His Ruthless Claim

The numbers didn't lie. They never did. Isla Rivera adjusted her glasses and leaned closer to her computer screen, her dark eyes scanning the spreadsheet for the third time. The coffee in her ceramic mug had gone cold an hour ago, but she barely noticed. When she was in the zone, the rest of the world faded away-just her and the patterns hidden in columns of data. "Still here, Isla?" She glanced up to find her colleague, David, shrugging into his coat. The office behind him was empty, desks abandoned, computers dark. She checked the time on her screen: 8:47 PM. "Just finishing up," she said, forcing a smile. "Have a good night." David hesitated at her cubicle entrance. "You know, there's more to life than balance sheets. When's the last time you went on a date?" "When's the last time you minded your own business?" She softened the words with another smile, but David got the message. He raised his hands in surrender and headed for the elevators. The moment he was gone, Isla's smile vanished. She turned back to her screen, her pulse quickening as she pulled up the file she'd been analyzing all week. Vitale Imports & Exports. On the surface, it looked legitimate. A family-owned business specializing in Italian wines, olive oils, and luxury goods. The kind of company that had been operating for generations, deeply rooted in tradition and Old World charm. But Isla had been a forensic accountant for six years, and she knew what money laundering looked like. The pattern was subtle-whoever had set this up was good. Payments flowing through shell companies in the Cayman Islands, invoices that matched just closely enough to seem real, but with discrepancies that made her instincts scream. Shipments that were over-invoiced. Inventory that didn't quite match the sales records. Someone was moving dirty money through Vitale Imports, and they were doing it with surgical precision. Isla sat back in her chair, her mind racing. She should report this. Call her supervisor, hand over her findings, let someone else deal with it. That was protocol. But something stopped her. Maybe it was the foster kid in her, the girl who'd learned early that the system didn't always protect people. Maybe it was the part of her that had built her entire career on uncovering the truth, no matter how ugly it was. Or maybe it was the fact that she'd spent the last three days at Vitale headquarters, walking through their pristine offices, and she'd felt... watched. She shook her head, dismissing the paranoia. She was being ridiculous. Still, she made copies of everything-the spreadsheets, the invoices, the offshore account numbers. She encrypted the files and uploaded them to her secure cloud storage. Just in case. Her phone buzzed, and she jumped. A text from Sofie, her best friend: *Girl, you better not still be at work. I'm ordering Thai food and you're coming over. Non-negotiable.* Isla smiled, her tension easing slightly. Sofie always knew when she