Page 89 of Rock Chick Bonus Tracks

Marcus wasn’t sure what this was about. He and Ren still had NI on retainer for various things, but it wasn’t like the relationship Marcus used to have with Lee and his men.

And Lee had made this appointment.

So it was either Daisy meddling after their conversation at the club last weekend.

Or it was Lee coming to tell him that his client list had expanded beyond his current capacity, so he needed to drop a few of his less challenging ones.

He wondered what Ren would think of moving those issues to Ally.

The door opened and Sarah ushered Lee in.

“Coffee? Sparkling water? Regular water?” she offered.

“I’m good,” Lee said, moving in to shake Marcus’s hand.

Marcus had stood and rounded the desk to do the same.

“We both are, Sarah,” he told her, “Thank you.”

She nodded and stepped out, closing the door behind her.

He gestured to a chair in front of his desk and said, “Have a seat.”

Lee sat.

Marcus returned behind his desk and started it.

“What’s up?”

“I need some advice.”

That wasn’t what he expected.

“What kind of advice?”

“I’m hiring two more men. The demand is too much and coming so often, I worry I’m leaving money on the table, so I’m getting back into security. To see to current client loads, and add that back to our menu of services, I not only need to upgrade current equipment, I need more space.”

“All right,” Marcus replied when Lee paused.

“So I got three choices at the moment. Find another office. Wait and hope the tenants next to my current one vacate and take over their space, which obviously is not optimal, but it might be doable. Or last, buy the whole building, seeing as the property management team told us that the owners were about to put it on the market, so they were feeling out their tenants to offer the opportunity to buy.”

Marcus knew what he’d do. He just didn’t know if Lee had the capital to do it, or the credit to leverage it.

Therefore, he asked, “Are you in a position to buy?”

“No. Got a new baby. New house. I got money in the bank, but it’d wipe me out if I bought in cash. And not feeling having that kind of debt on top of adding property management on the list of shit to oversee.”

“You get a good property management firm, it shouldn’t take much of your time at all.”

Lee smiled. “Yeah, I know one of those.”

Real estate was the bulk of a variety of interests he and Ren managed.

Marcus smiled back. “We’d be happy to take your building on. It’ll be a nice change, me looking out for your interests for a while.”

“Thanks, man. But I’m not there yet.”

“I don’t want to add weight to an already weighty decision, especially with your expanding responsibilities including an expanding family. But it’ll be a very good investment.”

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