drove off. We initiated a perimeter search. We were looking for a visual match. Someone who fit the description. Black hair. Roughly the same age. The name."
"And then we saw her," Sean said, gesturing vaguely toward the ceiling, indicating the penthouse above us. "The... the girl. She was walking near the perimeter. She looked like the picture, sir. From a distance. She has the eyes. The hair. And she was wearing pink, so she stood out."
"We approached her," Luca added, his voice barely a whisper. "checked her ID. Her surname is Garcia. Aleesha Garcia. It sounded... it sounded close enough. And she was..."
"She was compliant," Sean finished, desperation creeping into his tone. "Unbelievably compliant. Most assets scream. They run. They fight. She just... got in the car. We thought we got lucky. We thought she was just... easier than expected."
"We just didn't want you to be upset," Marcus said, his voice heavy with a plea for understanding. "We prioritized punctuality over... specific verification. We thought it was a variant in the intel. We didn't want to be late."
I set the glass down on the table.
Clink.
The sound was soft, but in the electrified tension of the room, it hit with the force of a gavel.
I exhaled, a long, controlled stream of air through my nose. I lowered my gaze from their terrified faces to the sleek, matte-black Glock 19 resting on the desk. It was fully loaded. One in the chamber. Seventeen in the magazine.
Four men. Eighteen rounds. The mathematics were simple.
I looked back up at them. Four incompetent idiots.
For seven years, they had extracted high-value targets from war zones.
They had smuggled diamonds across borders.
They had silenced witnesses and secured leverage.
They had been perfect. And now? Now, the entire trajectory of my legacy—the calculated selection of a genetically superior mate, the carefully vetted candidate chosen solely to bear my heir—was hanging by a thread because they couldn't tell the difference between a high-value asset and a random civilian in a pink cardigan.
Chaos.
That was what they had brought me. Disorder. The one thing I abhorred above all else.
My mind drifted back to the girl in the penthouse. The "Pink Idiot." She was a biological error. She was supposed to be the optimal vessel I had selected after months of scrutiny—someone fit to carry my bloodline. Instead, I was left with... her.
I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking again. I interlaced my fingers over my stomach, adopting a posture of relaxed menace.
"You prioritized punctuality," I repeated, my voice silky and cold. "Over identity."
"Sir, we—" Sean started.
"Silence."
The word was a blade. Sean's mouth snapped shut.
"I do not pay you for punctuality," I said, articulating every syllable. "I pay you for precision. A clock is punctual. A courier is punctual. You are supposed to be elite. And yet, you picked up a stray animal off the street because you were afraid of a deadline."
I stood up. They all took a collective half-step back.
I walked to the window, looking out at the city skyline. It was a grid of lights, a testament to order and structure. Somewhere out there was the real Aleizha Garcia, living her life, completely unaware that she was supposed to be my wife.
"I want details," I said, addressing the reflection of the men in the glass.
"Details, sir?" Marcus asked.
"The girl upstairs," I said, turning to face them. My eyes were cold, dead things. "The one I married. The one currently sleeping in my bed. I want to know everything. I want to know what she eats, what she breathes, what she fears. I want to know why she exists."
I looked at Sean. "You have sixty minutes. If you are a minute late, you can explain your punctuality to the barrel of my gun. Go."
They didn't scramble—that would be undignified—but they moved with a speed that bordered on panic. The door clicked shut, leaving me alone with the silence and the whiskey.
?
Fifty-eight minutes later, the door opened.
Sean walked in. He was sweating. A sheen of perspiration coated his upper lip, and his shirt was sticking to his back. He carried a folder, slightly thinner than the original dossier, but thick enough to contain a life.
He placed it on the desk with trembling hands.
"Sir," he breathed. "Everything. We scrubbed the digital footprint. We accessed the government databases, the university servers, banking records, everything."
I waved a hand, dismissing him. "Leave."
He didn't need to be told twice. He exited, closing the door softly.
I sat down and opened the folder.
The first page was a summary. I scanned it, my eyes devouring the data, converting a human being into a series of metrics and statistics.
I paused at the height. 152 cm.
My estimation had been correct. She was small. Significantly smaller than the target. How my men had mistaken this creature for the statuesque woman in the original file was a testament to human stupidity that I would never fully comprehend.
I turned the page.
I tapped my finger on the paper. A 4.0 GPA in Information Technology. She wasn't unintelligent. In fact, academically, she was performing at the peak of her cohort. Unknown IQ, the file noted. Subject has never taken a standardized intelligence test.
She was smart on paper. Yet, in person, she acted like a lobotomized golden retriever. It was a contradiction. Was the behavior a defense mechanism? A ploy? Or was she simply book-smart and life-stupid?
Weakness, I noted. Respiratory vulnerability.
I flipped to the financial section. This was where the reality of her existence became pathetic.
One thousand, two hundred dollars. That was the sum total of her liquid worth. That was less than the cost of the suit I was currently wearing. That was less than the bottle of whiskey on my desk.
I stared at the words Freelance Culinary Sales (Onigiri).
She sold rice balls.
I closed my eyes for a moment, pinching the bridge of my nose. I had married a girl who sold rice balls for pocket change.
I continued reading.
The data was comprehensive. My men had stripped her bare. I had her parents' names, her cousins' names, her elementary school grades. I knew she was allergic to dust mites. I knew she preferred sweetened coffee.
I looked at the stack of papers.
This was Aleesha Serena Garcia.
She was a student. She was poor. She was small. She was asthmatic. She was academically gifted but socially bizarre. She had zero connections to the criminal underworld, zero political leverage, and zero value to my objectives.
She was the wrong girl.
The realization settled over me, cold and absolute. The marriage contract was signed. The certificate was filed. Legally, she was my wife. But strategically? Strategically, she was a dead weight. A liability
I looked at the whiskey again.
What does one do with useless data?
In my world, data that does not serve a purpose is noise. It clutters the server. It slows down the processor.
You delete it.
But this data breathed. This data had a heartbeat and a 4.0 GPA and a scent that was irritatingly addictive.
I picked up the papers, aligning the edges perfectly.
"Useless," I muttered to the empty room.
The word hung there.
I had to fix this. And fixing it required surgical precision. The girl... this Aleesha... she was a variable I hadn't accounted for. And variables that couldn't be controlled had to be eliminated. Or, at the very least, neutralized.
I opened the drawer of my desk. I dropped the file inside. It landed on top of a stack of liquidation orders.
I stared at the drawer for a long moment.
She was compliant. She was harmless. She was currently upstairs, probably sleeping in my sheets, dreaming of rice balls or whatever it is that civilians dream of.
I slammed the drawer shut.
The sound echoed like a gunshot.
"Disposal," I whispered, testing the word on my tongue.
It was the logical choice. It was the professional choice.
I poured another drink. The night was young, and I had a mess to clean up. A 152-centimeter, pink-wearing, onigiri-selling mess.