Chapter 3
After that announcement, there was a long, tense silence.
Too long.
Giselle could feel her pulse in her throat, hear the faint hum of the city beyond the massive windows, but him—Dimitri De Luca—remained utterly still.
He just watched her.
The weight of his gaze was like a physical force, pressing against her skin, making the air in the room feel heavier.
Had she just made a horrible mistake?
If she had seen him on the street, she would have guessed he was either Italian or Greek.
The name suggested both. That impossibly hard jawline covered in a thick beard, those dark, piercing eyes, and that Roman nose—they all hinted at his Italian ancestry.
But weren’t those attributes common among the Greeks as well?
And his name… Dimitri was distinctly Greek, yet De Luca was undeniably Italian.
But his heritage wasn’t what made her palms grow damp.
Giselle knew that Dimitri De Luca wasn’t just the owner of the company where she worked, he was also head of the entire Northeastern Mafia.
That fact wasn’t widely known. Her co-workers had no idea that they worked for a man with absolute power over Boston and New York’s underground world.
And to be fair, Sindate Corp was a legitimate operation.
As far as she could tell, there were no outward signs of money laundering—at least, not in the accounts she had access to.
Dimitri ran a very profitable import-export empire, stocking everything from high-end luxury goods to everyday retail products across the Northeast. He was meticulous, efficient, and, from all reports, ruthless.
If drugs or people were being smuggled along with those shipments, she had never seen proof of it.
But she had seen something.
Someone—she wasn’t sure who—was stealing.
Money. Inventory. Supplies.
And she had just thrown that revelation at one of the most dangerous men in the country like a grenade, and she was now waiting to see how he would react.
Her free hand clenched into a fist by her side, her nails digging into her palm.
How long is he going to stare at me like that?
The silence stretched between them, growing more oppressive by the moment. His face was unreadable, no flicker of emotion offered a clue as to what he was thinking.
His stillness made him all the more intimidating.
Men like Dimitri De Luca didn’t fidget. They didn’t look away when things got uncomfortable. They absorbed information. Calculated. Decided whether someone was useful or a problem.
Good grief, am I a problem?
Biting her lip, she debated whether to continue, to try and fill the silence with more details, or just… wait while he absorbed what she’d told him.
The latter was more difficult than it should have been.
Her body wanted to fidget, to shift her weight, to look anywhere but at him. But she forced herself to stay still. To meet his stare head-on, even as a prickle of nervous heat crawled up her spine.
Because despite the fact that her heart was pounding against her ribs, despite the fact that this was the most terrifying silence she had ever experienced—
She still couldn’t stop noticing him.
The sheer size of him.
How the fabric of his clothes stretched over those shoulders – from the front this time. How even standing still, he radiated a controlled power that made her stomach twist in a way she didn’t want to name.
How much easier it would be if he were a typical, arrogant executive—the kind she could ignore. But no, of course not. He had to be built like a boxer with a face carved from stone. And his beard somehow made the man so much more…feral!
The tension in the room coiled tighter.
Then, finally, finally, his lips parted.
“Repeat that,” he said calmly.
Giselle swallowed hard.
Oh, darn.
She might be in trouble.
Nervous now, Giselle stepped forward, heading toward his desk with measured determination as she opened a file folder. She forced herself to focus—on the numbers, on the facts. Not on the way his sharp, assessing gaze tracked her every movement.
She laid out the reports, smoothing the top sheet with steady fingers. "I've been assigned to track the shipments coming in and reconcile the costs, ensuring the receipts match up with the product loads," she explained, opening the first file.
She pointed to a structured column of numbers. "This is the list of products allocated for the luxury merchandise markets." Then, she gestured to a second column. "These are the retail locations that were supposed to receive those products."
Feeling his attention still on her, she glanced up briefly to ensure he was following along.
Only to notice, he wasn’t looking at the numbers.
He was looking at her.
Her stomach dipped, heat crawling up her neck as she quickly dropped her gaze back to the files.
Awkwardly, she cleared her throat and pressed on. "This column shows the number of products that actually arrived at each location. There are only two or three items missing per container, so it might not seem like a big deal, right?"
She risked another glance at him—and blinked.
He’d moved closer.
Close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from his body, close enough that the scent of clean cedar and something darker, muskier—something undeniably masculine—curled around her, making concentration very difficult.
Giselle took a discreet step back, carefully keeping a respectable distance. Do not touch him. Do not touch him. She had no idea where the thought came from, but she wasn’t about to test what would happen if she did.
Focus.
“So yeah," she continued, voice a little tighter, "it’s just one or two items at a time, but over the past few months, it’s added up.”
His expression darkened. "How much?"
“I don’t know the total yet.” She flipped to another page, organizing her thoughts. “I went back through the accounts for the past year. It looks like the thefts started approximately five months ago.”
"How did you discover this?" His voice was low. Rough.
She tensed at the touch of anger she heard there, but something in his tone—some controlled restraint—told her it wasn’t directed at her.
"My boss asked me to brief you on the quarterly variances today because he had to be out of the office," she explained.
"I started working here about ten months ago, and my main role is to review invoices for incoming shipments. So although I report to my boss on variance analysis, reporting to the chief…uh…you,” she stumbled, looking up at him, then back down at the report, “was a step beyond my usual analysis.” She hesitated again, then forced herself to continue.
“Anyway, I looked into the details, knowing that I needed to understand what was happening before presenting any numbers.”
She took a deep breath before continuing.
"I noticed the totals coming off the ships didn’t match the expected amounts more than once, so I started digging deeper into the loss reports.
Every store tracks damaged or missing merchandise in separate accounts, which is standard—there’s always some loss during transit. ”
He continued to watch her, but his eyes were sharp, moving over the numbers, then back to her.
"But these numbers—" she tapped the page, her voice becoming more confident, "—they don’t match up. At first, the shortages were sporadic. But over the past three months, the losses have become consistent."
Dimitri’s jaw ticked as his eyes flicked over the numbers. “Someone has grown brazen,” he muttered.
She nodded, closing the top file and tapping it against the table to neaten the pages. "I’ve only had time to look into the luxury stores," she admitted. "You own a huge number of locations all over the world and at varying price levels, so I haven't had a chance to audit everything yet."
His gaze snapped back to her his eyes hard and angry. “Estimate the total loss for me, based on what you know right now.”
Giselle inhaled, calculating quickly.
She exhaled sharply and straightened her shoulders. “Just from the luxury stores, about five hundred thousand dollars in losses.”
Dimitri’s expression didn’t change at first. But something flickered in his sharp eyes, something calculating and cold. The kind of reaction that made her wary, her muscles tensing as if she’d just stepped into dangerous territory.
His fingers, which had been resting loosely on the desk’s polished surface, curled slightly. A small movement. Controlled. But his presence changed—his stillness became something harder.
“Who have you told?” His voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking the steel beneath it.
Giselle instinctively laced her fingers together in front of her, pressing them tightly to her stomach. She wasn’t even aware of the tension in her grip until she felt the bite of her own nails against her skin.
“I thought you’d pulled me in here to ask me about the losses,” she explained, then shook her head.
“But I just discovered this issue earlier today. So I haven’t told anyone but you, sir,” she replied, her head dipping slightly in deference.
The weight of his stare made her want to squirm, but she held her ground.
“If I have a bit more time, I’ll get more details. ”
Dimitri’s gaze sharpened.
His eyes—dark, intense, assessing—scanned her face like he was dissecting her every word, peeling back her intentions layer by layer.
Then he spoke, a quiet truth she hadn’t wanted to voice out loud.
“You haven’t mentioned it to your boss because you weren’t sure you could trust him.”
Giselle’s breath caught.
It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A fact.
Dimitri De Luca was a man who dealt in facts.
Her fingers twisted together, knuckles whitening before she caught herself. Slowly, she lifted her chin, meeting his gaze head-on.
“It’s wrong to assume every supervisor is male. My boss might be a female”
His brows lifted ever so slightly.
She bit her lip, realizing too late that now was not the time for humor. “Sorry,” she muttered, exhaling hard. “Feminist points aside, you’re correct. I don’t know who is doing this, or who might be involved.”
His expression remained unreadable, but something in the atmosphere shifted—like a blade being drawn just beneath the surface of the conversation.
Giselle swallowed hard and pressed on. “I thought to bring it to you first. Then you could direct the people you trust to find the bigger issue. Law enforcement will need to be called in to investigate.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
The air between them stretched, humming with unspoken tension.
Dimitri’s fingers flexed against the desk, then stilled. His broad chest expanded with a slow inhale, then he exhaled just as slowly, like a man deciding how much of his temper to unleash.
Then, finally, he nodded.
Not a big nod. Just a barely perceptible dip of his chin.
Approval? Agreement?
She wasn’t sure.
But she did know one thing.
He was going to handle this.
And whoever was stealing from him?
They were in a lot of trouble.