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“This is Chun,” he said, gesturing to the ancient demon. “I know him from old and am bringing him on.” He chuckled when that set offallof my alarm bells.
“She’s as distrusting as you said,” the very attractive demon said, meaning it as a compliment.
“Forgive me, but the timing is tricky, and we all know people offering to help us now won’t—”
“I didn’t offer,” Chun corrected. “Elijah and the other council members are wisely calling in some favors.”
Okay then. We shook hands and then sat.
Elijah smiled at me. “The mistake I made with Bella—no, not Bella. She was too—I couldn’t read her, but we understand now that she was gone. But a few in her group could have been brought to our side if we had reached out to them first and talked to them.”
“Well,clearly, we’ve been sitting around counting our toes and people that fucking old shouldn’t act like fucking babies to throw a fucking fit and just open their mouths,” I seethed, hating that Elijah and the others took it on themselves.
“You’re right, but we’re also reaching out too,” Elijah accepted, Chun looking amused for some reason. “I know Chun from old—”
“Forgive me, but your young one is about to explode from tension and is worried that I’ll look down on you if I know she had a mental breakdown recently and you treat her with such respect,” he cut in, giving me a kind look. “I don’t, for the record. I was a young one that Elijah saved and took under his wing. That’s what he’ll be too kind to tell you.
“That’s what the other ancients are doing. Those of us who they helped; they’re calling in that favor to help them now. Elijah has helped a lot of demons over his years and taught us how to adapt. Unfortunately, a lot of us haven’t done the same. I regret that. I’m taking this chance that he has offered and clearing my sins for that by helping now.”
I read between the lines. “You don’t want to be part of the fight or council, which everyone will assume of an ancient involved. But what we need is more adults we can trust to handle too much,butmost won’t want to be ‘aides’ or whatever with our setup.”
“Exactly,” Elijah confirmed. “First, there aren’t five hundred properties. There are over three thousand already and it’s a huge mess.”
“I’m so sorry,” I rasped.
“Stop,” he ordered. “This is not your fault. You were acquisitions. You did your job. We messed up inside. It’s done and we’re going to fix it.”
He waited until I nodded and then explained with that many properties, he had already put in the paperwork to form a subsidiary, Heavenly Properties. It was pretty open-ended. We could flip them to sell, rent them out—whatever we wanted. Hell, we had some impressive land that was ours if we detangled it from the neglect.
And we had alotof capital to invest in this area.
“It’s not fair, but people judge adult entertainment,” Elijah said gently. “Even if they don’t judge it, they don’t want to get involved with it so they’re not judged. Chun is going to get Heavenly Properties up and running with the crazy we’re handing over. Under Rita since she’s in charge of the clubs. But we’ll have different directors under each of us that will be involved in both.”
“Got it. So not completely separate but a cover so people can act separate or not pulled in fully. We don’t need two fucking legal departments and could make things much more complicated if we tried to,” I nodded when he did. “Right, on that, I have good news and actually something that could kickstart this then.”
I told him about everything with Tracey and what he’d said about the demon contractor group he knew. Both were glad to hear it, but also Chun specifically was taking this over because he was an architect, contractor, builder, and just about everything else possible when it came to houses, housing, or things needed for a house.
Cool.
No, really. I was super impressed that he knew how to design a house for real, not simply draw one, all the way to fixing the garbage disposal as a certified plumber. That was really awesome and someone who spent their extra time on this planet well.
I also told Elijah my plan for Tracey and to have an actual department under me that was IDs and making sure everyone had better papers. Even a way for demons not with us to get papers so they didn’t have to go to covens or packs for their “protection” scams.
“We’re agreed that it should be your department,” Elijah told me. “People are looking at you like you’re the weakest link because you’re a junior VP. We’re changing that. The big boss agrees. You’re not a senior VP like the rest of us, no more difference. You’re also the VP of Expansion and Security.”
“Not the acquisitions?” I hedged.
“Expansion and acquisitions aren’t really all that different but, Natalia will officially take over acquisitions as the face of the company. It should be her. You’ve been too split on focus with everything going on when you’re on assignment. It’s also easier for areas we simply want to acquire, especially now with expanding into properties. We’re going to have a director just for that eventually.”
“Okay,” I accepted. Yeah, I hated that tedious part. “The first thing I’ll ask for as the security head is at least twenty properties to always be available as safe houses for whatever we might need. All VPs have the list and can use as well with security teams knowing the locations and ready to protect them.”
“You want bug out locations in case a club is ever raided or there’s a problem in a city we deal in?” Elijah muttered, jotting down notes.
“Yes. And I want the managers to know their specific location to get everyone out to,” I confirmed.
“Smart,” they both said, Chun continuing. “I’ll meet with this contractor that you spoke with and see what terms I can come to with them. I doubt they’re just sitting around waiting for anyone to off them this, but the great thing of adding this is anyone rescued can be added to this job.”
“I don’t understand,” I hedged.
