Chapter 167: Did Our Guy Run

I took a slow sip of coffee, leaning against the edge of her desk. "Give me the numbers."

"Oliver panicked completely," Sarah reported, her tone dripping with quiet satisfaction. "When our buyout blocked his primary mills, his factory supervisors threatened to pull the plug on his production lines due to delay costs. Instead of cutting his losses or delaying the launch, he went completely nuclear."

She swiped a live transaction breakdown onto the main display.

"He reached out to high-yield luxury material brokers in Geneva and Milan. To secure the exact raw fabrics and custom hardware needed to keep his rush order alive, he paid a 320% markup."

I raised an eyebrow, a low, cold smirk pulling at my lips. "So what’s his total damage?"

"His initial $12 million budget exploded overnight," Sarah said, leaning back in her chair with her arms folded. "By the time those seven stolen designs finish rolling off the assembly line for his Global Gala debut, Oliver Rick will have sunk over $38 million of his own liquid capital into mass-producing them."

"Thirty-eight million..." I murmured, taking another sip of coffee as I stared at the red numbers bleeding across Oliver’s financial ledger.

"He gutted his company’s entire cash reserve and drained his secondary lines of credit just to complete this run," Sarah added, her eyes gleaming. "He is walking into the Global Gala completely leveraged to the throat. If those designs get impounded or delegitimized..."

"He doesn’t just go bankrupt," I finished softly, my smirk turning lethal. "He gets crushed under thirty-eight million dollars of unsellable, illegal inventory, facing federal criminal charges and immediate debt liquidation."

Right on cue, Benita walked into the suite, carrying a fresh stack of revised sketches under her arm. Her eyes were bright, filled with the focused, deadly energy of an artist who knew she was about to make history.

"How’s the financial execution looking?" Benita asked, setting her tablet down.

"Oliver just spent thirty-eight million dollars to build his own scaffold," I replied, turning toward her with a cold, absolute smile. "How are the redesigned originals coming along?"

Benita spun a pair of tailor’s shears on her index finger, her smile matching mine. "They don’t just look better, Ethan. They look untouchable. Oliver’s mass-produced copies are going to look like dollar-store rags beside what I’ve just created."

I checked my watch, then glanced out at the city skyline.

"Good," I said smoothly. "Sarah, call Chloe. Tell her to finalize the court indictments and lock in our front-row seats for Paris."

The glass doors to my private office swished open, and a sleek, sharp pair of stilettos clicked against the concrete floor.

I turned around, expecting Sarah with another update, but froze.

Standing in the doorway was Chloe. She wore a tailored black wool coat over a sharp power suit, her long dark hair cascading over her shoulders. In one hand, she carried a heavy leather briefcase stamped with her law firm’s seal, and in the other, she held a steaming paper cup, taking a slow, casual sip of coffee.

She hadn’t told me she was catching a flight.

"Surprise," Chloe said, her lips curving into a confident, dangerous smile as she lowered her cup. "Did you really think I’d handle the complete legal execution of a thirty-eight million dollar trap from eight thousand miles away?"

A genuine, rare smile broke across my face as I walked up to her, wrapping my arms around her waist to pull her close. "You could’ve warned me, counselor."

"And miss the look on your face?" She laughed softly, leaning in to give me a quick, firm kiss before stepping back and resting a hand on her hip. Her eyes swept over the sleek, bustling studio past the glass windows before landing back on me, her eyebrow arching with a playful, sharp glint.

"So," Chloe murmured, taking another slow sip of her coffee. "Where’s the new girl?"

I chuckled, slipping my arm around Chloe’s waist as I guided her down the quiet glass corridor toward the main studio.

"Come on," I said softly. "I’ll introduce you."

We stopped in front of the floor-to-ceiling glass panel. Inside, the studio was transformed. Under the brilliant white halogen lights, Benita was in absolute overdrive. Drapes of custom-dyed silk, high-grade metallic boning, and heavy luxury velvet—all bought using our unlimited budget pool—were sprawling across her layout tables like works of art. The quality of the materials was blindingly obvious even through the double-paned glass. Every stitch was sharper, every cut more aggressive, completely blowing away the original drafts.

"She’s brilliant," Chloe murmured, her sharp legal eyes taking in the scene. "The unlimited budget really is paying off. Oliver’s mass-produced copies won’t stand a chance when these hit the floor."

"Told you," I smirked, watching Benita effortlessly drape a piece of charcoal fabric over a mannequin.

Inside the quiet room, Benita paused, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. Feeling two pairs of eyes on her, she turned toward the glass window.

When she saw me, a tired smile automatically started to form, and she gave a small, casual wave. But as her gaze shifted to the stunning, sharp-dressed woman in the black wool coat standing right beside me, her hand froze mid-air.

Her smile slowly faded into a puzzled, slow-burning look of curiosity. She lowered her hand, holding her tailor’s shears in her other grip, tilting her head slightly through the glass as if asking, Who on earth is that?

Chloe gave a smooth, confident nod through the glass, taking a slow sip of her coffee with an amused glint in her eyes.

"She looks fierce," Chloe whispered to me, her lips curving into a smirk. "Let’s go say hi to our star designer."

I opened the glass door, and Chloe stepped into the studio ahead of me, her high heels clicking firmly against the polished floor.

Benita set her tailor’s shears down on the table, wiping her hands on her apron as she wiped a stray lock of hair from her face. She held out her hand, offering a cautious, professional handshake. "Hi... I’m Benita."

Chloe didn’t take the hand. Instead, she stepped right past it and pulled Benita into a warm, genuine hug.

Benita froze for a fraction of a second, completely caught off guard, before slowly relaxing and hugging her back.

"I’m Chloe," she said softly, pulling back and resting her hands on Benita’s shoulders with an empathetic, solid grip. "And honestly, I just feel so terrible for everything you’ve had to go through with this. Having your hard work and brilliant creations stolen by a rat like Oliver... it’s sickening."

Benita’s guard completely melted, a faint, appreciative smile breaking through her tired face. "Thank you, Chloe. It’s been... a lot."

"Well, the good news is the heavy legal lifting on our end is officially locked in," Chloe continued, her tone shifting seamlessly from warm empathy to razor-sharp, lethal confidence. She patted her heavy leather briefcase. "I’ve got the predated trademark counter-filings ready, the asset freeze petitions prepped, and the preliminary injunction drafts sitting right here. On paper, we are ready to obliterate him."

She turned slightly, glancing over her shoulder at me with an amused, dangerous glint in her dark eyes.

"Now," Chloe murmured, taking a slow, casual sip from her coffee cup, "all that’s left is for us to get Jean-Luc’s official, signed confession locked on record... and Oliver Rick won’t even have a leg to stand on in a court of law."

"Where is Jean-Luc right now?" Chloe asked, setting her coffee cup down on the cutting table and unbuttoning her coat.

"He’s staying at his private apartment on the north side," I said, pulling my phone from my pocket. "He knows better than to turn off his line."

I hit his name on speed dial and put the phone on speaker, setting it right in the center of the wooden layout table. The three of us stood in a tight circle, hovering over the screen as the tone began to ring.

Ring... ring... ring...

Benita crossed her arms, her chest heaving as she glared at the blinking caller ID as if she could burn a hole through it. "I don’t even want to hear his pathetic, sniveling voice," she spat, her jaw clenched tight. "But he better pick up. If he thinks he can play games with us now—"

Ring... ring... ring...

The line went straight to voicemail. "You have reached Jean-Luc. Please leave a message after—"

I cut the call instantly, my brow furrowing. "That’s strange."

"Try him again," Chloe said softly, her casual demeanor instantly vanishing into sharp attorney focus.

I tapped the screen again.

Ring... ring... ring... ring...

Once more, it went straight to the automated recording. Nothing.

A heavy, suffocating silence descended over the studio. The air in the room instantly shifted, growing cold and tense.

I looked up from the glowing phone screen, meeting Chloe’s sharp eyes.

"Did our guy run?" Chloe asked quietly, her voice flat, dangerous, and unnervingly calm.