Season 2 chapter 22
The Six-Day Setup
Filoska stood in the center of the room, her head spinning so fast she felt physically nauseous.
A royal assassin had just fallen off a building. Kniya had communicated a kill-order via an interpretive dance. Malesh and Salesh were currently screaming at each other about girlfriends and communism.
"What the actual fuck is happening?!" Filoska finally screamed, her voice cracking as she looked at the three insane men. "What the fuck actually happened?! Why did you just kill him?! Why did that man fall off the building?! And what the hell are you literally all talking about?!"
The three men stopped arguing. Kniya turned toward Filoska, his arrogant demeanor softening just a fraction as he looked at his terrified Vice President.
"Actually, let me explain the scenario," Kniya said smoothly, walking around his desk. "Filoska... that guy who just fell off the roof? That was the covert assassinator that was sent by the fucking royal family to strictly monitor you and kill your brother."
Filoska stopped breathing. The blood completely drained from her face.
"How..." Filoska stammered, stepping backward, absolutely horrified that they knew. "How do you know about this thing? How do you actually know about Leon?!"
Kniya smirked, leaning against his mahogany desk and crossing his arms.
"Well, the thing is," Kniya began, his eyes gleaming with absolute, calculated corporate brilliance. "Just six days ago, when Malesh and I were discussing the coffee thing..."
The Explanation
Filoska stood entirely frozen, her tears pausing as her brain struggled to comprehend how these three deeply unserious corporate warlords had successfully uncovered a highly classified royal assassination plot.
"How?" Filoska breathed, staring at them.
Kniya leaned back against his mahogany desk, crossing his arms and putting on an incredibly smug, self-righteous expression.
"Well, the thing is, Filoska," Kniya began, completely rewriting history to make himself look like a saint. "When you got a call in your room exactly six days ago, I actually heard a weird, mechanical click on the main corporate switchboard. Because the call was strictly not from a normal corporate line, and it wasn't a residential line. It was heavily encrypted. So I just got a weird feeling."
Kniya sighed heavily, shaking his head like a disappointed father.
"Now, as you know," Kniya continued smoothly, "I really do not ever interfere in other people's personal lives. I was simply trying to read my comic novel peacefully. We were just trying to fight about spilled coffee and handguns like normal executives. But still... Malesh was the guy who did the actual thing. He is entirely to blame for the privacy violation. Let me rewind the scenario for you."
The Flashback (Six Days Ago)
Exactly six days ago. Ten minutes after Malesh shot out the office window over a ruined shirt.
Kniya was desperately trying to wipe boiling coffee stains out of the corporate rug. On the other side of the room, Malesh was staring intently at a blinking red light on a heavy, metallic audio receiver box sitting on his lap.
"Oh, Kniya," Malesh stated flatly, his deadpan voice cutting through the silence of the office. "Filoska is currently getting a call from a highly classified emergency number."
Kniya looked up from the rug, highly annoyed. "Okay, so what, Malesh? That line is not in our corporate books or federal records. She probably has a doctor's appointment. What do you mean? What should we do?"
"The best thing we can do, and the thing I am absolutely going to do," Malesh replied smoothly, "is illegal call tapping. You know, Kniya, this is literally my absolute favorite thing to do. I deeply love listening to other people's private chats."
The Present Interruption
(Back in the present time, inside the executive suite...)
Malesh casually interrupted Kniya's dramatic storytelling, looking directly at his business partner.
"Because I love having a direct interference in other people's lives," Malesh explained logically, completely devoid of any moral shame as he addressed Filoska and Kniya. "That is exactly why I asked you to let me buy those specific magazines about the personal lives of rich people at the bookstore today, Kniya. I told you that just an hour ago. I thrive on the psychological drama of the elite."
"Okay, shut the fuck up, Malesh!" Kniya yelled in the present. "Do not ruin the pacing of my flashback! I am explaining a highly dramatic corporate espionage scenario to our Vice President!"
Kniya cleared his throat, returning to his storytelling posture. "Anyway. Back to six days ago."
The Corporate Bug (Flashback Resumes)
Six days ago...
Kniya quickly stood up from the coffee-stained rug, holding his hands out in protest.
"No, Malesh, we absolutely should not do that!" Kniya argued, trying to be a responsible boss for once in his life. "We should have some little bit of piracy! Wait, sorry—privacy, at least! It is not piracy, you shameless bastard! We should give our Vice President some basic human privacy!"
"Okay, Kniya, I think so you are just not going to be a part of this," Malesh deadpanned, completely ignoring the ethical lecture. "So yeah, I know that it is very necessary for me to listen to this conversation for my own entertainment. Here is the device to tap that call. If you are not coming with me, it is perfectly okay. I am going to do that all alone."
Malesh calmly reached his hand underneath the cushions of Kniya's incredibly expensive leather sofa. He fumbled around for a second before pulling out a thick bundle of copper wires connected to the heavy audio receiver box. He flipped a massive analog switch, and the device violently hummed to life.
Kniya's jaw literally dropped to the floor. He stared at the device, absolutely devastated.
"What the actual fuck is happening here?!" Kniya screamed, pointing a trembling finger at the receiver. "Did you plant a fucking call-tapping device inside my own executive sofa?! You bugged my office?!"
"I bugged the entire building," Malesh corrected logically. "Now, I am going to tap the call before it officially connects. Do not ever dare to even listen to a single word she is speaking. You said you wanted to give her privacy. So cover your ears."
Malesh pressed a heavy button, routing the audio from Filoska's private downstairs office directly through the receiver's speaker. A low, static ringing sound started to play as the call began to physically connect.
The Eavesdroppers
Kniya stood there for exactly two seconds. The ringing continued. His absolute, burning curiosity completely killed the cat. He couldn't resist the gossip.
Kniya immediately sprinted across the room, abandoning his moral high ground entirely, and practically dove onto the sofa right next to Malesh, leaning his ear incredibly close to the speaker.
"Oh," Malesh noted dryly, not looking away from the machine. "You were not going to come. You wanted to give her privacy. How did you come?"
"Okay, just shut the fuck up and stop talking!" Kniya hissed, aggressively waving his hand. "Let us listen before the other person starts speaking!"
As they sat there in absolute silence, waiting for the connection to finalize, the shattered double doors to the executive suite quietly creaked open.
Salesh completely silently slipped into the room. He saw the two trillionaires huddled over a black box on the sofa. Without asking a single question, Salesh took a running leap, jumped directly over the glass coffee table, and landed face-first on the sofa right next to Kniya.
He immediately smashed his ear against the speaker to listen, just as the static started to clear.
"Okay, so guys," Malesh whispered flatly, looking at the three grown men crammed onto one cushion. "We are all doing the exact same thing now. We all resisted at first, but now we are collectively hurting someone's privacy before they even say hello. We are terrible executives."
"It is an unnecessary privacy hurt!" Kniya whispered back furiously, elbowing Salesh in the ribs. "Salesh! Why the fuck are you here?! You should not do that! This is highly classified CEO eavesdropping!"
"Okay, guys, it's really important that I listen to this!" Salesh whispered back aggressively, refusing to move his head away from the speaker.
"Why?!" Kniya demanded.
"Because!" Salesh argued logically. "What if the person on the other end is a recruiter from a rival conglomerate? What if they are about to offer Filoska a massive salary increase to jump ship? I need to illegally listen to this call so I can find out exactly how much they are offering her! Then, I can take that exact number and demand a competitive salary raise from you!"
Kniya stared at Salesh, absolutely baffled by his shameless, unfiltered greed.
"You are literally wiretapping our Vice President just so you can extort me for more money?!" Kniya asked in disbelief.
"It is called proactive market research, you fucking idiot!" Salesh whispered back. "Now shut up! The call is connecting!"
The three of them instantly went dead silent, pressing their ears against the heavy metal box.
Click.
The static vanished. And then, completely unfiltered, the deeply arrogant, terrifyingly formal voice of Leon Debestez echoed out of the speaker.
"Filoska," Leon's voice hissed through the wiretap. "I have your little brother in a dark room. You are going to lure Kniya and Malesh to the Grand Royal Park for an assassination, or he dies."
On the sofa, the three corporate idiots completely froze. They had tuned in hoping for corporate gossip or salary drama, and instead, they had just collectively listened to a literal royal warlord lay out his entire evil plan to murder them.