Bound By Business

Chapter thirteen: The Enemy Within

The aftermath of Dominic Bianchi’s revelation had left me shaken, but there was no time to wallow in the weight of his warning. If Marcus Carter truly had more cards to play, then we were standing on the edge of a much larger disaster.

The morning started like a slow burn, but by the time I reached my office, the situation had exploded. An email leak—crafted like the perfect dagger—was spreading through every corner of Moretti Real Estate. It wasn’t the footage of Alex and Marco arguing at the afterparty. This time, it was something much worse: an edited chain of internal emails between Alex and Marco that painted their relationship as irreparably broken.

“Marco’s covering for a liability,” one email read.

“Alex is incapable of managing a lemonade stand, let alone a billion-euro empire,” read another.

Both lines were damning, and both had been carefully spliced together from actual communications. They told a story of dysfunction, but the narrative was a lie.

“Have you seen this?” Laura burst into my office, tablet in hand. Her face was pale, her usually composed demeanor replaced by barely contained panic.

“Yes,” I said grimly, gesturing for her to close the door behind her.

“It’s already gone viral,” she continued, pacing the length of the room. “The media is spinning it into their new favorite scandal, and investors are flooding us with questions about whether Alex is stepping down.”

I ran a hand through my hair, leaning back in my chair. “We have to counter this immediately. Call an emergency meeting with Marco and Alex. And get IT on tracing where these emails came from.”

Laura nodded and left the room, but not before giving me a worried glance.

Marco arrived at the emergency meeting with the fire of a man pushed past his breaking point. Alex followed moments later, looking equally tense but trying to mask it behind a façade of detached arrogance.

“This is sabotage,” Marco said, slamming a printout of the emails onto the table. “Whoever’s behind this is working from within. No one outside the company would have access to this correspondence.”

Alex folded his arms, leaning back in his chair. “Are you implying it’s one of your trusted executives, Marco?”

“It could be anyone,” Marco growled. “But whoever it is, they’ve made a fatal mistake. No one betrays me and walks away unscathed.”

“We don’t have time for threats,” I interjected. “The damage is already done. Investors are demanding answers. We need to contain this before it spirals out of control.”

“And what’s your plan, Carter?” Alex asked, his tone biting.

I ignored him, turning to Marco instead. “I have the IT team combing through server logs and communication records. Whoever leaked this didn’t cover their tracks well enough to avoid detection.”

“And if they did?” Marco pressed.

“Then we’ll find another way,” I said firmly

That evening, I poured over the initial findings from IT. At first, the data was a frustrating maze of dead ends and encrypted trails. But after hours of sifting, something caught my eye: a series of flagged communications between Luca Grimaldi and a private consulting firm called Prime Consulting.

The name sent a chill down my spine. Prime Consulting was the same firm Marcus Carter had allegedly used to orchestrate past sabotage efforts.

I leaned back in my chair, my mind racing. Could Luca be the traitor Marco had suspected all along?

Before I could think too deeply, my phone buzzed. Alex.

“We need to talk,” he said as soon as I answered.

“About what?”

“Whatever it is you’re hiding,” he replied, his voice sharp. “I’ve had enough secrets for one lifetime, Carter. Meet me in my office in twenty minutes.”

When I arrived at Alex’s office, he was pacing by the windows, a glass of whiskey in hand. The city lights reflected off the darkened glass, casting long shadows across the room.

“Care to explain why I feel like I’m always the last to know what’s happening?” he asked, his voice tight.

“Because you’re not the one pulling all-nighters trying to fix this mess,” I shot back, crossing my arms.

“That’s not an answer,” he said, stepping closer.

I sighed, my frustration boiling over. “Fine. You want the truth? I think Luca is working with Marcus Carter. And if I’m right, then the blackmailer isn’t just someone random—it’s someone who knows every weakness this company has.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. “So what do we do about it?”

“We confront him,” I said simply.

The next morning, Alex and I marched into Luca’s office unannounced. He was mid-conversation with a junior associate, but the moment he saw us, his face paled.

“Mr. Moretti, Miss Carter,” he said, forcing a smile. “What brings you here?”

“We need to talk,” I said, closing the door behind us.

Luca gestured for the junior associate to leave, then leaned back in his chair. “I assume this is about the leaks?”

“You assume correctly,” Alex said coldly, stepping closer. “And we’ve got questions you’d better answer.”

For a moment, Luca’s mask of confidence held. But when Alex pulled out the printouts of his communications with Prime Consulting, the cracks began to show.

“What is this?” he asked, his voice shaky.

“Proof,” I said, stepping forward. “Proof that you’ve been working with Marcus Carter to sabotage this company.”

Luca’s face fell. “You don’t understand—”

“Oh, we understand perfectly,” Alex cut in. “You thought you could get away with stabbing us in the back. Now tell us why.”

Luca hesitated, then slumped back in his chair. “Marcus approached me months ago,” he admitted. “He said he wanted to expose Marco for the liar he is. At first, I didn’t believe him, but he showed me things—documents, recordings—things that made me question everything.”

“Question everything?” Alex repeated, his voice dripping with disdain. “So you sold us out?”

“No,” Luca said quickly. “I didn’t know how far he was willing to go. I thought I was helping protect the company. I didn’t realize he’d turn it into this.”

After leaving Luca’s office, Alex and I returned to the estate. The confrontation had given us answers, but it also raised more questions. What exactly had Marcus shown Luca? And how much damage had already been done?

As I sat in my office that night, reviewing the files from IT, my phone buzzed with a new message.

“You’re getting too close. Back off, or you’ll regret it.”

Attached was a photo of Alex and me leaving Luca’s office earlier that day.