Mr. Dark 3 (Tamed #3)(9)

Tabby and I both laughed. "You know love, for someone who's made a whole lotta money, you sure don't know a lot about how to do business," I said as we drove. "Not that I'm much better."

"Well, you know how I made a lot of my money. The rest I made using false identities and online companies. I never had to sign leases or paper agreements. Digital signatures and money transfers was all I needed. I made a million dollars sitting around in my underwear."

"With the way you're built, that could happen in about a dozen clubs around town," Tabby quipped, and I lost it, exploding in giggles as Mark tried his best to keep us on the road. "But seriously, face to face business isn't all that different, it just requires more paperwork. Didn't you tell me you had lawyers and stuff to handle this before?"

"None of them were local. They're in Bermuda I think. I need a local legal team, and you happen to represent what we need. That and I personally still want to keep tabs on you. I'd hire you directly, but that might create too much suspicion and keep you away from what you've done best, which is gather information for us. I never wanted you to do that, but it sure has helped. Anyway, I can keep you safe easier this way."

I could see Tabby blink back a few tears as Mark's words sunk in, and I turned to look out my passenger side window. "So, Tabby," I said after a few minutes. "Where exactly are you taking us for looking at office rentals?"

"In order to fit your profile, I had three options," Tabby said, and I could hear the relief as she could refocus on business instead of the danger she was most likely still in, even as diminished as it was.

"I wanted to run them by you. The first is downtown, in a high rise that also has three trading houses, a law firm, and some other similar things. Rent is reasonably high, visibility is good too. The second is in the North Valley, among the technology startups that are populating the area. You'll have less total visibility, but you'll be higher profile in the area, and your rent's going to be a lot less. The final one was the one that I had to do a double take on when you asked me to look into it, but I found a commercial building close to the docks and the airport. It's been empty for the past three years, and while the neighborhood isn't exactly the DMZ, it's not great either. Three floors, but five stories tall, with the bottom two stories being a giant warehouse.

Prior it was used by an assortment of shipping companies, the last one with ties to La Cosa Nostra. The owner got put in jail, and the property went into tax receivership six months ago. Advantage is you can buy it for a song. Outright you could have it tomorrow for just over two hundred thousand dollars. I've seen pictures of the inside, it's going to need more renovations than Mount Zion if you want to do the entire building."

"Let's check out the warehouse," Mark said. I glanced over, as all three of us were dressed for business, with Mark in a handmade suit we had picked up from a tailor in Hong Kong, while I was wearing a Donna Karan skirt and top. "I know, I know. But it fits better with my idea of how to stand out, and how to put our enemies off guard. Besides, that warehouse will give us the flexibility to use it as a potential base of operations. We can't do that in either of the other two locations, the neighbors will be too close and too nosy."

I couldn't deny his points, and sat back. "Babe, I don't want to sound too nosy, but just how much money are we going to use to set up this facade?"

Mark grinned and looked over at me. "Who says it's all a facade? If we do this right, we'll end up with more money than ever. But up front, I was thinking in the fifteen to twenty area."

"Fifteen to twenty thousand?" Tabby asked. "Your repairs to Mount Zion are going to be more than that."

I shook my head and turned around to look at her. "He means fifteen to twenty million."

I'd never seen Tabby's jaw drop the way it did when the numbers rolled over her, and she grasped just how much Mark was worth. Finally she just shook her head and looked down at her tablet. "Go upstairs with him, I said. Go have some fun. Good luck, I hope he's a nice guy, I said. Sheesh, and I ended up being dry humped by a thirty year old loser with a mortgage," she muttered to herself, and I had to chuckle.

"You give good advice, Tabs."

"Yeah, yeah. Think someday I could get an advisor's fee out of it?"

"You keep bringing us targets like you have, and you're going to be a very well to do business advisor within four years," Mark replied. "What you decide to do with that money, well, that'll be the kicker, won't it?"

The warehouse was bigger than I'd expected, but wasn't the largest on the block. The bottom floor had just over five thousand square feet of empty space with thirty foot high ceilings. The second and third floors could be reached either by stairs or a freight elevator near the back of the huge space.

"We're going to have to take the stairs, the power's off right now," Tabby said, leading us over. We climbed up the steel grating steps, our footsteps echoing in the empty air. "I haven't been here yet personally, so I don't know what the space is like."

"So far so good though," Mark replied, looking around. When we reached the second floor, Tabby produced a key which she used to unlock the door. With the stairwell, the second floor was smaller, but still spacious, and had obviously been a shipping office as well as what looked like a break room and cafeteria for the workers at one point. There were even some tables still sitting around unused. "I like it. Third floor?"