Chapter 78 (3)
Elijah walked through the front door and climbed the stairs to the top floor, and Kai followed behind him with his footsteps echoing on the wooden steps.
The office was empty when they entered, with the couch sitting against the far wall and the table positioned near the window and the bottles of whiskey arranged in neat rows on the shelf.
The walls were still bare, but there were plans for them that Elijah had discussed with Mai just last week, plans for paintings and maps of the territory.
Elijah sat down behind the desk while Kai took the chair across from him, and for a moment neither of them spoke as the morning light filtered through the window and cast long shadows across the floor.
"We need to talk about the factory," Elijah said finally.
Kai raised one eyebrow, his blue eyes curious. "The wood working building on Fuller Street?"
"Yes," Elijah said as he leaned back in his chair and stared at the cracked plaster of the ceiling. "I want to get the deeds for it and turn it into something legitimate, something that will make money and give us a foothold in the construction business in this city."
Kai was quiet for a long moment as his blue eyes studied Elijah's face, searching for something that Elijah wasn't sure he would find. "It's a good idea," he said finally, his voice careful and measured.
"But the investment needed for that kind of business is too much right now. We're already paying our people and investing in the bar and the gambling den and the underground fights and the club, and we're spending money on advertising and marketing and management every single week. After all of that, the Vice Leaders and you are left with maybe two thousand dollars each to spend on personal expenses."
Elijah nodded because he had known the numbers already and had seen the spreadsheets and the budgets and the projections that Rena had prepared for him just yesterday morning.
They were making money, but they were spending it just as fast because growth required investment and investment required capital and capital was always tight in the early stages of any business, no matter how successful that business appeared to be from the outside.
"I hate what we're about to do," Elijah said as he let his head fall back against the chair and stared at the ceiling where someone had drawn a small symbol in the corner that he didn't recognize.
Kai's expression didn't change, but something in his blue eyes softened slightly. "I know."
"The clean-up and the payments and the cover-up," Elijah continued, his voice flat. "All of it."
"I know," Kai said again, and this time there was something like sympathy in his voice, though sympathy was a rare thing from Kai and Elijah wasn't sure he deserved it.
"But it's necessary," Elijah said, and he hated the words even as they left his mouth. "Those people who clean crime scenes can make evidence disappear like nothing happened, and they cleaned the blood and took the bodies to the families and removed all records that the police were ever told there was a gang fight in this area."
Kai nodded slowly, his blue eyes never leaving Elijah's face. "Their services are expensive, but they're worth it because if the NCEA ever decide to create a station in this city, we need to make sure there's nothing for them to find."
Elijah had read about the, the National Criminal Enforcement Agency called the NCEA. They were the ones who handled the cases that normal police couldn't solve, the ones who dealt with gangs and breathing techniques and the kind of violence that normal people never saw and would never believe if they did.
They didn't operate in Tier 4 cities like Blackridge, not yet, but they could someday, and if they did, the Azura Gang needed to be ready.
A knock came at the door, and Mai stepped inside with her purple hair falling across her shoulders and her dark purple eyes bright in the morning light. "There's a man downstairs who says he's here to see Kai," she said. "He didn't give a name."
Kai stood up from his chair and straightened his jacket. "Send him up."
Mai nodded and disappeared, and a moment later footsteps sounded on the stairs as a man entered the office.
He was middle-aged with gray hair and a face that had seen too many hard winters, and his clothes were plain with dark pants and a dark jacket and no visible symbols or markings of any kind.
His aura was weak and barely visible, the Ki of someone who had never trained or fought or been in a situation like this before, and yet he looked like a normal man who had seen things that would break most people.
Elijah stood up and walked to the desk, and then he reached into his table pulled out a bag that was thick and heavy and filled with cash.
Ten thousand dollars, counted and double-counted by Rena herself just this morning, and he set the bag on the desk and pushed it toward the man without a word.
The man picked up the bag and hefted it in his hand, and then he nodded without bothering to count the money because he trusted Kai and Kai trusted Elijah and that was enough for men like them who had been in this business for longer than either of them cared to remember.
"Just a word of warning," the man said. "There's something going on in the 8th District. We aren't sure what yet, but something is going to happen there soon, something big."
He looked at Elijah, "Take everyone you love far away from that location."
He nodded at Kai with a small smile crossing his weathered face, and then he turned and walked out of the office without another word.
His footsteps faded down the stairs, and then the front door opened and closed, and he was gone.
Kai stood by the window with his blue eyes staring out at the street below and his jaw tight with tension. "What's happening in the 8th District?" he asked, though the question seemed directed more at himself than at Elijah.
Elijah walked to the window and stood beside his friend, looking out at the city that spread before them in the gray morning light.
The 8th District was visible in the distance with its taller buildings and its brighter lights and the smoke from its factories rising into the sky.
"We shouldn't focus on their problems," Elijah said as he turned away from the window and walked back toward the desk. "We have our own problems here, problems we need to fix, and the south side territory and the Blackwater Syndicate and the fight with Daniel and the wedding are more than enough to keep us busy for now."
Kai turned from the window, his blue eyes meeting Elijah's red ones, and for a moment neither of them spoke as the weight of the coming week settled between them like a physical thing.
"A week," Kai said finally. "Then you fight Daniel Blackwater, and then you marry his sister."
"Yes, but I am more focused on the fight with Jack Tomorrow," Elijah agreed as he sat down behind the desk and pulled the first of the day's reports toward him.
He picked up a pen and began to read, and the morning light filtered through the window and cast long shadows across the floor, and somewhere in the distance the city of Blackridge went about its business, unaware of the storm that was gathering in its streets.