My Milf Conqueror System novel Chapter 74

Chapter 74: The Interrogation And The Perfect Lie

Monday, 11:00 AM. The Vanguard IT Department.

The IT department on the 40th floor was usually a quiet, heavily air-conditioned sanctuary of humming servers and introverted engineers. Today, it felt like a bunker bracing for an artillery strike.

I stood behind the Chief Technology Officer, a nervous man named Greg who was sweating profusely through his dress shirt. He was typing furiously at his terminal, setting up the guest credentials for Evelyn Cross and her team of federal agents.

"I’m giving them read-only access to the primary trading logs and the executive email archives for the last fiscal quarter, just like the preservation order demanded," Greg said, his voice shaking slightly. He looked up at me, clearly terrified of the new, twenty-something Managing Partner who had seemingly appeared out of thin air. "Mr. Hart, if they run a deep forensic sweep, they’re going to see the encrypted traffic spikes from the sub-basement."

"They won’t see the sub-basement, Greg," I said, my voice calm, projecting the passive Authority aura to keep him from completely falling apart. "Because the sub-basement doesn’t exist on the primary network. Does it?"

"N-no, sir," Greg stammered. "Mr. Thorne had it physically air-gapped from the main grid. But the power draw... the thermal output... if they look at the utility bills—"

"I’ll handle the utility bills," I said, cutting him off. "Just give them the access they asked for. Nothing more, nothing less. If they ask for a specific file, you provide it. If they ask a question, you say, ’I don’t know, I’ll have to check with legal.’ Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

I left the IT department and took the stairs down to the 39th floor, finding an empty, soundproofed meeting room. I locked the door, pulled the blinds shut, and pulled out my encrypted phone.

I dialed Nia.

"Tell me you’re not calling from the Vanguard network," Nia answered immediately, her voice tight with stress.

"I’m on the burner," I said. "The SEC is here, Nia. Evelyn Cross, Director of Enforcement. She’s setting up a war room on the 50th floor."

I heard Nia curse softly under her breath. "The Aegis Mining deal. I told you it was too big, Jake. I told you it would trigger alarms."

"It was a calculated risk," I said, pacing the small room. "We needed to break Victoria’s leverage, and it worked. But now we have to deal with the fallout. Evelyn Cross has a Willpower stat of 98 and zero Corruption. She’s a true believer. We can’t buy her, and we can’t scare her."

"So what’s the play?" Nia asked, the sound of furious typing echoing through the line. "I’m already running interference on the Oracle connection. I’ve routed the ghost-admin access through three different proxy servers in Eastern Europe. To the SEC, the sub-basement is just a dead zone."

"Keep it that way," I said. "But I need more. Evelyn is going to subpoena my personal devices. She’s going to look for the connection between Vanguard and Aldridge Enterprises. She knows Sofia and Victoria hate each other. She knows the only way they coordinated the Aegis deal was through a middleman."

"You," Nia realized.

"Me," I confirmed. "I need you to build me a digital alibi. I need a fake communication trail that shows me acting as a completely legitimate, independent consultant. I need emails, text messages, and calendar invites that prove I was just brokering a standard real estate deal for Sofia, completely independent of Victoria’s stock acquisitions."

"You want me to forge a paper trail that can stand up to a federal forensic audit?" Nia asked, her voice rising in disbelief. "Jake, that’s... that’s insane. If they catch a single discrepancy in the metadata, it’s a felony."

"I know," I said softly. "But if they find the real connection, it’s a decade in federal prison for all of us. Can you do it?"

There was a long pause on the line. I could hear the hum of the servers in her underground lab.

"I need access to Sofia Aldridge’s private servers to backdate the emails," Nia finally said, her voice dropping into the cold, clinical tone she used when she was solving a complex puzzle. "And I need Victoria’s calendar. I’ll build a narrative that shows you playing them against each other for a consulting fee, rather than coordinating them for a monopoly."

"I’ll get you the access," I promised. "Just build the ghost."

I hung up the phone and leaned against the wall, closing my eyes. The pressure was immense, a physical weight pressing down on my chest. I had conquered the city, but the crown was heavy, and the wolves were already circling the throne.

"System," I whispered.

The blue interface flared to life.

[System Version 2.0: Online]

I navigated to the new [Territory Management] tab that had unlocked after I defeated Victoria.

[Territory: Vanguard Holdings]

[Status: Under Federal Investigation]

[General Assigned: Victoria Sterling]

Passive Buff: Corporate Shielding (Reduces the effectiveness of hostile financial takeovers by 20%).

[Territory: Aldridge Enterprises]

[Status: Stable]

[General Assigned: Sofia Aldridge]

Passive Buff: Logistics Network (Increases the speed of physical asset acquisition by 30%).

I looked at the new skill tree that had unlocked: [Advanced Corporate Warfare].

I had 4,000 SP remaining from the Richard Sterling conquest. I needed something to help me survive Evelyn Cross. I scrolled through the options, bypassing the aggressive market manipulation skills. I needed defense. I needed smoke and mirrors.

I found a skill buried in the espionage branch.

[Skill: The Perfect Lie]

[Cost: 3,000 SP]

"Let’s talk about Aegis Mining," she said. "Vanguard Holdings buys a controlling interest in a mid-sized tech firm. Less than twenty-four hours later, Aldridge Enterprises—a bitter rival of Vanguard—buys the exact parcels of land required to make that tech firm profitable. And sitting right in the middle of this miraculous coincidence is you, Jake Hart. A consultant who just happens to have a very close, very personal relationship with Sofia Aldridge."

She pulled a photograph from a file folder and slid it across the table. It was a paparazzi shot of me and Sofia leaving a high-end restaurant a few weeks ago. Sofia’s hand was resting intimately on my chest.

"You brokered the deal," Evelyn stated, her eyes boring into mine. "You took Vanguard’s insider knowledge of the lithium deposit and you fed it to Sofia Aldridge, coordinating a monopoly that violates half a dozen antitrust laws."

The [Perfect Lie] activated, a cold, smooth script unspooling in my mind.

"I didn’t feed Vanguard’s knowledge to anyone, Director," I said, my voice perfectly level, my eyes meeting hers without a hint of deception. "I am a consultant. I consult for multiple clients. Sofia Aldridge hired me to find undervalued real estate in the American West for a new logistics hub. I found the Nevada parcels. They were cheap, they were near major highways, and the ranchers were eager to sell. I advised her to buy."

"And the fact that those parcels just happened to sit on top of a billion-dollar lithium deposit?" Evelyn asked, her voice dripping with skepticism.

"A happy coincidence for Aldridge Enterprises," I said, offering a slight shrug. "And a very unhappy coincidence for Vanguard Holdings. Victoria was furious when she found out I had brokered the land deal for her rival. It caused a significant... strain on our working relationship."

"A strain," Evelyn repeated. "Yet she promoted you to Managing Partner three days later."

"Keep your friends close, Director," I said softly, leaning forward slightly. "And your highly effective, independent consultants closer. Victoria promoted me because she realized that if she didn’t lock me down with an exclusive contract, I would keep making her rivals very, very rich."

Evelyn stared at me. The silence in the room was absolute. She was running my story through the massive, analytical engine of her mind, looking for the logical flaw, the contradiction.

The story was perfect. It painted me not as a criminal mastermind coordinating a monopoly, but as a ruthless, opportunistic mercenary playing two billionaires against each other for my own gain. It was exactly the kind of cynical, greedy narrative a federal investigator would expect from a Wall Street consultant.

It aligned perfectly with her biases.

Evelyn sat back in her chair, her expression unreadable.

"It’s a very neat story, Mr. Hart," she said softly. "Very tidy. The emails on your laptop will corroborate it, I’m sure."

"I have nothing to hide," I said.

"Everyone has something to hide," Evelyn corrected, standing up. "The interview is over for today. But don’t leave the city, Jake. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together."

I stood up, buttoned my jacket, and walked out of the conference room.

I had survived the first skirmish. The [Perfect Lie] had held. But as I walked down the hallway, I felt a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck.

Evelyn Cross didn’t believe me. She couldn’t prove I was lying, but her instincts—her 99 Perception stat—told her the story was too perfect.

She wasn’t going to stop looking. And eventually, if she dug deep enough, she was going to find the Oracle.