[Leo]

"No, no, no! Mingau, let go of my shoe! I'm so late!"

I practically threw the food into my cat's bowl and bolted down the apartment hallway. Today was my first day as a junior analyst at Marchetti Enterprises. If I showed up late, HR would have my head before I even signed the probationary contract.

I sprinted through the streets, stumbled down the subway stairs on legs that seemed to have forgotten how knees worked, and by the time I finally reached the company's towering lobby, my heart was hammering like a samba drum line.

The building looked like a palace of glass and steel. People in obscenely expensive suits strode back and forth with serious expressions. Me, in my suit bought off the clearance rack at a shopping mall, I was a fish out of water.

I picked up the pace toward the elevators, gripping a cup of scalding coffee I'd grabbed on the corner.

"Wait! Hold the elevator, please!" I shouted, watching the brushed-metal doors begin to close.

By some miracle, I managed to shove my hand between them, triggering the sensors. I stepped inside with a sigh of relief, but the relief lasted exactly half a second.

The jolt of my clumsy entrance caught my left foot on the carpet. The world seemed to spin in slow motion. The plastic cup flew from my hand.

Splash.

The steaming brown liquid landed in a perfect arc across the chest of an immaculate white shirt.

I looked up. The blood froze in my veins.

The man in front of me could have been carved from marble. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair perfectly in place, gray eyes that radiated a terrifying coldness. His suit practically emanated power — along with an expensive cologne that was now mingling with the smell of two-dollar coffee.

"Oh my God! I'm so sorry, I'm really sorry!" I stammered, frantically yanking a crumpled tissue from my pocket and lurching forward to wipe his chest. "I'm such a klutz, I can pay for the dry cleaning, I—"

Before my tissue could touch the fabric, a large, firm hand closed around my wrist. The grip didn't hurt, but it was so unyielding that it paralyzed me instantly. An electric current shot up my arm.

"Don't touch me." His voice was a low whisper, sharp as a blade.

Behind him, two burly men wearing earpieces stepped forward, hands reaching inside their blazers as if they were about to draw weapons. Who walks around with armed bodyguards in an office building?

The gray-eyed man looked down at his ruined chest, then fixed his gaze back on me. I was a dead man.

"What's your name?" he asked, his voice terrifyingly calm.

"L-Leo. Leo Albuquerque... from the finance department."

He didn't respond. The elevator chimed, reaching the twentieth floor. The doors opened.

"Get out," he ordered, his eyes never leaving my face.

I didn't need to be told twice. I bolted out of there like my life depended on it. And honestly? I was pretty sure it did.

"Vittorio"

I watched the elevator doors close after the kid with the messy hair disappeared down the corridor.

"Don Vittorio... want us to take care of it?" Enzo, my right-hand man, asked with his hand still inside his blazer, waiting for my order to track the kid down.

In our world, any unexpected approach could be an assassination attempt. A cup of coffee could just as easily be acid or a distraction for a knife. But that kid — his eyes had been wide with pure, genuine terror. He was too transparent to be a killer.

"No," I replied, letting out an irritated sigh as I looked at the dark stain spreading across my Italian silk shirt. "Just an incompetent idiot. Let's head to the penthouse. I have a meeting with the accountants in ten minutes."

We rode up to the fortieth floor — my territory. No one entered without express authorization. On the surface, I was Vittorio Marchetti, the billionaire behind a logistics and export empire. In the underworld, I was the Don of the Marchetti family, the man who controlled the ports, the routes, and the money that fed half the country.

I walked into my conference room. Five senior accountants were waiting for me, all sweating through their collars.

"Where are the laundering reports for the last container shipment?" I asked, taking my seat at the head of the table after changing my shirt.

The chief accountant, an older man who'd worked for my father, dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Don Vittorio, we had a small... setback. The automated diversion script had a glitch. Five million dollars were temporarily listed in the general ledger of the legitimate company."

I slammed my hand on the glass table, making every man in the room jump in his chair.

"You're telling me the money from our arms shipment is visible to any regular employee in this company?!"

"We're already erasing the trail, sir! But... since the report was auto-generated at six this morning, it was pushed to the internal network accessible to junior analysts. If anyone opens the spreadsheet before we delete it—"

My eyes narrowed. Fury churned in my chest. If some ordinary employee saw those numbers and started asking questions, the Marchetti empire would be at risk.

"Find out who accessed that network in the last two hours. Now," I ordered Enzo.

Less than three minutes later, Enzo returned with a tablet in his hands. His expression was a mix of tension and surprise.

"Don Vittorio... the system shows that only one junior analyst downloaded the export spreadsheet thirty minutes ago."

"Who?" I asked, my voice cold as ice.

Enzo turned the tablet screen toward me. In the corporate profile photo, the same kid from the elevator — with his unruly hair and a shy smile — stared back at the camera. Beneath the photo, the name: Leo Albuquerque.

A dark smile formed on my lips.

First he spills coffee on me. Then he stumbles onto the biggest secret in my organization.

"Enzo," I called, rising from my chair. "Bring Mr. Albuquerque to my office. And close the curtains."

"Leo"

If I'd thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest before, now I was certain it had already died and just forgotten to stop beating.

The office on the fortieth floor was enormous, furnished with dark wood and a wall of floor-to-ceiling glass overlooking the entire city. But the atmosphere inside felt like an execution chamber. The man I'd just learned was Vittorio Marchetti sat behind a massive desk. His suit jacket hung over the back of the chair, and he held a cigar, letting the smoke cut through the room in an intimidating haze.

The two armed guards closed the heavy door behind me. The click of the lock sounded like a gunshot echoing in my ears.

"M-Mr. Marchetti..." I began, my voice coming out higher than I'd intended. I pressed my Marchetti Enterprises badge against my chest, as if that little piece of blue plastic could protect me from a crime lord. "I swear I didn't see anything unusual in that spreadsheet! I just... I thought it was a typo. Five million is a lot of zeros, right? Who hasn't made a decimal error in Excel?"

Vittorio took a slow drag of his cigar, studying me through the smoke in silence. Those gray eyes seemed to read even my deepest thoughts. He exhaled slowly and propped his elbows on the desk.

"You're a terrible liar, Leo Albuquerque." His voice filled the room, cold and measured. "You know exactly what you saw. And you know that what's in that spreadsheet shouldn't be accessible to a junior analyst who spills coffee on people."

I swallowed hard. My legs trembled so badly I thought I'd collapse onto the expensive carpet.

"Look, I'm not going to tell anyone! I've got a cat to feed, I'm behind on rent... I just want to leave, forget this floor exists, and keep doing my reports in peace at my rickety desk downstairs. Please don't kill me!"

To my utter shock, the corner of Vittorio's lips twitched upward. It wasn't a friendly smile — it was the smile of a predator who'd just cornered the perfect prey.

"Who said I'm going to kill you?" He stood, walking slowly until he was inches from me. His cologne, mixed with the cigar smoke, made me slightly dizzy. He was too tall, too imposing. "In my world, Leo, people who know too much tend to... disappear. But you've got a sharp mind for numbers. I reviewed your file. You spotted the system flaw in under ten minutes — something my senior accountants took hours to notice."

He reached out and, with his fingertips, lifted my blue badge, reading my name directly off the plastic before meeting my eyes again.

"I have a proposal for you. Starting today, you no longer work in the general department. You're my personal financial assistant. You'll handle my private accounts. All of them."

I lost the ability to breathe.

"P-Private accounts? Like... the money you use to buy the ships and... and the other things from the spreadsheet?"

"Exactly." Vittorio turned his back, walking to the desk. "You'll help me organize the cash flow. In exchange, I triple your salary, pay off your back rent, and guarantee that no one touches a single hair on your head." He paused, his expression hardening. "But if you refuse... well, I can't guarantee you'll leave this building in one piece today."

I looked at the locked door, then back at the most dangerous man in the city offering me a fortune to step into his underworld. I didn't have a choice.

"I... I accept," I whispered, feeling like I'd just signed a deal with the devil himself.

Vittorio smiled for real this time, stubbing out the cigar in a crystal ashtray.

"Excellent. Your first assignment starts now, Leo. Bring me a coffee. And please... try not to spill it on me this time."