Season 3 chapter 23
The Encrypted Eavesdropping
Six days ago...
The three corporate warlords were crammed shoulder-to-shoulder on the expensive leather sofa, their ears practically glued to the heavy metal audio receiver. The static crackled, and then the connection finalized.
Out of the speaker, a highly formal, incredibly wealthy voice echoed through the executive suite.
"Greetings, Filoska," the voice stated smoothly. "I just wanted to inform you that we have something of the utmost importance to discuss. You need to come to Dontils Villa in Recton Estate..."
On the other end of the line, they could hear Filoska's confused, highly professional voice reply. "Why? Why do I need to come all the way down there? What is this important task we have to discuss?"
Kniya's eyes practically bulged out of his skull. He violently grabbed Malesh's shoulder, whispering frantically.
"Oh, fuck!" Kniya hissed, completely shocked. "That is Leon Debestez! The absolute head of the entire royal family! Why the fuck is he suddenly calling our Vice President on a highly classified emergency line like that?!"
Salesh reached over and aggressively shoved Kniya's face away from the speaker.
"Kniya, can you please be silent for some fucking time?!" Salesh whispered furiously. "At least we are doing the call tapping successfully! Can you please allow us to listen to that? Let us listen to what this fucking idiot has to say!"
The Brick-Laying Comedy
The three men fell silent again, listening closely. But instead of laying out a terrifying, highly sophisticated aristocratic master plan, the audio feed suddenly muffled. Leon had pulled the phone away from his face to scream at someone in the background.
"Hey, fucking guard!" Leon's voice roared off-receiver. "What is the perfect time for tomorrow?"
A highly disrespectful voice shouted back instantly. "Sir, fuck your ass, first of all. And the time for that is 5:56 PM."
Salesh had to physically slap a hand over his own mouth to stop himself from bursting into loud, wheezing laughter. Malesh simply stared at the receiver, completely baffled by the sheer lack of professionalism.
"Because you are doing some labor work, sir," the guard continued to argue through the wiretap. "You are going to do some labor work in the construction of the new office."
Kniya's facial expressions were violently shifting between absolute hilarity and deep, aristocratic embarrassment. As a member of the noble Anderson sect, hearing the supreme leader of the Eight Great Families scream defensively about laying bricks at 6:00 PM was devastating to his royal pride.
When the guard finally delivered the ultimate insult—telling Leon that the other noble families wouldn't do the work because Leon was just going to "wash your ass in that expensive villa"—Kniya had to bury his face in a decorative throw pillow to muffle his hysterical laughter.
"He is the most powerful man in the Republic," Salesh whispered, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye, "and his own guard is literally bullying him about washing his ass."
The Power of Capital
The laughter instantly died when the phone un-muffled and Leon switched back to his terrifyingly formal tone.
"The time is now scheduled to 6:00 PM," Leon commanded smoothly. "And do not tell this thing to Kniya or Malesh, or you will face serious consequences."
A few seconds later, Leon gave his final, ominous instruction. "I am sending a car to your office. Just board the car, do not inform Kniya and Malesh... Fuck everything."
Click. The line went completely dead.
Malesh immediately reached down and flipped the heavy analog switch, cutting the power to the receiver. The three men sat up on the sofa, the comedic atmosphere entirely evaporating from the room. They were instantly on high alert. Something was horribly wrong.
"Bro," Malesh stated, his voice completely deadpan but laced with genuine concern. "This guy is clearly going to plan something entirely wrong. I logically have a very bad feeling about this. Why doesn't he wants to invite us, if he is planning something bad he should at least invite us !!"
"He specifically targeted her and explicitly told her to hide it from us," Salesh agreed, his corporate greed replaced by actual tactical worry. "It is a trap."
Kniya stood up, aggressively smoothing out his tailored suit jacket. His arrogant, billionaire CEO persona returned in full force.
"Do not panic," Kniya declared confidently, pacing behind his mahogany desk. "For this exact moment of time, I have already prepared something with my corporate powers."
"What powers?" Salesh scoffed. "You are just an idiot with a gold gun."
"You know what power we all have in common?" Kniya grinned wickedly, looking at his business partners. "The ultimate power in this capitalist Republic. We have the sheer, unfiltered power of giving massive bribes! And you know what? I have already bribed most of Leon's estate staff just to get basic federal information on him!"
Malesh raised an eyebrow. "You bribed the royal guards at Dontils Villa?"
"Everyone has a price!" Kniya boasted. "I am going to basically text my inside guy right now and ask him to plant a covert audio receiver directly inside their main meeting hall before she even arrives! We will hear every single word they say in that estate!"
The Panic
Kniya pulled out his encrypted corporate phone to send the secure text to his bribed royal informant. As he opened his dashboard, a red proximity alert flashed on his screen.
Kniya's eyes went wide.
"Oh, fuck!" Kniya shrieked, dropping his phone onto the desk. "Guys! Filoska is literally in the private elevator right now! She is coming to our room!"
Malesh's deadpan composure completely shattered. He aggressively shoved the heavy wiretap receiver deep underneath the leather sofa cushions, desperately trying to hide the illegal espionage equipment.
"Hide the wires!" Salesh yelled in a complete panic.
"Guys, guys, let's start acting!" Kniya frantically ordered, waving his arms like a madman. "Act like normal executives! Let's start fighting! Start! Start! Fuck! Fuck!"
Salesh instantly grabbed a random manila folder off the desk and stood near the doorway, pretending to read it. Kniya vaulted over his desk and grabbed his brightly colored Demon Lord comic book, opening it upside down. Malesh frantically grabbed his ancient Five Best Ways to Fart manual and aggressively flipped to a random page.
Just as they threw themselves into their pre-established, chaotic positions, the heavy double doors of the executive suite pushed open.
Filoska stepped into the room, pale, terrified, and visibly shaking.
And, entirely oblivious to her trauma, the three corporate warlords who had just spent ten minutes illegally wiretapping her phone turned to her and gave her a wide, entirely genuine, bright, and cheerful smile.
The Privacy Verdict
Filoska stood in the center of the shattered executive suite, her tear-stained face caught somewhere between absolute shock and sheer exhaustion. The three billionaires had just casually confessed to illegally wiretapping her private office phone to uncover a royal assassination plot.
Malesh adjusted his tie, his expression a perfect, uncompromising mask of deadpan logic.
"Okay, in this way, Filoska, we got to know that you were lying to us," Malesh stated flatly. "We knew you wanted to go to Dontils Villa. And yeah, we allowed you to do that so we could track their operational hostility. We aggressively intervened in your personal privacy. Well, this is absolutely not the thing we are going to apologize for. Efficiency requires surveillance."
"Yeah, you definitely did a very wrong thing by hiding it from us, Filoska!" Kniya scolded, pointing a self-righteous finger at her. "You should have told us at that exact moment of time! We are your bosses! We handle the death threats!"
Kniya suddenly glanced out the shattered window, where the cold Seistain wind was blowing in. The dead royal sniper was still lying on the pavement eighty-five stories below.
"But whatever," Kniya pivoted quickly, waving his hand. "Let's move out of this building as soon as possible if we don't want to get killed. Leon is definitely going to realize his sniper is dead."
Malesh narrowed his eyes. "Kniya. Do you have some kind of tactical preparations regarding that?"
Kniya froze. His arrogant demeanor completely dropped. He slowly looked at Malesh, his eyes widening in pure, theatrical panic.
"Oh, fucking shit," Kniya whispered dramatically, clutching his head. "I have something to tell you."
Malesh's deadpan face cracked into genuine alarm. "Do not tell me that you don't have anything prepared for this exact moment. Because we will be totally fucked up if we just sit in this office! He might be sending a dozen other assassins to us right now, you absolute shitjack!"
Kniya stared at him in horror for three seconds... and then burst into loud, obnoxious laughter.
"Okay, okay, I'm just kidding, you gullible jackass!" Kniya cackled, slapping his desk. "Let's go, let's move! I have a massive underground bunker! I was just trying to be dramatic to spike your cortisol levels!"
"I am going to legally strangle you," Malesh groaned, grabbing his briefcase. "Okay, okay. Let's go. Let's move."