Page 14 of Escalating Alpha

“Now, you currently haveneedfor fifty-four jobs,” he said, getting to the main part and why others were on.

“That many?” I whispered, feeling guilty. “And people have been covering that much?”

He snorted. “They’ve been glad for the overtimeanddouble time you offer on holidays. I heard more than one person praise you because they could pay off credit cards and more. No one is upset. Some are worried they won’t have access to overtime still and others are worried about a few months down the road because they can’t keep going as they have been.”

“So you pulled the emergency brake at the right time, Daughter, and that is to be praised,” Alena said firmly. “Too many of us are too full of pride and wouldn’t have. Or think we can handle the world. You once again have impressed many of us to see the warning signs and ask for seasoned help.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I gave her a genuine smile before looking back at Mauro. “There’s more to this if you said ‘needed’ like that.”

“Yes.” It was in his eyes to hold onto my hat basically. “Without expanding facilities or buying anything else, myroughestimate is you have over seven hundred jobs at your fingertips.”

“How is that even possible?” Freddie asked, looking at Mauro like he’d grown another head.

But I already knew the answer. “Utilizing people and the facilities better. We’re not remotely using the bottling facility to its full potential. We’re doing four days a week at half days or whatever. It’s not really expanding to hire more drivers or medical personnel to take blood.”

“Correct, and you have fairies making deliveries, and you could get a hell of a lot more flowers if they handled more in the greenhouses and hired more delivery drivers,” he added. “You could have more servers at Siren’s Kiss and do catering—there’s a lot. The clothing line could be better utilized with what you have and not expanded.”

“It’s still a lot, so I need a list of priorities or—I also don’t want to be insensitive and stick a fairy in the greenhouse when they want to deliver instead.” I chuckled when several people shot me dry looks. “I said if they want, not that I thought anyonewantedto deliver anything in Chicago traffic.”

“My vamps tend to love it especially because mostly the flowers get delivered early,” Noah said. “And I have the whole new group who will be moving here needing jobs. I don’t…”

I reached over and rubbed his arm. Yeah, he was just as stressed as I was. We hadjustgotten his vampires out of those dorms and were going to bring in refugees and prey shifters.

Instead, he was getting a hundred and fifteen vamps from Lansing, Michigan and they weren’t really his decision. We were worried about that even if I’d put my foot down with the council that it was a 90-day trial.

They could kiss my fine ass if they didn’t like it.

“The good news is you have over a thousand units for housing with the new buildings you have,” he told me, nodding when I couldn’t hide my shock. “I’ve audited it all with Simone and—it’s just under a thousand. They hid a lot of their occupancy rates and more. And you have more coming available. Fairies and refugees who are now citizens are buying their own homes.”

I nodded my head as I jotted it all down. “Suggestions?”

“Curious how you would want to handle it first,” he admitted.

I snorted but then realized he was serious. “You won’t like it.”

His lips twitched. “Try me.”

I met his gaze and saw he might seriously be my cousin for real or at least soul friend—whatever the right term was. He liked to start shit in the right way and kick shit at the stupid he came across.

“I’d use you as a threat,” I admitted. “The problem with bringing in more shifters that aren’t prey is they all want to challenge me or think I’m weak because I’m not a raging bitch who beats them all up. They were all angels in Greece around Alena and I don’t have the time for that shit. But you promised to stay at least a couple years.”

“I did,” he said with a shit-eating grin before turning to Eva. “I believe you owe me a good deal of money, Mother.”

I glanced over at Eva’s shocked face. “You bet on this?”

“I never thought you’d—you do so much independently, and relying on an older male to be your… I couldn’t see you doing it,” she admitted, tripping over her words a bit she was so stunned.

I understood her disconnect. “I’m not asking him to go fight my battles or throw his weight around in DC because they’re mean to me. Thisisa Dorcus fight because they try to come screw with me because I’m the third and adopted daughter. They want to put a collar on me like the council wanted. All that crap.” I pointed to Mauro.

“They won’t risk fucking with Alena’s baby brother is what she’s saying. Not unless they have a death wish. People know this as law and won’t ever doubt it like they might convince themselves it’s different for Sera,” Mauro finished.

“Exactly.” I was glad we were on the same page for that. I was glad when we had a plan for how to facilitate the next steps. Yes, it was expanding but the right way… And not really.

Sort of.

“We need some cross-training,” Mauro said as he went to the next item. “Iran and Bolivia both want to get a blood bottling and fairy nectar plant online. They want the setup you do but larger scale. So it works to have them train here, and that gives you more people for a while. The problem is the US government is—”

“La, la, la, la,” I sang loudly as I covered my ears, glad when I saw Brian doing the same. “We can’t be involved or know how you do this part.” I waited until Mauro made the gesture to zip his lips. “I can’t. Don’t make me lie or do something—I’d have to report if someone was here with a work visa from Iran and they’d want to use that.”

---