Chapter 166: Price Went Through The Roof

Benita reached over to her tool rack, pulled a fresh pair of tailor’s shears from the magnetic strip, and spun them around her fingers with practiced ease.

"Get out of my way, Ethan," she said softly, her voice dripping with lethal creative intent as she stepped toward the mannequin. "I’ve got work to do."

Leaving Benita to her ruthless creative process, I walked back into my executive suite and leaned over Sarah’s desk.

"Sarah," I said, my voice dropping into a low, strategic hum. "I want you to choke Oliver’s supply chain."

Sarah looked up from her dual monitors, her brow furrowing slightly. "Choke it how?"

"He’s fast-tracking those seven pieces through Italian factories, which means he needs absurd quantities of top-tier, specialized materials," I explained, leaning against the edge of her glass desk. "Find every single exclusive textile mill, custom hardware manufacturer, and luxury silk supplier O.R. Atelier relies on for this rush order. Place massive, upfront cash buyouts for their entire high-grade inventory for the next six months."

Sarah’s fingers froze over her keyboard. She quickly pulled up supplier ledgers, running the numbers on her screen before looking up at me with wide eyes.

"Ethan... to outbid his contracts and corner those specific raw materials across Italy and France, we’re talking about tying up at least fifteen million dollars," Sarah warned, pointing to the projection. "Fifteen million spent on raw fabrics and custom metallic boning that we might not even use for our immediate collections!"

I let out a quiet, cold laugh, looking down at the numbers with absolute indifference.

"It’s not a waste, Sarah," I said, a dangerous smirk spreading across my face. "Oliver is committing his entire capital pool to mass-producing those stolen designs. He can’t afford to stop the production line now—he’s already in too deep. When he realizes the primary suppliers are completely bought out, he’ll panic."

I tapped my knuckles on the surface of her desk.

"And when a desperate man panics, he looks for middle-man brokers, rush tariffs, and black-market textile inflation just to keep his factories running. I’m not just squeezing his timeline, Sarah. I’m going to make him spend double, triple—more than he ever intended—just to manufacture a trap that’s going to destroy him."

Sarah stared at me for a beat, a slow, knowing smile finally breaking across her face as she tapped her headset.

"Executing the buyouts now," she said smoothly. "O.R. Atelier’s material costs just went through the roof."

---

Inside the pristine executive boardroom of O.R. Atelier, the atmosphere was suffocating.

Oliver Rick slapped both palms onto the marble conference table, his pristine hair slightly disheveled and his face flushed a furious, mottled red.

"What do you mean the Italian mills are out of stock?!" he roared, glaring down his terrified procurement manager. "We signed the preliminary intent sheets three days ago! How do you lose a primary silk supply overnight?!"

"Sir, it’s not just the silk," the manager stammered, frantically swiping through inventory reports on his tablet with trembling hands. "The custom high-grade metallic boning factory in Milan, the raw heavy-weave velvet suppliers in Lyon—they’ve all been completely cleared out. A private buyer swept through this morning and put down immediate, 100% upfront cash buyouts for their entire high-grade stock for the next two quarters."

"Cash buyouts?!" Oliver shrieked, his voice cracking with rising panic. "Who?! Who has fifteen million in liquid cash to dump on specialized raw textiles without a scheduled collection launch?!"

"The suppliers won’t disclose the buyer, sir," the manager whimpered, pulling his collar back to breathe. "All we know is the contracts are airtight. If we want those exact fabrics and custom hardware to keep our rush production lines running, we have to source through third-party luxury brokers or pay emergency rush tariffs to secondary mills."

Oliver felt a cold drop of sweat slide down his neck. The factory lines in Northern Italy were already spinning, charging him astronomical hourly delay penalties for every second they sat idle waiting for raw materials. If he stopped production now, his twelve-million-dollar investment would evaporate, his debut at the Paris Global Gala would be ruined, and the entire industry would mark O.R. Atelier as a joke.

He was trapped. He had gone too far all-in to back down now.

"Then pay them!" Oliver screamed, slamming his fist onto the table so hard a crystal water glass rattled.

"Sir..." the financial director spoke up cautiously from the end of the table, her face pale. "Broker markups and rush processing will increase our material expenditure by nearly three hundred percent. We’ll be spending almost triple our original estimated budget just to complete the inventory!"

"I DON’T CARE!" Oliver shouted, his eyes wide with manic, desperate fury. "Triple the offer! Pay the brokers, pay the secondary mills, pay whatever ridiculous black-market markup they demand! We need those materials on the factory floor by tomorrow morning!"

He paced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, breathing heavily as he gripped his silk tie.

I just need to make it to the Global Gala, Oliver told himself, his mind frantically trying to rationalize the insane bleeding of his company’s capital. Once those seven designs hit the Paris runway, the pre-orders will cover the extra cost tenfold. I’ll double the retail pricing. I’ll recoup every dime.

Ethan thinks he can slow me down, but I’ll burn through my entire reserve before I let him steal my spotlight!

He had no idea that every extra dollar he was wildly dumping into the supply chain was flowing right into the exact trap set by the man he thought he had defeated.

The next morning, I stepped into the executive office holding a fresh cup of black coffee. Found out with enough milk it actually taste good... The sun was just breaking over the city skyline, casting a golden glow across the polished concrete floors of UncuT HQ.

Sarah was already at her desk, surrounded by four glowing monitors. As soon as she saw me, a triumphant, razor-sharp smile spread across her face.

"Ethan," she said, tapping her screen to bring up a master financial tracking grid. "It worked. Better than we even calculated."