MTLNOVEL Chapter 265: Looking Glass
"Step Four: Looking Glass."
Lilian had not told them about this particular part of the plan. Simply because it was a more personal one.
In her office, hands folded, eyes stern, the screen before went dark for a moment, then displayed a simple, ominous logo: a shattered mirror.
After the shattering, numerous lines and codes, tracking the multiple ways people used to spy or deduce hidden information about people.
Lilian's eyes narrowed as he watched the lines stretch, wondering of the many possibilities he might have used to 'know.'
"How did he know?" she murmured to herself. "How did he obtain deeply personal, non-public information regarding a federal agent? Regarding me!"
She clenched her teeth, eyes reddening. 'My father. My pain. My vulnerability.'
First, she wanted to reminisce through far memories of her Dad, but she quickly pushed the tears away and 'locked in.'
"My hypothesis," she spoke to the moving screen, "is he has Illegal surveillance of some kind. Hacking of protected databases. Compromised individuals within government, finance, or my personal history. I have to find a way to get Rivera to discreetly run audits on access logs for my personnel file, my father's public records linked to the '08 case, and financial databases mentioning him without letting him know why."
She turned to her shoulder, grimacing. "Maybe there could be chatter mentioning my name or Steele in context of illicit info gathering. I could do some dark web monitoring, name-calling across all boards. If possible I could also cross-reference known Steele associates with individuals possessing potential access or motive."
She paused, the silence heavy. "I'm getting way too frustrated and I can feel it."
Her head lowered. "Tch. This Darren Steele guy is really getting to me."
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Yes he was.
Unlike her, after that intense meeting in the morning, Darren was as calm and collected as ever. In fact, he was having the time of his life.
There was nothing to be worried about really. The inspection had been unexpected but he had planned for this. Agent Lilian Greaves was the kind of inspector that every other business would dread but not him. She was actually the kind he preferred.
Sipping Merlot, Darren walked to the window, the panoramic view of Los Alverez sprawling beneath him like a circuit board glittering with deceit and opportunity. A slow, deliberate smile spread across his face, devoid of triumph, charged with the cold calculus of a move finally played.
It was perfect.
See, Agent Lilian Greaves was the kind of person that was too driven by trauma that it gave them this sense of justification. Making them believe that everything they did was right as long as it produced the needed results.
She believed this because instinctively, she felt the world was indebted to her for her past and should allow her to do whatever she wanted to take revenge for it.
That was only fair, wasn't it?
But the agent forgot there was barely anything in this world that was fair. Not even justice itself.
Which was why when Sandy had told him that an Agent Lilian Greaves had come for an inspection authorized by the Financial Integrity, the first thing he did was search her up.
Once he got her picture, he activated Personal Insight Protocol. The results he got were interesting to say the least.
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┏Full Name: Lilian Marie Greaves
Age: 30
Occupation: Senior Special Agent, Department of Financial Integrity (DFI)
Education: B.A. Economics, Columbia University; J.D. Georgetown Law (Accelerated Program); Advanced Forensic Accounting Certification (FBI Academy)┛
┏Key Psychological Drivers:┛
┏Primary: Profound sense of injustice stemming from paternal trauma (Robert Greaves, suicide following financial ruin post-2008 crisis, attributed to institutional fraud).
Secondary: Utter contempt for perceived financial opacity/systemic risk, particularly in decentralized finance (Bitcoin = "digital trash" in internal assessments).
Tertiary: Fanatical belief in regulatory oversight as the only bulwark against systemic collapse. Deep-seated distrust of rapid wealth accumulation outside established channels.
Operational Style: Meticulous, relentless, borderline obsessive. Prioritizes pattern recognition and procedural rigor. Views personal connections as vulnerabilities; maintains extreme professional distance. Highly resistant to intimidation but vulnerable to attacks on core trauma (Paternal Betrayal Nexus).
Known Vulnerabilities: The 2008 trauma is the keystone. Exploiting it triggers disproportionate, highly focused retaliation. Her Achilles Heel is her own uncompromising rigidity – she cannot not pursue a thread she believes leads to corruption, especially if personal animus is involved.
Threat Assessment: Extreme. Subject possesses significant federal authority, high intellect, and a motivation now intensely personal. Will utilize full weight of DFI resources.┛
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Not only had the system given him interesting information and much more immerse information about her then other usual ones, it had offered an exact strategy on how to handle her.
Maybe it was because she was a sudden threat.
Nevertheless, the system had been tremendously correct.
Darren had felt the seismic shift within her when he'd mentioned her father. The crack in that glacial composure had been wider, deeper, than he'd anticipated.
The Personal Insight Protocol hadn't just given him facts; it had painted a portrait of a wound that defined her, a raw nerve he'd just expertly probed. The gamble had paid off.
So, because of that single particular move, that question that was thrown in out of nowhere, Lilian Greaves wasn't just investigating Steele Investments anymore.
She was hunting Darren Steele.
He had successfully made her lose focus.
His phone rang and when he picked it, it was Sandy's voice on the other end. "They're assembled in the War Room, Darren. Vance looks like he's about to burst a vessel."
"On my way," Darren replied, his voice calm. He took one last look at the city. Escalating things with the government was a daring move.
But it was the move the system wanted him to play.
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The atmosphere in the secure War Room – a windowless chamber deep within the Steele Complex, walls lined with sound-dampening material and encrypted data ports – was thick with tension.
Rachel paced near the head of the polished obsidian table, her knuckles white where they gripped a legal pad. Sandy sat rigidly, her usual composure frayed at the edges. Kara leaned against a server rack humming softly in the corner, arms crossed, blue-streaked hair catching the low light, exhausted.
Vance drummed his fingers impatiently, while Daisy Chen meticulously organized pens beside a secure tablet. Amelia, ever the strategist, continued with her work on her laptop.
All eyes snapped to Darren as he entered. He didn't sit. He walked to the head of the table, his presence instantly commanding the room's focus.
"Alright," Vance started, his voice tight. "Mind telling us what that was about?"
"What?" Darren asked innocently. "The meeting?"
"You provoked her. A federal agent."
Darren tilted his head. "She'll get over it."
"What?"
Everyone looked at each other, confused by Darren's confidence.
"What was that I was hearing too about you mentioning her father? That wasn't just risky, it was borderline suicidal. You handed her a personal vendetta on a silver platter!" His gaze swept the room, then he took a calming breath. "We barely held her off today. Next time, with that level of personal animus? She'll come back with a wrecking ball and a judge who's had his arm twisted."
Rachel looked at Darren, wondering why he was being this way. "He's right, Darren. The legal maneuvering we pulled today was threading a needle. We bought time, not immunity. Greaves isn't going to stop. Doing what you did is dangerous because we all know we can't fight the government."
Kara pushed off the rack. "Eh, cut Boss some slack guys. I mean the broad was pissing me off too. Like why Navarro? That damn facility is clean! Just containers and some old Brittle paperwork we inherited. Why's she so obsessed? We rerouted Talmor, sanitized the logs, but she's fixated on a ghost we accidentally left haunting a warehouse we barely use!"
"Was that your mistake or Rico's?" Darren asked her.
Kara blushed, lowering her face in comedic guilt. "It was mine, but... hey! It was just a processing error, Boss. An old LLC address auto-populated in a legacy shipping manifest during the test phase. We caught it late. The Talmor wallet was just unlucky to be caught in it."
No one said anything after that. Darren only sighed and sunk his hands in his pockets. When they all turned to him, their worried expressions were so cute it made him smile.
A faint, knowing smile curling below his proud, straight nose.
"You're all correct. About Lilian. About Navarro. About Talmor." He paused, letting the admission hang. "Navarro is clean. R. Talmor is part of our extensive off shore wallet. And the only reason Lilian Greaves was here is because of a genuine error during our rapid scaling. A loose thread we didn't have time to fully clip."
"But... she was going to come anyway. Our company just received the red dot because of the error."
He then activated the projector and Lilian Greaves picture showed on the white screen. She was stepping out of a vehicle, pushing strands of her hair off her face.
"This is Agent Lilian Marie Greaves," he said. "If you don't know much about her, let me tell you..."
Darren began to drop all the information he had gotten about Lilian Greaves from the system, when he was done, they were all surprised. Speechless for some.
"How... Did you find out about all this?" Vance asked, his voice hushed but worried. "Are there any legal issues I should be worried about?"
Darren laughed. "None at all. I just don't think it's possible to win against the government by playing fair!"
A/N:
Regarding the incorrect chapter, it'll be replaced with a slice-of-life, check-up short stories on other characters. That way, it doesn't affect the continuity of the story. If you're interested you can go back to purchase it, it you already have purchased it, you can check that out! Thanks!!