Page 19 of Arrivals & Assets

“It’s fire-rated,” she said. “Apparently flour fires are extremely dangerous.”

I nodded to myself. It was a good space.

We walked back out, and I scowled at seeing our footprints on the floor. I hadn’t noticed the fine dusting of flour before, but it was clear.

“The stairs are this way,” she said.

I followed her upstairs. The area was still light and quite nice for an office space.

She showed me several rooms, then stopped. “This is where the communication lines come in.”

I nodded, but I knew better than to get my hopes up. There was no way that a local commercial bakery needed any type of robust internet.

As expected, a hole had been drilled through the brick so that a lone coax cable could be threaded through. Cracked caulking showed just how long it had been there.

I followed her back downstairs and noted that a fresh dusting of flour had fallen into our footprints while we were walking around upstairs.

The flour would be a major problem, and I wondered if there was any way to truly clean it all out.

“Well?” she asked as we stood just inside the door.

“I’ve got some homework to do,” I replied. “I need to go to City Hall to review the utility and fiber routing maps. I can’t make a decision without knowing what I’m looking at.”

She forced a nod. “Understood.”

“In the meantime, call me immediately if anything else comes up.”

“I will.”

I thanked her for her time, got into the car, and headed back to my hotel room to make my notes before heading to the city offices.

For some reason, part of me wished I was on my way to cuddle an omega.

Chapter 6 - Flynn

The broker, William, sat across from me in the guest chair of the big office.

Ellie was right, I deserved to work from the fancy office while I could.

“We have three tours scheduled today,” he stated. He glanced down at a tablet. “The first are some people wanting to open a health spa. The second is for some kind of luxury marketplace; I forget the exact term he used. The third wants to turn this place into a restaurant with a members-only lounge area on the second floor.”

“Uhhhhh…”

“Now I know you want to find somebody to keep that monstrosity downstairs, but these are all good clients who can be ready to move in as soon as it’s removed.”

I forced myself not to let out a long sigh. Jeremy had been right. The incentives for me to find a client who wanted the vault and other upgrades hadn’t even been hidden in the contract naming me the closeout manager. I’d just skipped them on my way to signing for another paycheck. But if I played my cards right, I could get the equivalent of several months of pay—something I sorely needed.

Plus, he’d been right about something else. There was a bonus for finding a new lessee by a certain date, but it was far enough in the future that I was still in a good position to be picky and hold out for somebody who would take it all.

After a series of emails in which I asked him for more tips to get the best deal, he’d told me to look at how long permits were taking in the neighborhood. A few hours on the city website revealed that even expedited requests took several months, and that was before the public comment period.

“Also,” William continued, “there is quite a bit of furniture left. What are your plans for it?”

I shrugged. “Sell what I can. But I figured that for now it looks good for staging, and if a potential tenant wants anything, they get first dibs.”

He pursed his lips, then sighed. “I agree about the staging… if this was going to be an office space. But I’ll let it slide for now. We do need to reconsider that thing you call the vault, though.”

I shook my head. “Let’s give it time. There are businesses that can use it.”