홈 / Romance / SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER / 챕터 61 - 챕터 70

SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER의 모든 챕터: 챕터 61 - 챕터 70

114 챕터

QUIET HUNT

The house was quieter the next morning, but it was not the peaceful kind of quiet that comes after a long night; it was the controlled silence of people thinking, planning, watching, and pretending that everything was normal while knowing that nothing was normal anymore. The staff moved as usual, breakfast was prepared, phones rang occasionally, and sunlight filled the large windows, but underneath the routine was a tension that had not existed before Varick’s visit, a tension born from the knowledge that the enemy was not outside the gates but somewhere within the wide circle of people connected to Stefano’s world.I sat at the long dining table with a cup of coffee I had barely touched, watching Marco scroll through his phone while Cassius leaned back in his chair, reading reports from the tablet in his hands. Stefano stood near the window, looking outside at the driveway, but I knew he wasn’t really looking at the cars or the guards; he was thinking, building strategies in his hea

FIRST MISTAKE

The next few days passed in a strange rhythm where everything looked normal on the surface but underneath felt like a game where every move was being watched, measured, and remembered, and I began to understand that the quiet hunt Cassius talked about was not dramatic or loud but slow and suffocating, like waiting for a crack to appear in a wall you knew would eventually break.Stefano became busier than I had ever seen him, but he was also calmer, more controlled, and more observant, and I noticed that he listened more than he spoke now, as if every conversation had become a puzzle piece he was trying to place in the right position. Marco was almost never sitting still, always moving between the garage, the office, and the gates, checking routes, talking to drivers, changing schedules, while Cassius spent most of his time on the phone or quietly talking to different people in the house, his voice always calm and friendly, but his eyes always sharp.They had started the information t

FOLLOWING LIZA

The next phase of the hunt began quietly, almost gently, as if they were afraid that even the walls might hear what they were planning, and from that moment on, Liza was no longer just an office coordinator who smiled politely in the hallways and carried folders from one office to another, because now she was the center of their attention, the thread they would follow carefully and patiently until it led them to whoever was pulling information from Stefano’s world.They did not fire her, did not confront her, did not even change how they treated her, and that was what made the situation even more tense, because everything looked normal on the surface while underneath Marco and Cassius had already assigned people to quietly watch her movements, her calls, her messages, and even the small routines people usually never notice, like where she ate lunch, who she sat with, and how often she checked her phone.I didn’t see most of this myself, but I could feel it in the house, in the way Mar

OFFICE ON THE THIRD FLOOR

The following day moved with a strange kind of anticipation that no one spoke about openly, but everyone in the house seemed to feel, because now the quiet hunt was no longer just about guessing or waiting for information to leak again, and it was no longer about watching Liza or wondering whether she was aware of what she was doing, because now they had something more concrete, something real, a place, an office on the third floor of a small building downtown where the envelope had been delivered, and in Stefano’s world, a location was always the beginning of the end for someone.Breakfast that morning felt almost normal, but I had already learned that in this house, normal did not mean safe and quiet did not mean peaceful, because Marco and Cassius were both on their phones more than usual, sending messages, checking reports, confirming movements, and Stefano spent most of the morning in his office with the door slightly open, which I realized meant he was waiting for updates and di

MAN BEHIND THE MAP

The days that followed felt heavier than any that came before, not because something dramatic happened immediately, but because everyone in the house now understood that they were no longer dealing with small leaks, careless conversations, or minor information theft, and instead they were slowly uncovering something organized, something patient, something that had probably been building for months or even years without anyone fully realizing how large it had become.And the realization that someone had been quietly mapping Stefano’s operations, routes, contacts, and protection systems for that long made every hallway conversation quieter, every phone call shorter, and every movement more careful.Stefano spent most of his time in his office now, and the large board on his wall had grown into something that looked like the planning wall of a military operation, covered with photos, printed emails, names, arrows, building locations, and timelines that connected Liza to the café, the caf

WAR IS NOT ANNOUNCED

After the night they discovered that Eduardo Villanueva was behind the network collecting information, the atmosphere inside the house changed completely, not in a loud or obvious way, but in a quiet, disciplined way that made everything feel more serious, more controlled, and more dangerous at the same time, because now they were no longer guessing who the enemy was, and they were no longer trying to understand what was happening, and instead they were preparing for something they were already sure would happen sooner or later.Stefano called a meeting that same night in the large office downstairs, and for the first time since I had been in the house, I saw so many people gathered in one room, men who worked in logistics, security, transport, finance, and operations, people who all looked serious and alert as if they already knew that this was not going to be a normal meeting, and Marco stood near the door while Cassius stood beside the board on the wall where the entire network map

STRIKE

The night after the warehouse attack felt different from all the nights before, because this time Stefano and the others were no longer just reacting, no longer just protecting routes and changing schedules and watching Villanueva from a distance, and instead they were now planning something of their own, something quiet but dangerous, something that would send a message without starting a full war too quickly, because as Marco explained that night while they were in the office, wars were not won by the first attack but by who controlled the pace after the first attack happened.I sat quietly on the couch while Stefano, Marco, and Cassius stood around the large board again, but this time the board no longer showed just their own network and Villanueva’s connections, and instead it now had new markings, new warehouses, new offices, new transport lines that belonged to Villanueva, and I realized they had already started building the map of their enemy just like Stefano said they would.

ENEMIES FINALLY SPEAK

The response from Eduardo Villanueva did not come immediately after the warehouse incident, and that silence was more unsettling than if something dramatic had happened right away, because everyone in the house understood that a man like Villanueva would not react emotionally or impulsively, and instead he would observe, analyze, calculate losses, evaluate Stefano’s message, and only then decide what his next move would be, which meant that every quiet day that passed was not a sign that the conflict had cooled down but a sign that something was being planned carefully somewhere else in the city.Life inside the house continued with its controlled routine, guards rotating in new patterns, vehicles changing schedules almost every day, phone calls being shorter and more coded than before, and the office board growing more complicated as Cassius continued mapping Villanueva’s businesses, warehouses, transport lines, and known associates, and sometimes when I passed by that office I would

DEALS WRITTEN IN SILENCE

The meeting at the restaurant did not end quickly, and what was supposed to be a simple conversation turned into hours of careful negotiation where every sentence sounded polite but actually carried weight, because Stefano and Eduardo Villanueva were not just discussing business but territory, influence, transport routes, and information networks, and the way they spoke to each other made it clear that both men understood that a wrong agreement would only delay a war instead of preventing it.Marco later said that the most dangerous part of the meeting was not when they talked about money or warehouses or shipments, but when they started talking about territory, because territory was not just about land or buildings but about influence, about who controlled which ports, which suppliers, which distribution routes, and even which officials were more loyal to one side than the other, and once territory became part of the discussion, the negotiation became very serious.Villanueva placed

CRACK

The call to Villanueva was not made immediately, and that delay was not hesitation but strategy, because Stefano never reacted to a problem the moment it appeared, especially not when it involved someone like Eduardo Villanueva, and instead he spent the next hour in his office with Marco and Cassius, going through every detail of the report, every photo, every timestamp, every name connected to the supplier who had been approached, because before accusing someone of breaking an agreement. Stefano needed to be absolutely certain that what they were seeing was not a misunderstanding, not a coincidence, and not a move made by someone acting without authority.I sat just outside the office, close enough to hear their voices but far enough to pretend I wasn’t listening, and even without seeing their faces, I could tell the difference in tone, because Marco sounded sharper than usual, like he was already ready to confront someone, while Cassius sounded calm but precise, carefully explaining

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