CHAPTER 13
Matteo didn't know her.
At least, not anymore.
He had no idea that the woman pulling the strings had once been the same girl who loved him recklessly. The girl he kissed in secret, whispered promises to, built an empire with.
Now, she was his most trusted assistant.
And she was his greatest enemy.
Yet, he had never seen her.
Not once.
Not in passing.
Not in meetings.
Not in his office.
She existed in the margins of his world, a name on emails, a voice through intermediaries. A presence so efficient, so flawless, that he never questioned it.
And that was exactly what she wanted.
Because while Matteo sat at the top of his empire, Sasha was the one pulling the strings beneath him.
Every document he touched? Filtered through her first.
Every report he received? Rewritten before it reached his desk.
Every email, every text, every piece of information? Manipulated. Twisted. Altered.
Matteo wasn't running his empire.
Not really.
He was reacting to it.
And every reaction, every misstep, every mistake? All carefully placed traps, leading him exactly where she wanted.
It started subtly.
Tiny fractures, almost unnoticeable.
A shipment rerouted to a dock that didn't exist.
An urgent meeting canceled without his knowledge.
A wrong document sent to a business partner, delaying negotiations.
Small, but frustrating.
Mistakes that shouldn't have happened. Mistakes he swore he didn't make.
Yet, every time he checked…
There it was.
His signature. His confirmation. His approval.
Matteo frowned at the reports, fingers pressing into his temple.
"Did I approve this?"
His underboss shifted uncomfortably.
"Yeah, Boss. The emails came from your office. Your assistant handled it."
Meaning, he had handled it.
But he didn't remember.
His men noticed before he did.
The way he hesitated before making a decision.
The way his irritation spiked over the smallest issues.
The way he double-checked everything, as if he didn't trust his own judgment anymore.
"The Boss is slipping."
"Maybe he's losing his touch."
"Maybe he's getting too old for this."
Matteo heard the whispers, even when they thought he didn't.
And the worst part?
A small, dangerous part of him wondered if they were right.
Sasha, meanwhile, was untouchable.
Every deadline? Met before it was due.
Every report? Flawless.
Every mistake? Never hers.
It was always Matteo's oversight.
Always his miscalculation.
Always his failure.
And soon, he started believing it.
It came late one night.
Matteo, sitting in his office, staring at a contract that should have been finalized three weeks ago.
It wasn't.
And because of that, he had just lost millions.
His fingers curled into a fist, jaw tightening.
"Who was in charge of this?"
A beat of silence. Then—
"You were, Boss."
He exhaled sharply, forcing himself to think.
No. That couldn't be right. He remembered signing this. Approving it.
Didn't he?
He shuffled through the papers, searching for evidence of his own sanity. And then—
There it was.
His signature.
His own goddamn signature on a contract that had never been sent.
And yet—
He didn't remember signing it.
His vision blurred, anger and confusion battling inside him.
This was his empire. His mind had always been sharp, his instincts deadly. He didn't make careless mistakes.
So why was he making them now?
On the other end of the city, Sasha leaned back in her chair, watching the night stretch out from the glass windows of her penthouse.
Her phone vibrated. A simple message from one of Matteo's lieutenants.
"Boss is furious. Losing it over a contract mix-up. Shit's not looking good."
A slow, satisfied smirk curled at her lips.
Perfect.
She had him exactly where she wanted him.
A man like Matteo could handle external threats. Enemies, betrayals, assassinations—he had survived them all.
But this?
This was different.
Because the enemy wasn't outside his empire.
It was inside his own mind.
And the best part?
He had no idea.