Rum walked out of the room, disgruntled he wanted to leave the shopping mall offices as soon as possible. Everything had gone wrong. It was a big day with a lot of steps, and thankfully he felt like they had been the chosen ones to solve this issue.
At least, that was what he had believed when he first arrived.
The Gilt Rats out of everyone had approached them, and there had to be a reason out of that compared to the others. They wouldn’t just randomly select a group without thinking it through. That was what Rum kept telling himself.
As Rum was gaining confidence in himself he decided to make the call to inform the others about the news.
His footsteps echoed slightly in the hallway as he pulled out his phone. Even though he had lost the bid, he needed to report what had happened. The Billion Bloodline group stepping in at the last moment changed everything.
Currently Karen didn’t feel thankful at all, because the situation still ended up being the same in the end. She had sold her department store for a fraction of the price it was really worth, and fraction of what she had put in.
The room now felt emptier than before. The long table, the polished floors, the quiet air — all of it no longer felt like hers.
With all of that mess that had happened, she managed to earn herself fifty million more but in the grand scheme of things it wasn’t really much. Heck she would have to pay quite a penny to still complete her contract she had with the Billion Bloodline group for protecting the place.
The numbers played over and over in her head. Three hundred. Three twenty. Three thirty. Three fifty.
Fifty million more than the original offer, and yet it still felt like a loss.
"What’s your deal here." Karen said, as she no longer had any filter and there was no need for her to be nice. "Did you really only get involved before, because you were after my building all along?"
There was no tremble in her voice. She was tired of pretending. Tired of playing polite while everything she built slipped through her fingers.
Max then stood up from his seat as he came to walk over. The lawyer was here so they could sign some paperwork right on the spot. The lawyer had sent a draft of the terms to everyone who was interested, so Max already knew everything was good.
The robotic mask still displayed the steady sound bars as he spoke, emotionless and controlled.
"No." Max answered. "We really were protecting the place not aiming for that. We really had no idea they were going to get all of those official organisations to try and bring down your department store."
His tone didn’t rise or fall. It was simple and direct.
"Then what the heck made you change your mind." Karen said. "You were the one who told me that you couldn’t go up against these guys. Now that you’ve taken my building that they were after you don’t think that they’re going to try and come after you."
The frustration that had been building inside her finally spilled out. She stepped forward slightly, staring at the mask as if trying to see the real face beneath it.
"I do." Max answered as he started to write his signature on the papers. "I never lied to you once. We have no way to fight against them, they have more connections than us.
"The only way we could put a stop to them, is by using our own fists. But do you really think that I would put me, and my people on the line to protect a place that wasn’t even ours, now it’s ours, we have a reason to protect the place."
The scratching of the pen against paper sounded louder than it should have in the quiet room.
"And why would you do that?" Karen asked. "Why would you protect a shopping mall. You might have a lot of money, but do you know the first thing about running such an organisation?
"You get rid of the Gilt Rats somehow, and now you have this big building. How are you going to solve all of the issues?"
She wasn’t just angry. She was confused. None of this made sense to her.
"I’m not." Max answered. "I don’t know anything about running a shopping mall. The reputation has already taken some level of hit, and I would have no idea how to get vendors back in either.
"But I do know one thing, which I’ll ask you, before all of the trouble, what do you think is a fair market price for all of this right now."
Karen was trying to think why the man was asking such a thing. He was rich enough to get some experts to value the place beforehand, so there was nothing to hide.
Why ask her?
"Around 800 million." Karen answered.
The number came out slowly. It was the number she had believed in before everything went wrong. Before the pressure. Before the threats. Before the damage.
"Right, so you would say at 350 million this is all a pretty good deal right?" Max said having signed the last paper and had taken his copy of all of the work as well. Now he just needed to send the money over, which he could do within a certain time frame.
"So when I deal with all of the issues surrounding the shopping mall, and everyone is aware there’s no more problems, don’t you think that the price will shoot back up? Even if it doesn’t hit that eight hundred million mark, I’m sure there will be plenty of people interested in it, a lot more than what I just paid for it."
The logic was clear. Too clear.
Karen’s entire blood was boiling. Max was going to buy the shopping mall, and then flip it for a profit. Then why was she even selling the shopping mall in the first place.
Her hands trembled slightly at her sides, but she kept her posture straight.
But she remembered, because she didn’t have the power to protect it. The value was going to be hit, and if the Bloodline group didn’t have the power to protect either, then there wouldn’t be an increase in price.
The difference was simple.
They were willing to fight.
The money that the Bloodline group would make from this would be more than anything that Karen would have offered, because she would have never given that much money just to protect the place.
For her, it was survival.
For them, it was strategy.
"Don’t worry, if you really want your building, I’ll be happy to sell it back to you, but it will have to be at the right price."