#billion dollar disasters

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"Second-warmest September on record for the U.S. and Globe; Hurricane Helene caused widespread power outages and catastrophic flash flooding across the Southeast U.S., causing at least 200 fatalities" NOAA NCEI

"Three new hurricanes (Debby, Helene, and Milton) and one tornado outbreak were added to the 2024 #BillionDollarDisaster total. The year-to-date total now stands at 24 events—the second-highest event total by this point in the year." NOAA NCEI

[tornadoquest]

Tornado Quest Top Science Links For October 6 - 14, 2023 #science #weather #climate #climatechange #hurricane #astronomy

Greetings everyone. Thanks for stopping by. With the change in the seasons comes a change with the day the Tornado Quest Top Science Links will be posted. Look for us now on Saturday between 2:00 – 3:00 PM Eastern USA time. That will be 1800 – 1900 UTC. With several more weeks left in the Atlantic hurricane season, I will continue with hurricane preparedness information that you’ll find helpful.…

[avocado-frog]

Happy WBW! In honor of Idalia and her looming approach on the SouthEast US, what is the most dangerous natural threat to your world?

(man i read that at like seven this morning first thing when I woke up and forgot about the hurricane and thought that there was like. some sort of dragon headed)

Well uhhhhh in new hampshire 2017 there was a severe rain and snowstorm. apparently

I guess there's also flooding over there. I live 41 hours away. I don't know

There was a snowstorm chapter so I'll go with snowstorms

[razziecat]

NASA engineers understand the dangerous nature of space flight, too.

That's why they've only had two spacecraft blow up.

the number of spacecraft failures recently has been absolutely insane and it all comes down to tech bros barging into the industry going "it's not that hard wtf is nasa so bad" and then completely skipping out on any testing

[txttletale]

basically chatgpt is like if some of the worst people on the planet got billions and billions and billions of dollars to market a magic 8-ball as an incredible miracle technology. magic 8ball can be your friend. magic 8ball can help you make business decisions. and then people bought into the marketing and tried magic 8ball and wow! it really responds to what you say! and so they started like, asking magic 8ball to file legal suits and tons of predictable disasters ensued. and then everyone was stuck talking about whether ot not magic 8balls are inherently bad and dangerous technology thats sucking the soul out of society

[admiralderuyter]

[reasonsforhope]

"As climate disasters strain state budgets, a growing number of lawmakers want fossil fuel companies to pay for damages caused by their greenhouse gas emissions.

Last May [2024], Vermont became the first state to pass a climate Superfund law. The concept is modeled after the 1980 federal Superfund law, which holds companies responsible for the costs of cleaning up their hazardous waste spills. The state-level climate version requires major oil and gas companies to pay for climate-related disaster and adaptation costs, based on their share of global greenhouse gas emissions over the past few decades. Vermont’s law passed after the state experienced torrential flooding in 2023. In December [2024], New York became the second state to pass such a law. 

This year, 11 states, from California to Maine, have introduced their own climate Superfund bills. Momentum is growing even as Vermont and New York’s laws face legal challenges by fossil fuel companies, Republican-led states, and the Trump administration. Lawmakers and climate advocates told Grist that they always expected backlash, given the billions of dollars at stake for the oil and gas industry — but that states have no choice but to find ways to pay the enormous costs of protecting and repairing infrastructure in the face of increasing floods, wildfires, and other disasters.

The opposition “emboldens our fight more,” said Maryland state delegate Adrian Boafo, who represents Prince George’s County and co-sponsored a climate Superfund bill that passed the state legislature in March. “It means that we have to do everything we can in Maryland to protect our citizens, because we can’t rely on the federal government in this moment.” 

While the concept of a climate Superfund has been around for decades, it’s only in recent years that states have begun to seriously consider these laws. In Maryland, federal inaction on climate change and the growing burden of climate change on government budgets have led to a surge of interest, said Boafo. Cities and counties are getting hit with huge unexpected costs from damage to stormwater systems, streets, highways, and other public infrastructure. They’re also struggling to provide immediate disaster relief to residents and to prepare for future climate events. Maryland has faced at least $10 billion to $20 billion in disaster costs between 1980 and 2024, according to a recent state report. Meanwhile, up until now, governments, businesses, and individuals have borne 100 percent of these costs. 

“We realized that these big fossil fuel companies were, frankly, not paying their fair share for the climate crisis that they’ve caused,” Boafo said. 

Recent bills have also been spurred by increased sophistication in attribution science, said Martin Lockman, a climate law fellow at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. Researchers are now able to use climate models to link extreme weather events to greenhouse gas emissions from specific companies. The field provides a quantitative way for governments to determine which oil and gas companies should pay for climate damages, and how much. 

Vermont’s law sets up a process for the government to first tally up the costs of climate harms in the state caused by the greenhouse gas emissions of major oil and gas companies between 1995 and 2024. The state will then determine how much of those costs each company is responsible for, invoice them accordingly, and devote the funds to climate infrastructure and resilience projects. New York’s law, by contrast, sets a funding target ahead of time by requiring certain fossil fuel companies to pay a total of $75 billion, or $3 billion per year over 25 years. The amount each company has to pay is proportionate to their share of global greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2024. Both Vermont and New York’s laws apply only to companies that have emitted over 1 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over their respective covered periods. That would include Exxon Mobil, Shell, and other oil and gas giants.

Maryland’s law is so far the only climate Superfund-related legislation to pass a state legislature this year, although Governor Wes Moore vetoed the measure late on Friday [May 16, 2025]. The original draft of the bill would have required major fossil fuel companies to pay a one-time fee for their historic carbon emissions. But over the course of the legislative session, the bill was amended...

Climate advocates decried the governor’s decision, calling it “an inexplicable reversal of a position that threatens to stymie Maryland’s climate progress for negligible budget savings.” In a joint press release by three environmental groups, Kim Coble, executive director of the Maryland League of Conservation Voters, said, “This veto is not fiscal responsibility, it’s a definitive step in the opposite direction of our climate goals.”

In California, environmental groups are optimistic about the chances of a bill passing this year. This is the second year a climate Superfund bill has been introduced in the state, and the sponsors of the new bill have focused on building a broad coalition of environmental, community, and labor groups around the proposal, said Sabrina Ashjian, project director for the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. This year’s legislation was introduced shortly after the devastating Los Angeles wildfires in January, which could amplify lawmakers’ sense of urgency. The bill has now passed out of each legislative chamber’s environmental committee and is awaiting votes in their respective judiciary committees. If passed, the bill will next move to the full Senate and Assembly for a final vote. 

In the meantime, legislators are keeping a close eye on ongoing legal challenges to Vermont’s and New York’s laws...

Climate experts told Grist that with huge amounts of money and liability at stake, lawsuits from the fossil fuel industry weren’t unexpected. Boafo said that given how much financial and political support the Trump campaign received from oil and gas corporations, it’s not a surprise that the Justice Department has sued New York and Vermont. Pursuing these laws invites inevitable opposition — but avoiding the growing costs of climate devastation is even riskier, advocates said. 

Lawmakers are “passing these bills because in writing budgets, in dealing with the day-to-day operation of their states, they’re facing really serious questions about how our society is going to allocate the harms of climate change,” said Lockman. “I suspect that the lawmakers who are advocating for these bills are in it for the long haul.”"

-via Grist, May 19, 2025

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp

For the rest of May, my bestselling solarpunk utopian novel THE LOST CAUSE (2023) is available as a $2.99, DRM-free ebook!

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

Everyone loved this story. As David Dayen wrote for Salon, it let readers "mock that silly chain restaurant they remember from their childhoods in the suburbs" and laugh at "the silly hedge fund that took the time to write the world’s worst review":

https://www.salon.com/2014/09/17/the_real_olive_garden_scandal_why_greedy_hedge_funders_suddenly_care_so_much_about_breadsticks/

But – as Dayen wrote at the time, the hedge fund that produced that slide deck, Starboard Value, was not motivated by dissatisfaction with bread-sticks. They were "activist investors" (finspeak for "rapacious assholes") with a giant stake in Darden Restaurants, Olive Garden's parent company. They wanted Darden to liquidate all of Olive Garden's real-estate holdings and declare a one-off dividend that would net investors a billion dollars, while literally yanking the floor out from beneath Olive Garden, converting it from owner to tenant, subject to rent-shocks and other nasty surprises.

They wanted to asset-strip the company, in other words ("asset strip" is what they call it in hedge-fund land; the mafia calls it a "bust-out," famous to anyone who watched the twenty-third episode of The Sopranos):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bust_Out

Starboard didn't have enough money to force the sale, but they had recently engineered the CEO's ouster. The giant slide-deck making fun of Olive Garden's food was just a PR campaign to help it sell the bust-out by creating a narrative that they were being activists* to save this badly managed disaster of a restaurant chain.

*assholes

Starboard was bent on eviscerating Darden like a couple of entrail-maddened dogs in an elk carcass:

https://web.archive.org/web/20051220005944/http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~solan/dogsinelk/

They had forced Darden to sell off another of its holdings, Red Lobster, to a hedge-fund called Golden Gate Capital. Golden Gate flogged all of Red Lobster's real estate holdings for $2.1 billion the same day, then pissed it all away on dividends to its shareholders, including Starboard. The new landlords, a Real Estate Investment Trust, proceeded to charge so much for rent on those buildings Red Lobster just flogged that the company's net earnings immediately dropped by half.

Dayen ends his piece with these prophetic words:

Olive Garden and Red Lobster may not be destinations for hipster Internet journalists, and they have seen revenue declines amid stagnant middle-class wages and increased competition. But they are still profitable businesses. Thousands of Americans work there. Why should they be bled dry by predatory investors in the name of “shareholder value”? What of the value of worker productivity instead of the financial engineers?

Flash forward a decade. Today, Dayen is editor-in-chief of The American Prospect, one of the best sources of news about private equity looting in the world. Writing for the Prospect, Luke Goldstein picks up Dayen's story, ten years on:

https://prospect.org/economy/2024-05-22-raiding-red-lobster/

It's not pretty. Ten years of being bled out on rents and flipped from one hedge fund to another has killed Red Lobster. It just shuttered 50 restaurants and declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ten years hasn't changed much; the same kind of snark that was deployed at the news of Olive Garden's imminent demise is now being hurled at Red Lobster.

Instead of dunking on free bread-sticks, Red Lobster's grave-dancers are jeering at "Endless Shrimp," a promotional deal that works exactly how it sounds like it would work. Endless Shrimp cost the chain $11m.

Which raises a question: why did Red Lobster make this money-losing offer? Are they just good-hearted slobs? Can't they do math?

Or, you know, was it another hedge-fund, bust-out scam?

Here's a hint. The supplier who provided Red Lobster with all that shrimp is Thai Union. Thai Union also owns Red Lobster. They bought the chain from Golden Gate Capital, last seen in 2014, holding a flash-sale on all of Red Lobster's buildings, pocketing billions, and cutting Red Lobster's earnings in half.

Red Lobster rose to success – 700 restaurants nationwide at its peak – by combining no-frills dining with powerful buying power, which it used to force discounts from seafood suppliers. In response, the seafood industry consolidated through a wave of mergers, turning into a cozy cartel that could resist the buyer power of Red Lobster and other major customers.

This was facilitated by conservation efforts that limited the total volume of biomass that fishers were allowed to extract, and allocated quotas to existing companies and individual fishermen. The costs of complying with this "catch management" system were high, punishingly so for small independents, bearably so for large conglomerates.

Competition from overseas fisheries drove consolidation further, as countries in the global south were blocked from implementing their own conservation efforts. US fisheries merged further, seeking economies of scale that would let them compete, largely by shafting fishermen and other suppliers. Today's Alaskan crab fishery is dominated by a four-company cartel; in the Pacific Northwest, most fish goes through a single intermediary, Pacific Seafood.

These dominant actors entered into illegal collusive arrangements with one another to rig their markets and further immiserate their suppliers, who filed antitrust suits accusing the companies of operating a monopsony (a market with a powerful buyer, akin to a monopoly, which is a market with a powerful seller):

https://www.classaction.org/news/pacific-seafood-under-fire-for-allegedly-fixing-prices-paid-to-dungeness-crabbers-in-pacific-northwest

Golden Gate bought Red Lobster in the midst of these fish wars, promising to right its ship. As Goldstein points out, that's the same promise they made when they bought Payless shoes, just before they destroyed the company and flogged it off to Alden Capital, the hedge fund that bought and destroyed dozens of America's most beloved newspapers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/16/sociopathic-monsters/#all-the-news-thats-fit-to-print

Under Golden Gate's management, Red Lobster saw its staffing levels slashed, so diners endured longer wait times to be seated and served. Then, in 2020, they sold the company to Thai Union, the company's largest supplier (a transaction Goldstein likens to a Walmart buyout of Procter and Gamble).

Thai Union continued to bleed Red Lobster, imposing more cuts and loading it up with more debts financed by yet another private equity giant, Fortress Investment Group. That brings us to today, with Thai Union having moved a gigantic amount of its own product through a failing, debt-loaded subsidiary, even as it lobbies for deregulation of American fisheries, which would let it and its lobbying partners drain American waters of the last of its depleted fish stocks.

Dayen's 2020 must-read book Monopolized describes the way that monopolies proliferate, using the US health care industry as a case-study:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

After deregulation allowed the pharma sector to consolidate, it acquired pricing power of hospitals, who found themselves gouged to the edge of bankruptcy on drug prices. Hospitals then merged into regional monopolies, which allowed them to resist pharma pricing power – and gouge health insurance companies, who saw the price of routine care explode. So the insurance companies gobbled each other up, too, leaving most of us with two or fewer choices for health insurance – even as insurance prices skyrocketed, and our benefits shrank.

Today, Americans pay more for worse healthcare, which is delivered by health workers who get paid less and work under worse conditions. That's because, lacking a regulator to consolidate patients' interests, and strong unions to consolidate workers' interests, patients and workers are easy pickings for those consolidated links in the health supply-chain.

That's a pretty good model for understanding what's happened to Red Lobster: monopoly power and monopsony power begat more monopolies and monoposonies in the supply chain. Everything that hasn't consolidated is defenseless: diners, restaurant workers, fishermen, and the environment. We're all fucked.

Decent, no-frills family restaurant are good. Great, even. I'm not the world's greatest fan of chain restaurants, but I'm also comfortably middle-class and not struggling to afford to give my family a nice night out at a place with good food, friendly staff and reasonable prices. These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

[vanilla-voyeur]

[Image ID: A tweet by Hannah Posts Again (@HannahPosted) that says:

This entire country needs to sit down and listen to a lecture on proportionality. Killing is not a proportional response to trespassing, theft, turnstile hopping, yelling, doorbell ringing, being homeless, etc. Everyone apparently needs this explicitly told to them.

/End ID]

You'd think that devout Christians would know this, since there's literally a commandment saying not to kill.

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

#WeatherGeeks: "Science Behind Billion Dollar Disasters"

2023 set the record for the most billion dollar disasters in the United States in one calendar year. As the name suggests, a billion dollar disaster is a weather or climate disaster event with losses exceeding one billion dollars. Our next guest is the lead scientist for the National Centers for Environmental Information Billion-dollar Weather and Climate Disasters analysis. Welcome to the show Adam Smith… #WeatherGeeks

[rjzimmerman]

This diagram illustrates how marshes can adapt to rising sea levels and naturally "migrate" upland if given enough space. Credit: Julie Rossman/Audubon

Excerpt from this story from the Audubon Society:

For over 40 years, the Coastal Barrier Resources Act has been a little-known bipartisan environmental law—quietly protecting critical bird habitat, providing coastal communities with a natural buffer against storms and sea-level rise, and saving taxpayers billions of dollars, all while staying under the radar. Audubon has long been a champion of this law, and now we have reason to celebrate! Last week, President Biden signed the Bolstering Ecosystems Against Coastal Harm (BEACH) Act, updating the Coastal Barrier Resources Act and expanding its protected system of coastal areas that buffers people and birds from flooding on our coasts. 

Congress passed the BEACH Act with overwhelming bipartisan support just last month, adding nearly 300,000 acres of wetlands and beaches to the Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA) system, codifying its largest expansion since 1990. For years, Audubon has worked with a diverse coalition of partner organizations, multiple presidential administrations, and legislators on both sides of the aisle to massively expand the CBRA system, and the sweeping success of this bill is one of our most exciting accomplishments for the coast. 

Created in 1982, the CBRA protects coastal habitat and property while saving lives and federal taxpayer dollars in a distinctive way. Undeveloped beaches and coastal wetlands around our country provide vital habitat for birds and wildlife, especially in the face of climate change impacts such as sea-level rise and increased storm frequency and intensity. These coastal areas are also particularly prone to those climate impacts, endangering lives, property, and vulnerable species. The CBRA discourages development in these hazard-prone areas by removing most federal spending, including flood insurance, disaster recovery grants, and other federal expenditures on the CBRA’s system of protected areas. This market-based approach is working. A recent study demonstrates this in its finding that CBRA is highly effective at achieving its intended goals—reducing development by 85 percent compared to nearby areas, reducing flood damage by 25 percent, and adding ecologically important layers of protection to coastal areas. 

Currently, CBRA protects 3.5 million acres on the coasts of the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. These largely undeveloped areas are an ideal habitat for birds like American Oystercatchers and Piping Plovers to nest and rest well away from any human disturbance. Intact coastal beaches and wetlands like this also serve as a natural buffer for nearby communities from storms and sea-level rise. Beach dunes act as speed bumps to slow down wind and waves, and marshes act as sponges soaking up floodwaters. 

[lizardsfromspace]

This deep into his disaster of a time running Twitter and people are still reporting "Elon Musk said he'd give Wikipedia a billion dollars to change their name to DICKipedia xDDDDD" as a wacky story, Which first of all implies the sad possibility that there are people who still find his "let that sink in" shtick funny, but his questioning of Wikipedia is uh. Actually p. sinister

Like, it's easy to go "haha, he doesn't know about hosting costs!" But he. Clearly does know that hosting one of the world's top ten most visited websites costs a lot of money. He wants to sow doubt and conspiracies, and it's working, judging by his replies

Also, he's a rich guy who loves spreading misinformation, mad that Wikipedia doesn't allow it. He also is baffled by the idea he can't buy it, that it's not trying to make money

He doesn't even have any specific criticisms of Wikipedia. Jimmy Wales called him out for removing verification with very specific criticisms, and he just responded "please fix Wokipedia". Ladies and gentlemen...got 'em!!!!!1!

[collapseofindustrialcivilization]

Homo Sapiens Are Working Overtime to Join 'The Great Silence'

And if it does affect the economy, we’ll find a way to                      extract a profit from it…. Driven mostly by rising global temperatures from the continued burning of fossil fuels, extreme weather events such as typhoons, hurricanes, floods, heatwaves and drought are becoming more frequent, increasing 83% worldwide in the past 20 years (as of 2020), and the costs have increased by 800%…

[technofeudalism]

sorry, but i'm going to get a little grim here.

i have seen more dead children and dismembered bodies on social media in the last year and a half than any other period in my lifetime. Gaza has been destroyed. homelessness in the US is at an all-time high. COVID tore through virtually every community like wildfire because Joe decided we had to get back to work ASAP. there have been 107 $1 billion-dollar natural disaster events since 2020 including the most destructive wildfires in the history of Texas, California, Hawaii and New Mexico. several entire cities burned to the ground. several more were completely wiped off the map in North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and more by floods and hurricanes and tornadoes. there have been 339 shootings on K-12, college and university property since 2020. there have been 3,100+ mass shooting incidents total since 2020. outside of 2021, every year had a massive number of layoffs, especially in technology. i was one of those layoffs.

this is why people get so angry when people who ride or die for the Democratic party engage in fantasy thinking about how perfect the world is whenever someone with a blue (D) next to their name is running things. the world has been more chaotic, violent and hard to look at in the last 4 years than most of my lifetime. i know this to be true for most people. so when ideologically purist liberals start talking like this, i completely tune out and so does 99% of the public. that's why no one takes the party seriously. we're not living in the same reality.

[saywhat-politics]

For over fifty years, NOAA has tracked extreme weather events, including tornadoes, hurricanes, and droughts. The database has provided the public, media institutions, and scientists a vital way of gauging the human and economic toll of our ever-shifting climate, with its unique pool of data that other institutions don't have access to.

But on Thursday, NOAA announced that it would stop updating the database beyond 2024, "in alignment with evolving priorities, statutory mandates, and staffing changes. All of its existing data is set to be archived.

To scientists, it's a gut punch.

"The NOAA database is the gold standard we use to evaluate the costs of extreme weather," Jeff Masters, a meteorologist for Yale Climate Connections, told The Guardian. "And it's a major loss, since it comes at a time when we need to better understand how much climate change is increasing disaster losses."

Since records began in 1980, the database has registered 403 of these destructive weather and climate disasters, exceeding $2.915 trillion in costs.

Grimly, the frequency of these events has steadily escalated, the database showed. Between 1980 and 2024, there were nine billion-dollar disasters each year on average. But in the past five years, CNN notes, the annual average has spiked to 24.

[solxamber]

Mission: Emotionally Compromised || Jamil Viper

Jamil’s greatest failure as a spy? Falling head over heels for the person he was meant to destroy.

this one is for @chocolatebearstrawberry who made the divider i use here!! i love you <3

As the CEO of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world, you’ve always prided yourself on two things: your razor-sharp business acumen and your ability to sniff out deception from a mile away.

Your competitors, on the other hand, have prided themselves on one thing: trying (and failing) to steal your technology.

For years, you’ve played a high-stakes game of corporate cat and mouse, batting away industrial spies like a bored housecat knocking expensive wine glasses off the counter. You’ve watched billion-dollar corporations sink millions into elaborate heists, only for their agents to fail spectacularly. Frankly, it's getting a little embarrassing for them.

But now, thanks to the untimely departure of your longtime secretary (who swears their early retirement has nothing to do with being bribed into luxury exile), you suddenly have a vacancy.

And judging by the pile of applicants currently waiting in the lobby, every single one of them is a spy.

The Parade of Intelligence Failures™:

First up is Agent Steve (probably not his real name), whose résumé is written in Comic Sans and lists "lockpicking" under "special skills." When you ask him about his previous administrative experience, he stares at you blankly for three full seconds before blurting out, "I can type… very fast?"

Next is Ms. Definitely-Not-Wearing-a-Wire, who keeps touching her ear like she’s communicating with someone. Midway through the interview, you distinctly hear a whisper from her earpiece: "Ask about the security systems."

Then there’s Tech Bro #5, who brings a USB drive and, while maintaining full eye contact with you, tries to plug it into your computer. Your computer. The one sitting on your desk. Right in front of you.

By the time Mr. Fake-ID Falls Out of His Wallet stumbles in, you’re fighting the overwhelming urge to launch yourself out the nearest window.

This is getting pathetic.

You’ve sat through twenty interviews of barely competent corporate espionage, and you’re ready to set up a PowerPoint presentation titled, "How To Spy Without Immediately Getting Caught: A Workshop For Morons."

Do they think you built a billion-dollar empire by being stupid? Do they think your years of fending off corporate espionage haven’t honed your bullshit detector into a finely tuned death laser?

You start debating whether to just hire a golden retriever and call it a day—at least dogs have loyalty.

And then he walks in.

Enter: Jamil Viper.

The moment he steps into your office, you know this one is different.

For one thing, his résumé isn’t riddled with typos or hilariously obvious red flags. His credentials? Flawless. His demeanor? Polished and professional, with just the right amount of charm—not so much that it feels like he’s trying to butter you up, but just enough that you actually want to keep talking to him.

And his entrance exam? He aces it. Perfectly.

Too perfectly.

There is no way in hell that someone this competent just happens to be looking for a secretary position. You know he’s a spy.

But unlike the human disasters before him, Jamil Viper is actually good at his job.

And if someone is going to try and infiltrate your company, wouldn’t you rather it be someone who at least has the decency to be competent about it?

You lean back in your chair, watching him carefully as he sits across from you, his expression unreadable. You wonder how many layers of deception he’s hiding behind that composed facade.

Slowly, a smile creeps onto your lips.

This could be fun.

Because if Jamil Viper thinks he’s going to outmaneuver you, then clearly, no one has warned him that you love playing with fire.

You slide the contract across the desk, extending your hand.

"Congratulations, Mr. Viper," you say, amusement dancing in your voice. "Welcome to the company."

His fingers are warm when they clasp yours in a firm shake. His gaze, sharp and assessing, lingers for just a second too long.

And just like that, you hire a spy to be your personal assistant.

This is either the smartest or the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.

And honestly? You can’t wait to find out which.

Jamil has never questioned his assignments before. His role has always been straightforward—he is given a task, he completes it with precision, and he collects his payment. There is no room for personal involvement, no need for unnecessary complications.

This particular job should have been no different. His directive was clear: infiltrate one of the most formidable tech companies in the industry, assume the role of a secretary, gain the CEO’s trust, retrieve the necessary proprietary data, and exit without raising suspicion.

A simple, methodical process. He estimated it would take no more than a month, perhaps two if the CEO proved particularly cautious.

However, the moment he steps into your office, Jamil recognizes that this assignment will not proceed according to the standard operational model.

You are perceptive. That much is clear from the outset. Your interview questions are sharp, carefully constructed to gauge more than just his administrative skills. You are watching him—not just listening, but studying, assessing. There is a calculating glint in your eyes that suggests you have already categorized him in some way, and he does not yet know whether that categorization is in his favor.

Then comes the moment that shifts the trajectory of his expectations entirely.

You lean back in your chair, fingers steepled as you regard him with an almost amused expression. "So, Mr. Viper," you say, voice laced with something close to mischief, "are you a spy?"

The question is absurd in its directness, yet the casual way you pose it makes it clear that you are not expecting a confession—you are testing him. A lesser operative might have faltered, might have hesitated for the fraction of a second that would betray uncertainty. Jamil, however, meets your gaze evenly, offering a measured smile.

"If I were," he replies smoothly, "would I admit it?"

You laugh—not a dismissive scoff, but an actual, entertained laugh, as if you are thoroughly enjoying this game. And that is what makes Jamil's stomach twist slightly. Because he is beginning to suspect that you already know.

The contract slides across the desk, a silent challenge. He watches as you extend your hand, the motion deliberate, expectant.

He has been in the industry long enough to recognize a trap when he sees one. And yet, despite every internal alarm warning him to be cautious, he shakes your hand.

He has taken on countless assignments in his career, but this time is different.

This time, he is not just infiltrating a company. He is stepping into a game.

And for the first time in his life, Jamil wonders if he is the one being played.

Jamil Viper is, quite frankly, the best thing that has ever happened to you.

You have run this company for years, clawed your way to the top with sheer wit and willpower, and in all that time, you have never known peace. Your life has been a never-ending cycle of fires to put out, idiotic employees making mistakes, and backstabbing business partners who think “compromise” means “stealing your ideas and pretending it was a collaborative effort.”

But then Jamil arrives.

Jamil, with his quiet efficiency and terrifying competence. Jamil, who doesn’t ask you to repeat yourself because he actually listens the first time. Jamil, who doesn’t need reminders because he remembers everything, down to how you like your coffee and which pens mysteriously go missing when your CFO visits.

For the first time in your career, you are leaving work at a reasonable hour.

You actually saw the sunset yesterday. The sunset. Do you know how long it’s been since you’ve seen anything but the dim glow of your office lights at midnight? You don’t. You’re afraid to check.

Your skin? Clear.

Your inbox? Organized.

Your sleep schedule? Still questionable, but at least now it’s due to personal choices and not business emergencies.

You are so overcome with gratitude that you nearly burst into tears when you realize you no longer have to threaten your vendors personally because Jamil handles it all with a few well-placed emails.

He is better than any assistant you have ever had. Possibly better than some of your business partners. Hell, at this rate, you wouldn't be surprised if he could run the company better than you.

Which is exactly why you can’t afford to let him go.

You know why he’s here. You are not naïve. He is undoubtedly a spy, sent to steal your technology, your secrets, your life's work. But the problem is that he is too good. You cannot afford to lose him.

So, you make a decision.

You will convert him to your side.

It’s not just about protecting your company anymore. No, this has become personal. Jamil Viper is yours now. He just doesn’t know it yet.

The numbers didn’t make sense.

You were good at numbers. Numbers were the only thing in this world that didn’t lie. Numbers were solid, unyielding, completely immune to human deception. And yet.

Your CFO had to be skimming. You’d suspected it for a while—no one bought that many first-class flights for “business conferences” that didn’t exist—but now that you finally had the time to actually dig into the company’s finances, you could feel it in your bones. There was money missing. Not a lot at once, just enough that a lazier CEO wouldn’t notice.

But you noticed. And now, sitting in your dark office, practically feral with frustration, you were going to find it.

Jamil peeks into your office, and you see his brows furrow in irritation. He steps inside without invitation, eyes flicking to your desk, to the stacks of papers, to you, hunched over and pulling at your hair like a mad scientist on the brink of discovery.

“…Why are you still here?” His voice is level, but you detect the judgment beneath it. “I made sure your schedule was clear. You should have been home by five.”

You make a vague, distressed sound—somewhere between a whimper and the dying gasp of an overworked CEO. “I have a mouse to hunt,” you say, still frantically flipping through documents. “A very cunning mouse.”

Jamil, to his credit, does not roll his eyes. He does, however, step forward and pluck the file from your grasp before you can protest. His sharp eyes scan the pages, his fingers flipping through them with practiced ease.

You watch as his expression shifts into something thoughtful, his lips pursing slightly, his brows furrowing in deep concentration. You can see his mind working.

Jamil is infuriatingly intelligent. He always has been. You knew it the moment he walked into your office for his interview and answered every question with precision so perfect it was almost suspicious.

But this—this is something else. His eyes flick from one line to another, scanning, calculating, searching.

And then it hits you.

His hair.

His stupidly perfect, annoyingly silky, meticulously styled hair.

The way it’s always just slightly different every day. Some days it’s neater, tied back with care. Some days it’s looser, like he didn’t have time to properly tame it. Some days it’s so perfect it looks effortless, which means it probably took him ages to get it like that.

Your brain connects the dots.

Your CFO’s expenses had fluctuations that made no sense at first glance. But what if—what if the embezzlement wasn’t consistent? What if he only siphoned money on certain days—days when he needed to make the numbers look normal, like a fluctuation in operational costs?

Like how Jamil’s hair was slightly different depending on how rushed he was in the morning.

Your eyes widen. You grab Jamil’s arm.

“It’s the payroll processing days,” you say, the revelation clicking together. “The numbers don’t match on payroll weeks because he’s hiding them within the irregular adjustments! He’s only stealing when payroll is being processed because that’s when the accounts fluctuate naturally.”

Jamil blinks, then looks back at the files, and you see it—the exact moment he finds the irregularity, the way his eyes sharpen, the way the corner of his lips twitch in mild irritation.

“…Huh,” he says, flipping back to double-check.

You beam at him. “Jamil, I could kiss you.”

He does not react, but his ears turn slightly red. He hands the file back. “Don’t. Just fire your CFO.”

“Oh, I will.” You grin, stretching your arms behind your head. “And then I’m going to have so much fun ruining his career.”

Jamil gives you a look. You pretend not to see it.

Jamil has worked for a lot of powerful people before. He’s seen how they act—detached, ruthless, calculating. People who don’t say thank you unless there’s an audience, people who treat loyalty as a transaction rather than a virtue, people who see their employees as numbers on a spreadsheet rather than human beings.

And then there’s you.

You, who smile at every single employee as if they’re the most interesting person in the world.

You, who face betrayals with an easy grin, as if it’s just another puzzle to solve.

You, who refuse to be jaded, as if the sheer weight of your responsibilities isn’t trying to crush you every single day.

Jamil has worked as a secretary before, long enough to know that this is not normal. It’s not normal for a CEO to approve leave requests without question, to cover all medical expenses without a fight, to sit down at the employee cafeteria and listen to people’s grievances like a normal person.

It’s definitely not normal for you to turn to him at the end of a long, grueling day—after uncovering a massive embezzlement scandal in your own company—and say, “Let’s get dinner. My treat.”

Jamil expects a high-end restaurant. The kind of place where the portions are offensively small, the food is questionably pretentious, and the bill alone could sustain an entire household for a month. The kind of place where people like you—people with power, people with money—go to flaunt their superiority.

Instead, you take him to a tiny, hole-in-the-wall restaurant run by an elderly couple who clearly know you on a first-name basis.

“Ah, welcome back!” the old woman greets you warmly, eyes flicking to Jamil with curiosity. “And who’s this? A date?”

Jamil chokes on air.

You laugh—loudly—and wave off the comment. “Nah, just my secretary! He helped me catch a mouse today.”

Jamil doesn’t bother correcting you.

The menu is scrawled in barely legible handwriting on a whiteboard near the counter. You order the greasiest, most artery-clogging meal he’s ever seen in his life. Jamil orders something safer, something that won’t take five years off his lifespan.

When the food arrives, you practically vibrate in your seat, taking a bite with the enthusiasm of a child eating their first piece of candy.

Jamil stares at you in mild horror. “You eat this every day?”

You grin, already halfway through your meal. “Yeah.”

Jamil doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

But he eats. He eats, and he listens to you ramble about ridiculous workplace rumors, and he watches you laugh so hard you snort when you make a terrible joke.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, Jamil finds himself laughing too.

Not because your joke is funny—because it isn’t. It’s awful, actually.

But maybe because your eyes shine too brightly in the dim light.

Maybe because you seem so human right now, so painfully, vividly human.

Maybe because he knows he’ll have to leave you behind soon, and yet here he is, eating unhealthy food and smiling at you.

Jamil has never questioned his jobs before. He gets paid, he gets the work done. Simple.

So why does it feel so different this time?

Jamil has worked for some eccentric people before. Billionaires with more money than sense, CEOs who thought meditation on top of a glass skyscraper would give them divine insight, a director who once insisted that his morning coffee had to be stirred exactly 72 times counterclockwise or the stock market would crash. He’s seen it all. Or so he thought.

And then there was you.

You were a genius, of course. No one could deny that. You had single-handedly revolutionized an entire industry and kept your technology locked down so tightly that even the best corporate spies had walked away empty-handed.

But you were also—how to put this nicely?—completely, utterly unhinged. Eccentric was too mild a word. You were like a mad scientist and a particularly stubborn golden retriever had been fused together in a tragic yet strangely effective laboratory accident.

Jamil has had a front-row seat to your absurdity for months now, but today? Today takes the cake.

He enters the office expecting chaos, but he still isn't prepared to see a bouncy castle taking up the center of the room. It is massive. Garish. A primary-colored monstrosity that clashes violently with the sleek, modern aesthetic of your office. It is also, for some reason, fully inflated.

Jamil watches as you bounce in deep concentration, your tie undone, your shoes discarded somewhere in the corner. Your movements are precise, like each jump is a carefully calibrated equation.

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dare I ask?”

You pause mid-bounce, floating for a second in the air like some kind of enlightened acrobat before landing gracefully and turning to him with a grin. “I needed to think.”

“…So naturally, you brought a bouncy castle.”

“Of course.” You wave a hand, as if this should be obvious. “Sometimes, when my brain gets stuck, I just need a little kinetic stimulation. You know, shake up the neurons.” You jump again, flailing slightly before catching yourself. “It’s like—have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue, and then you do something completely different and suddenly it comes to you? Same concept. Except instead of drinking water or taking a walk, I jump on an inflatable castle like a responsible adult.”

Jamil stares. His headache is already forming. “You’re going to break your neck.”

“Nope! Tested the weight limits. We’re good.” You bounce again, then stop abruptly, eyes widening. Your entire posture shifts, shoulders straightening, expression sharpening. You scramble off the castle, grab a nearby notebook, and start writing furiously.

Jamil watches, baffled, as you tear through an entire page with equations and diagrams, the kind of thing that would take a normal person weeks to conceptualize. And then you stop, beaming like a kid who just cracked open a piñata full of gold.

“I GOT IT,” you declare, spinning the notebook around as if Jamil has the clearance—or the desire—to understand whatever ridiculous breakthrough you just had. “This is going to make everything ten times more efficient! Jamil, this is genius.”

Jamil, who has not slept properly in three days because of this mission, who has already accepted that this job is going to either kill him or make him reconsider every life decision he has ever made, just sighs. “Great. So was the bouncy castle necessary?”

You turn back to him, eyes bright, smile wider than he’s ever seen. “Absolutely.”

And the worst part? The part that truly makes him question if he’s losing his mind?

He almost believes you.

Meetings like this made you wonder if you could get away with legally replacing the entire board with three possums in a trench coat. These relics in overpriced suits had two working brain cells between them, and one was currently occupied with nursing last night’s hangover.

They thought that their decades of mismanaging money somehow gave them wisdom. You would almost find it impressive, the way they clung to their illusion of relevance, if it weren’t so unbearably tedious.

You could fire them all, of course. You could clear this room in five minutes, clean house with a snap of your fingers, but you had held back out of sheer pity. They were close to retirement—one foot in the grave and the other on a luxury cruise.

Let them ride out their last few years clutching their outdated business strategies and egos. It wasn’t like they actually did anything.

But today? Today, you were at your limit.

Jamil was standing behind you, stone-faced, but you could tell he wanted to be anywhere else. His exhaustion mirrored your own. You’d been sitting here for an hour while they droned on about numbers they clearly didn’t understand.

Internally, you begged for something—anything—to spontaneously combust just so you’d have an excuse to leave. A small fire? A sudden, mysterious blackout? A divine intervention from the heavens themselves?

And then, as if the universe had heard you and decided to throw you a different kind of entertainment, one of them made a mistake. A grave mistake.

“—not that it matters to someone like you,” one of the old fossils sneered, voice soaked in condescension. “You just sit there and look pretty. Maybe that’s why you keep your secretary around—eye candy to brighten your day, hm?”

Silence.

Jamil felt the shift before he saw it. The room, which had been filled with the usual underhanded comments and the shuffling of papers, went utterly still. The air thickened, tension snapping tight like a bowstring.

You moved, slow and deliberate, sitting up from your languid position and resting your elbows on the table. Then, with a sharp crack that echoed through the room, you slammed your hand against the polished wood. Jamil was pretty sure he saw the surface splinter.

And then, you smiled.

“Say,” you said, your voice honey-sweet, “how’s your son’s wedding prep going?”

The man blinked, startled by the sudden shift in topic. “Uh—fine?”

“That’s wonderful.” You laced your fingers together, tilting your head like a benevolent ruler addressing a particularly stupid peasant. “I hope he has a strong savings account. And you, too, for that matter.”

His confusion deepened. “Why would—?”

“Because as of right now, every single one of you is fired.”

The silence that followed was deafening.

You stood, straightening your sleeves, your expression as calm as if you’d just commented on the weather. The rest of the board gaped at you, struggling to process what had just happened.

“Pack your things,” you continued, tone still sickeningly pleasant. “Security will escort you out. Your pensions will remain untouched—I’m not a monster—but your presence is no longer required. Effective immediately.”

Then, without waiting for a response, you turned on your heel and strolled out of the room.

Jamil took a moment to savor the stunned expressions, the way the old man who had made the comment looked like he was trying to compute his own downfall in real time. He had seen you be cunning, eccentric, absurd, even, but this was the first time he had seen you wield your power properly. It was—

Well.

He wasn’t about to admit it was impressive.

Or flattering.

Not even as he followed you out the door, suppressing the smallest, most insufferable urge to smile.

You’re good at reading people. That’s what makes you such a good CEO. You can tell when a business partner is about to backstab you. You can spot a bad deal from a mile away. You figured out your CFO was embezzling money based on a hunch and a particularly sleepless night.

So why the hell can’t you figure out what’s going on with Jamil right now?

Your day is over. Your work is done. You’re walking out of the building, feeling suspiciously well-rested for once, because Jamil is the best damn secretary you’ve ever had.

And there he is.

Standing near the exit, very much still here, despite having clocked out hours ago.

You stop. Blink. “Jamil? What are you doing here?”

He startles like you caught him committing a felony.

Which, honestly, makes you even more confused.

Jamil is the picture of composure in any situation. He could talk his way out of a hostage negotiation, probably. He could charm a boardroom full of old, corporate sharks into agreeing with his terms.

And yet, right now, he looks like he wants to evaporate.

You tilt your head. “What’s up? You good?”

Jamil scowls like you’ve offended his ancestors. And then, without meeting your gaze, he thrusts a box at you.

"Eat properly," he grumbles. "Heaven knows you can afford it."

And then he turns on his heel and almost sprints out of the building.

You stare at his retreating figure. Then you stare at the box in your hands.

What just happened.

You consider yourself a genius. You built an empire with your own two hands. You have patents worth billions. You have business rivals who would kill to know what goes on in your head.

And yet, this one interaction has you completely, utterly lost.

It’s only when you get home that you actually open the box.

Inside is a clearly homemade meal. Balanced, nutritious, and suspiciously catered to your exact tastes.

You crouch down. Laugh a little.

And then you pull out your phone.

You: thank you <3

Meanwhile, In Jamil’s car:

He hears the message notification. Opens it. Sees your text.

And immediately slams his forehead into the steering wheel.

The honk that follows is so obnoxiously loud that a street cat outside lets out an ungodly scream and scrambles away like it just witnessed a murder.

Jamil exhales sharply. He grips the wheel like it personally wronged him.

You’re going to be the death of him.

Jamil does not get sick.

It is a fact as ironclad as his ability to keep a secret, as certain as the sun rising in the east and setting behind your ridiculous office where you concoct new ways to stress him out.

Jamil does not get sick because sickness is a weakness—an opening in his otherwise airtight, bulletproof existence.

And yet.

Here he is.

Dying. Absolutely, irredeemably, spectacularly dying.

His body betrays him completely, weighed down by a fever that could probably fry an egg on his forehead. Every muscle aches as if he has been tossed into a meat grinder, his throat is raw, and his head is a battlefield of pain and regret.

He barely manages to lift his phone and call you, the only person who needs to know why he’s breaking protocol and skipping work for the first time in his entire life.

The phone rings. Once. Twice.

And then—

“Jamil! What’s up?”

Too loud. Why are you always so loud? He winces, nearly drops his phone on his face.

“I… I can’t come in today.” His voice is hoarse, unrecognizable. Disgusting. He clears his throat, which only makes it worse. “I’m sick.”

There is a long, stunned silence.

Then, very, very slowly—

“You’re what?”

Jamil closes his eyes. He does not have the strength for this conversation.

“Sick,” he repeats, barely suppressing the urge to just fade out of existence right then and there.

Another pause. Then, in a tone that is so soft he almost doesn’t recognize it coming from you—

“…Oh.”

Something about the way you say it makes his stomach twist—though that could also be the fever.

“Take care of yourself, okay?” you say, genuinely concerned. “Rest, drink water, and if you need anything—”

He does not hear the rest.

Because he blacks out.

Jamil is sick.

Jamil, your unshakable, hyper-competent, borderline immortal assistant—the man who somehow pulls miracles out of thin air while looking vaguely unimpressed—is sick.

You expected betrayals, corporate espionage, elaborate counter-strategies in your ongoing war to get him on your side.

You did not expect this.

And worse—he sounded awful.

Not just tired. Not just mildly inconvenienced.

You sit at your desk for approximately three minutes, trying to convince yourself that it’s fine, that Jamil is a grown man who can take care of himself.

Then you Google “how to care for a sick employee” and make the deeply logical decision to immediately drop everything and go check on him yourself.

Which is how you end up outside his apartment, ringing the doorbell like a maniac.

There is no response.

You ring again. And again.

Nothing.

A small, horrible thought creeps in. What if he passed out? What if he hit his head? What if he—

Just as you're about to kick down the door in a move that would absolutely get you arrested, it creaks open.

And Jamil is standing there.

Barely.

He looks terrible.

His usual sharp, careful composure? Gone. His hair is an absolute wreck, his eyes are dazed, and his entire body is actively betraying him by swaying on his feet like a tragic willow in a storm.

You are horrified.

“Oh my god,” you whisper, stepping forward before he can literally collapse. “Jamil, you look—”

Like death. Like the very concept of suffering incarnate.

But you do not say this out loud, because you are a good person.

Instead, you step into his space and grab him before he keels over.

“You’re burning up,” you mutter, steadying him. “When was the last time you ate?”

Jamil blinks at you very slowly, like his brain is buffering at dial-up speeds.

“…Food?”

That is not an answer.

You curse under your breath and haul him back inside, which is a feat of great strength because he is all lean muscle and fever deadweight.

How did this happen? Why did this happen? Who let this happen?

Oh. Right. Him.

Jamil is going to die.

Not from the fever, no. That would be merciful.

He is going to die from sheer embarrassment because you—his boss, his greatest headache, his most infuriating problem—are here, in his apartment, fussing over him like some kind of divine punishment.

He barely registers you pulling out a thermometer and shoving it into his mouth with all the grace of someone who has never done this before.

The numbers blink back at you ominously.

“You’re burning up,” you mutter. “Okay, I’m ordering soup. And you are not moving until you eat something.”

Jamil tries to protest. He does.

But then you press a cool towel against his forehead, and—

Oh.

Oh, that is nice.

His body betrays him once again by relaxing into your touch.

By the time the soup arrives, he is too weak to even lift the spoon properly.

So you—without hesitation, without a single ounce of normal human shame—just feed him.

Like a child.

Like he is some helpless, pathetic creature.

Which, okay, maybe right now, he is.

But still. This is humiliating.

It is also the best soup he has ever had in his life.

Jamil finally falls back asleep.

And you sit there, staring at his peaceful, fever-flushed face, wondering how the hell this became your life.

You were supposed to be running a company, not playing nurse to your best-paid spy.

You should not care this much.

And yet.

You check his temperature again. Still high, but better.

You sigh, raking a hand through your hair, and grab your phone.

“Okay,” you mutter into the receiver, pacing the room. “But what do I do if he wakes up and refuses to rest?”

A pause.

Your voice drops, quieter. “Yeah, I know. I just don’t want him to push himself again.”

Behind you, Jamil shifts.

You do not notice.

But he notices you.

Your hair is mussed, your usual sharp, teasing grin replaced with something softer.

You look worried. For him.

Jamil stares, something twisting in his chest.

Oh.

Oh, he is so incredibly doomed.

You always knew Jamil was a spy. That much was obvious.

The way he answered every question perfectly in his interview? Suspicious.

The way he executed his tasks with military precision? Suspicious.

The way he didn’t try to subtly flirt with you or brown-nose like all the other incompetent spies before him? Extremely suspicious.

But he was competent. So stupidly, ridiculously competent. And you’d rather keep an enemy that made your life easier than deal with another incompetent fool.

Besides, you like playing with fire. So you decided to see how far you could push him.

So tonight, you left your office unlocked. Oh no. What a terrible mistake. If only someone didn’t sneak in and steal your files.

And to make things more interesting, you left some semi-important files open on your computer. Documents that looked serious enough to be tempting but wouldn’t actually do much damage if leaked.

Right before you left, you made sure to sigh dramatically in front of Jamil and say, “Ugh, these files have been keeping me up at night. I sure hope they don’t get leaked or anything.”

Then, you went to your surveillance setup, made yourself some popcorn, and watched.

Because of course Jamil was going to take the bait.

And sure enough, there he was.

You watch as he sits down at your desk. Silent. Focused. The very picture of efficiency.

You lean forward as he navigates to the files. Click. Click. Scroll. His fingers hover over the copy button.

And then—

He just… stops.

Your eyebrows shoot up. Oh?

Jamil stares at the screen like it personally insulted his honor. His fingers twitch over the keyboard, hesitating.

Your interest piques. He should’ve copied them by now. He’s supposed to be a professional, isn’t he?

He clicks out of the important files.

Your jaw nearly drops. What.

He clicks out. He clicks out. He actively chooses not to take anything of worth.

Instead, you watch as he scrolls past all the confidential reports—

—bypasses all the juicy, corporate secrets—

—ignores all the schematics—

—and copies a single folder labeled “raccoons_for_a_rainy_day.zip.”

You almost choke on your popcorn.

Jamil pauses. Stares at the screen for a long, long moment.

Then, as if committing a terrible crime, he ejects the USB, tucks it away, and swiftly leaves your office.

You sit there, stunned.

Because out of everything in your company’s database, out of all the valuable information he could’ve stolen—

He took your emergency raccoon meme collection.

You blink. Once. Twice.

And then, slowly, a grin spreads across your face.

Oh. Oh, this is delightful.

You knew you were converting him to your side, but this? This is proof.

Jamil, the competent, efficient, dangerously intelligent spy, had a perfect chance to complete his mission. And instead of betraying you, he chose to betray his employer instead.

For you.

How flattering.

You had dealt with a lot of strange things in your life. A lot. But this? This was definitely one of the stupidest.

Your old secretary—the one who took a bribe and fled like a rat from a sinking ship—was currently sitting in front of you, begging for her job back. Why? Who the hell knew. You had been certain that the bribe she took would have lasted her a few years, maybe even bought her a cute little vacation somewhere far away, but apparently, money couldn’t buy wisdom. Or, in her case, common sense.

You leaned back in your chair, fingers steepled together, watching her ramble through increasingly desperate justifications. I’ve changed. I’ve grown. I’ve learned from my mistakes. You doubted it.

Jamil stood beside you, completely unreadable, but you knew him well enough by now to recognize the signs of his barely contained fury. His shoulders were stiff, his posture rigid, and—most damning of all—his fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

Oh, interesting.

Obviously, you weren’t rehiring her. She wasn’t even ten percent as competent as Jamil, and unlike her, Jamil wasn’t stupid enough to take a bribe when you were the one offering him far more than money. But this? This was a perfect opportunity to test something.

So you sighed, long and dramatic, before rubbing your temples as if this decision physically pained you. “I’ll consider it,” you said finally. “I’ll call you back once I’ve made my decision.”

Her face lit up, all eager gratitude, and she left the office with a bounce in her step.

The moment the door clicked shut behind her, you stood, intending to grab a file from your cabinet—but you didn’t get far.

Because Jamil blocked your path.

You blinked at him, more amused than anything, but your amusement flickered into something softer when you saw his face.

He looked wrecked.

Not in an angry way, not even in a controlled, simmering fury. No—this was something else entirely. His eyes searched yours like he was trying to find some sort of answer, his breath slightly uneven, his expression utterly betrayed. He looked like you had punched him in the gut.

You had seen Jamil irritated, seen him exasperated, seen him indulge in rare moments of smugness when his plans went exactly as intended. But this? This raw emotion spilling out of him like a dam breaking—this was new. And you couldn’t stop the way your heartbeat stuttered at the sight.

“Why?” His voice came out hoarse, like he barely trusted himself to speak. “Why would you… Why would you even consider hiring her back?”

You tilted your head, keeping your voice light. “Why does it bother you so much?”

Jamil’s mouth opened—then snapped shut. You could practically see his thoughts racing, running too fast for him to catch up, but something cracked inside of him, because once he started speaking, he couldn’t stop.

“Did I mess up?” he demanded, voice sharper than he probably intended. “Was I not good enough? Did I do something wrong? Why would you—” He cut himself off, exhaling shakily, his hands twitching at his sides like he desperately wanted to reach for you. “You know she isn’t competent. You know she isn’t better than me.”

You hummed, tilting your head in faux thoughtfulness. “Of course, I’ll give you a different position,” you mused. “No need to worry about job security.”

Jamil broke.

Before you could even register the movement, he grabbed you.

His hands found your face, his fingers curling against your skin like he needed to ground himself, like he needed to prove something—and then, he kissed you.

It wasn’t careful. It wasn’t polite. It was desperate, burning with frustration and something deeper, something so much more vulnerable than you had ever expected from him.

And then, hypothesis proven, you kissed him back.

For a moment, you simply blinked.

Jamil pulls away like he just touched something scalding, his breath uneven, his eyes wide with something close to terror. You watch as realization sets in—his own actions hitting him all at once, like a dam finally bursting and drowning him in the consequences of his own emotions.

“I—” His voice is hoarse, almost shaky, but he’s trying to regain control, trying to salvage something, anything. “I’m not who you think I am.” He says it like a confession, like a last-ditch effort to make you see reason, to make you step back and realize that you shouldn’t want him, that you shouldn’t choose him. “I was hired to—”

“My dear, sweet spy,” you interrupt, voice dripping with amused affection, “won’t you be mine?”

Jamil freezes.

You can see the exact second it dawns on him. The way his expression shifts from confused horror to pure, unfiltered disbelief. You knew. You always knew. Of course you did. He should’ve realized it sooner. You were too sharp, too perceptive, too you to have been in the dark about something so crucial.

And yet, here you were. Choosing him anyway.

His lips twitch. His shoulders shake. And then, he laughs.

Not a small chuckle, not a bitter scoff, but a real laugh, something rare and unguarded, something so genuinely light that it catches even him off guard. He laughs so hard that he nearly doubles over, his forehead dropping against yours as he exhales shakily, trying to regain some semblance of composure.

You feel his breath ghost against your skin, feel the warmth of him so close, and yet, there is no hesitation anymore, no careful, measured distance.

He shakes his head, still breathless from laughing, and when he finally meets your gaze, his expression is something unreadable, something painfully soft.

And this time, when he kisses you, there’s no fear left.

“…Fine,” he murmurs, his voice quieter now, more vulnerable than you’ve ever heard it. “I’m yours.”

You wake up to the warmth of an arm draped over your waist, the steady rise and fall of a familiar chest behind you. It’s a rare thing—to wake before Jamil. He’s always been the early riser between you, slipping out of bed before the sun has even had the chance to settle into the sky. But today, for the first time in two years, you’re the one watching him sleep.

Two years since his terrified confession. Two years since you pulled him into the kind of love neither of you had ever expected to find. Two years of whispered promises, stolen kisses, and a loyalty that runs deeper than any mission, deeper than any past betrayal.

The early morning light filters in through the curtains, soft and golden, catching on the matching rings on your fingers. A quiet proof of what you’ve built together. The sight makes something tender settle in your chest, and you press a kiss to his forehead, gentle and lingering.

Jamil stirs, brow furrowing for just a moment before he instinctively pulls you closer, his grip tightening around your waist. He buries his face into the crook of your neck, voice thick with sleep as he murmurs, “Why’re you awake so early…?”

You smile, carding your fingers through his hair as you whisper, “Go back to sleep.”

And as the warmth of him lulls you back into slumber, a thought drifts lazily through your mind—

"You sleep too," he grumbles, but it’s lazy, half-hearted. You can already feel his breath evening out, his body relaxing against yours once more. You keep stroking his hair, slow and rhythmic, feeling the last bits of tension melt from his frame.

Maybe playing with fire was the smartest move you ever made.

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