Santo cielo, 10M was a lot. She was so happy with her 1M. Gosh, now she felt so stupid.
“You definitely post it.”
“Okay, but you have to follow me. Don’t think I didn’t notice you haven’t followed me back.”
Sofia shrugged. “Pride.”
Ilias shook his head, smirking. “Whatever you want to call it. Should I say something in the caption?”
“Maybe just a heart emoji next to my tag?”
Ilias nodded. And as she followed him, the tag arrived.
As she looked at it again, she believed they could have fooled someone into thinking they were in love. Well, they were about to fool the entire world. So, it better work.
13
ILIAS
Energía Bacana – Sebastian Yatra
“What’s the problem now?”Ilias answered Ghita’s call from the car, dread already coiling in his chest like a storm surge.
He’d told his cousin to call only if it was urgent. And fuck him, he couldn’t go one day without a new disaster.
The legacy his father had left him might’ve been a brilliant idea on paper, but in practice, it was a logistical and financial nightmare. His dad had had the vision, sure, but zero business sense. And now Ilias was left to clean up the mess. He’d already poured too much of his own money into Azul, and on days like this one, he wondered if he was just throwing cash into a fire.
“Someone broke into the container last night. The one where we keep all the surfboards—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence…” he groaned, steering the car down toward the port where he was meeting Sofia.
“They came prepared.” Ghita sighed. “I’ll send you the photos.”
“Do we have footage?” he asked sharply. “I didn’t blow thousands of dirhams on security for it to fail.”
“I’ll send those too. But before the feed cuts, it’s blurry. Not much to see.”
She sounded as gutted as he felt.
“Fine. Email me everything. I’ll forward it to the lawyers. I’ll break the news to Amira. Don’t worry about that.”
“Okay. I already spoke with the police. They said they’ll do their best.”
He let out a long breath, pressing his palms into his eyes once he had parked.
“Thanks, Ghita. I’ll add something extra to your paycheck this month.”
“There’s no need—”
“You’re doing more than I ever expected. Let me do this, at least.”
A small silence, then her voice softened. “You’re the best boss in the world, you know that?”
“Now go file the report, and catch some waves. Seriously.”
She chuckled before hanging up.
Still parked, Ilias fired off a quick message to his sister with the bad news. His mother had made it pretty clear that she didn’t want anything to do with Azul, so he refrained from bringing it to the group chat.
