Chapter 354

Parachute accident my ass. The kid had scars on his pretty face consistent with someone or maybe many someones kicking the shit out of him. Most likely some of those bad ass Legionares decided to give him an attitude adjustment and went too far. He wouldn't be the first.

As long as he would fight, I didn't give a shit who he screwed. For me it was about keeping his eye on the prize and that was one thing Legionares were famous for doing. I know some men were uncomfortable working with gay men, but they would have to find a way to get past it. There only other option was to say no, when I asked for help. That happened now and then anyway.

It would have been so much easier to do this with an Eve unit, but it wasn't company business. It was personal. To start involving them in my personal shit would pretty much destroy the part of me that was left. If I didn't want to go into storage between jobs for them, I had to keep them out of my business.

I went back and shut myself down except for a small power drain while I schemed. I seriously needed an end game plan, but I didn't have one. My whole plan at that moment was to inset Jerrod and gather intelligence, while hoping something would come to me.

The one thing I absolutely knew by the time the sun came up, was that I had to meet with Althea and the Reverend White, if this job was to go forward. I rode the bike to breakfast knowing full well that I was going to have to include Reverend White in the next meeting. I also knew that the meeting had to be that very day. If they needed time to think and do their own scheming, it had to be over the weekend. Come Monday we were going to be operational, or I was going to begin looking for another use for those storage units.

At breakfast I used the few minutes after the bag was empty to look up Althea's office phone number. It was almost ten when I placed the call.

"You have reached Althea Thompson's office," the messager said. "If you will leave your message at the tone, Council Woman Thompson will return your call as soon as possible."

"Council Woman Thompson this is Maxine Stone. If you want our little arrangement to go forward, you need to arrange a meeting between you, Reverend White and myself before the end of today. If you choose not to do so, or Reverend White chooses not to be involved, then the deal is off. Oh yeah have a good day." I didn't sound at all cheerful because I wasn't.

I managed to finish my walk at the mall before she replied. I had to pull over while riding the bike home in order to answer the phone. "Maxine Stone and Associates," I said just to piss her off.

"Why do you need to meet with Brother Harold?" she asked.

"You are going to have to trust me. He has to sign onto this, because he will have a hand in making it work. If he isn't on board, then those storage units become a perk for the residents of the Drugstore Condo. I can find a place to drop them off, if I use them as storage units. I won't be needing your input for that. So it's time to get your hands dirty, or just say goodbye to the plan. You are not so invested that you can't walk away. But love, there are only co defendants in this not observers.

"I'll have to think about this and get back to you," she said.

So Brother Harold didn't know that Althea was scheming. That was fine, but he had to know that he had a problem at the project. He also had to know that his baby brother was about to bring them all down. I might be their only chance to save the Family livelihood as well as the family reputation. It was up to Reverend White at that point.

While Althea dealt with her brother, I dealt with Sylvia. She drove to work in Peter's car. Since she wasn't yet licensed he had to be in the car as well. So I either had to drive her home at the end of the day or deal with Peter hanging around all day. What the hell, I thought. Sylvia could drive Peter around on her errands and I could sit on my ass drinking good coffee.

"So you have to show the model home this afternoon?" I asked. I knew that she did, since the messages were mostly about the housing development.

"Yes and we could have sold out already, if you didn't require the ten percent down," She said.

"So you say, lots of people will tell you that they would buy, if only. Everyone who says no, needs an excuse. We are not going to take government loans or guarantees. I do not want them in our business, period. I'm not going to have some asshole come buy our houses cheap, then rent them and gouge some poor family. I will sit on the houses until the turn of the next century, if I have to do so," I admitted.

"Yes boss," Sylvia said as if she were disgusted. "I got to show the models to a friend of yours. The man who took over your first business he said."

"Lucas, I'll be damned he can buy a house anywhere, why would he want to live there?" I asked.

"He said it was for his assistant," Sylvia commented.

His assistant could mean anything. He could have someone helping with the work or it could be Julie. "Let me know how it turns out with Lucas," I demanded.

"Will do boss," she said. The whole time we talked Peter had sat quietly in the living room on one of my sofas with his laptop.

"So Peter do you want to hang around and be Sylvia's designated passenger today?" I asked. "I might have something coming up this afternoon."

"I would be happy to do that. So what are you doing?" he asked.