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“No. I think he just gets flustered around us.” I reached for my own Fairchild pen-weapon. “Which is understandable.”
Damien and Trace snorted. We shared mischievous grins before returning to the papers in front of us.
“So now that Francis is almost here, and we haven’t reviewed his findings—let’s continue.” Trace started with the eyebrows again, but I didn’t give him shit about it for now. More would come. It always did.
Damian rustled through the papers, that line forming between his eyes when he was deep in thought. That happened a lot, because he was always thinking about extremely complicated things. As a natural-born mathematician and college-bred hacker, he was reliably thinking of some extremely relevant detail.
“I don’t like the look onyourface now,” I told him.
“Look at the properties,” Damian said. “You’ll see.”
I scanned the sheets in front of me. I was predisposed to disappointment. I’d been searching for almost a year for the perfect building to add to our portfolio, but nothing had been just right. This wasn’t a throwaway project—this was the heart and soul of our empire. The big business we’d acquired last year, Strata, expanded our interests from simply wealth management to tech, as well. Now we wanted to formalize our charity endeavors. Give them a home and room to soar.
Everything we did was so that we could give back. And this building would serve as the hub for that work from here on out.
Of the papers in front of me, only one looked remotely attractive. I picked it up, scanning the stats. Okay, maybe I was wrong. This place looked perfect.
“Wait. Where is this?” I flipped through pages, trying to orient myself. “And when did it go on the market. Are we calling them already?”
“We will if you say so,” Damian said.
We needed something big, something totally ours, and something that could contain transitional housing, schooling, social events, and our charity headquarters with room to grow. This fifteen-story building had it all. Including a holdover community garden from previous tenants.
“Hey, everyone,” Francis tittered as he came into the conference room, iPad in one hand and dramatically sweeping his other back over the finger waves in his dark, gelled hair. As our collective executive assistant, he wrangled the three of us like the stray cats we were. If anybody wanted to get to us, they had to get past Francis first, and he wore his company-provided Gucci suits like armor.
The new hire bolted in behind him, a small tray with three dainty espresso cups jostling as he came inside. “Here’s the espressos you wanted. Sirs.” Kyle sent us an unsteady smile.
Damian waved him off. “You don’t have to call ussir. You’re fine.”
Kyle nodded, his face careening between crestfallen and euphoric as he set a cup by each one of us. Then he stumbled toward the door, looking at us over his shoulder. Francis eyed him through the glass wall as Kyle scurried away down the hall.
“How is Kyle working out?” Francis asked as he set his things down at an empty chair.
“Very eager,” Trace said diplomatically.
“Do we need to talk to HR?” Francis settled into his seat with a grimace, arranging his suit coat delicately. The man cherished his Gucci collection, possibly even more than he did his current boyfriend.
“He’s fine,” Damian said. “I met him and his parents at a tech convention a few years back and wanted to help him out.”
Francis had a strange, pursed smile as he swiped through screens on his iPad. I could tell what he was thinking, so I said it out loud.
“Yes, another charity case, Francis.”
“Hey, I didn’t say anything,” Francis laughed, crossed his legs under the glass table. He’d worked with us for a few years now, so he was one of the few people on Wall Street who really knew us. Our story. Our painful history. And why our future was so important. “Now what did you guys think of my buildings?”
“This one.” I pushed the paper his way. He glanced at it and nodded.
“Okay. Let’s pull up the owner info.” He tapped efficiently at his screen while I steepled my fingers and looked out over the city. Trace slurped noisily at his espresso. He’d become an espresso snob when we regularly had more than fifty thousand dollars in our bank accounts.
“Oh.” Francis narrowed his eyes at the screen and then looked up at me. Almost guiltily, which was concerning.
“What?”
He blinked a few times. “You’re not going to like this.”
“Likewhat?” Damian asked.
Francis set his iPad down. “The building is owned by Margulis Realty.”
