C11 Control

Antonio

The city bled through the tinted windows — streaks of gold, red, and restless white. I sat back in the rear seat of the car, one arm slung over the leather, watching the lights blur like a fever dream. But the image that refused to fade wasn’t the city.

It was her.

Daphne Galanis.

The woman who’d once looked at me like I hung the damn stars… now standing in my building, holding a tray of coffee like a stranger.

I should’ve felt satisfaction. Vindication, maybe. After all, karma had a funny way of doing my work for me. She’d chosen to destroy me once — and now she was the one at my mercy.

But all I could feel was the ghost of her lips. The way they trembled when she lied that night.

“I should have gotten engaged to Patrick instead.”

Every syllable had carved itself into my bones.

I clenched my jaw until my teeth ached, the memory of her voice echoing through me like an unfinished song.

Luca’s voice broke through my haze. “You want me to have her watched?”

He sat across from me, half-shadowed in the dark interior. My oldest friend. My right hand. The one man who never questioned an order.

“No,” I said flatly. “Not yet.”

“Boss, if she’s back, it’s not a coincidence. You think she knows—”

“I don’t think,” I cut in, my tone sharper than I intended. “I know she doesn’t. If she did, she wouldn’t have walked into my building alive.”

Silence settled again. Outside, the traffic slowed as we crossed into the upper district — the skyline slicing through the clouds like steel.

“She’s working at Nickolaou Holdings,” Luca said after a moment, his tone cautious. “Low-level staff. Coffee runs, spreadsheets. She’s nothing now.”

Nothing.

The word should’ve eased me. It didn’t.

Because Daphne Galanis had never been “nothing.” Even when she was wrecking me with her lies, she had this light — a soft, stubborn kind that refused to dim. And now, seeing her stripped of everything, wearing exhaustion like perfume...

It didn’t make me feel powerful.

It made me furious.

“Find out who hired her,” I ordered quietly. “Who approved her file. How she got through the system without me knowing.”

“Understood.”

I turned my gaze to the window again. “And Luca—keep it quiet. No one touches her unless I say so.”

He arched a brow. “You’re protecting her?”

“Controlling her,” I corrected, though the lie sat heavy in my mouth.

---

Later that night, in my penthouse office, the city lay beneath me like a conquered kingdom — silent, glittering, cold.

I stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass, a glass of bourbon in hand, the ice long melted. My reflection stared back — sharp suit, sharper eyes. The kind of man who didn’t bend, didn’t break.

And yet...

That same reflection had flinched when he’d seen her today.

I remembered the look on her face when she opened the door — that split second before she masked it. Surprise. Fear. And something else... something that didn’t belong in the ruins of what we were.

Longing.

I hated that I noticed.

I hated that my pulse reacted like it used to — that my chest tightened the way it did when she’d walk into a room wearing my shirt, laughing at something small and stupid.

Three years.

I’d buried her memory under work, blood, and success. Built an empire out of the ashes she left behind. And still, all it took was one look for every wall I’d built to crack.

“Daphne Galanis,” I murmured to the city. “You wanted to destroy me. Congratulations. Now it’s my turn.”

The phone on my desk buzzed. I picked it up on the first ring.

“Yes?”

Luca’s voice was steady on the other end. “I did what you asked. Her hiring file came through HR six months ago. No red flags. A standard background check, but… the name on the recommendation letter was from an old connection.”

“Who?”

“Patrick Collins.”

The glass in my hand almost shattered.

That name was a wound — one I’d buried deep under layers of control. Patrick. The man she’d chosen to pretend to love. The one she’d kissed while I stood on the other side of a half-open door, watching my world implode.

For a second, the silence between us hummed with restrained violence.

“Good,” I finally said, my voice even. “Keep watching him. I want to know every move he makes. Every call. Every meeting. If he sneezes, I want to know what brand of tissue he uses.”

Luca exhaled a quiet laugh. “Understood. And what about her?”

My fingers tightened around the glass.

“Tomorrow,” I said slowly. “I’ll make her my assistant.”

There was a pause. “That’ll raise questions.”

“Then let them ask,” I said, setting the glass down with a controlled thud. “Let them wonder why the boss wants to keep the coffee girl so close.”

I leaned back in my chair, eyes locked on the skyline. “They’ll never guess it’s not about power. It’s about revenge.”

---

But when the office emptied the next morning, and I saw her through the glass wall — head bowed over a stack of reports, a loose strand of hair falling into her face — I realized something that made my blood run cold.

Revenge didn’t burn the way it should.

It ached.

Like the first inhale after being underwater too long.

I would make her pay.

But I would bleed for it, too.

---