The Howlers had been non-stop busy after taking over Notsburg. Or more accurately, Kai had been busy working alongside Harry mostly, because in terms of why they were so busy it was due to the investments they were running.
To put it simply, Notsburg was a money maker, an incredibly large money maker, and due to them not having a leader who cared about extravagant yachts, bribing of other gangs, buying super cars, or jewels, they had a lot of money on their hands.
At the same time Kai didn’t want to just waste this money. He didn’t want to spend it on things that wouldn’t give them a good return. Because after all, although their wealth was large, when it got to this point, it was more about power and influence.
Who cared how much money one had, if one of the King’s at any point and time could just come and forcefully take it away from you? At one point, Kai was considering using all the money they could to buy Altered solutions.
There were a few problems with that, there were only a number of Altered solutions out there and they would be competing against others and who would he use it on? It was a good reward to have for creating loyal Howler members.
However, he needed to be careful, making their own gang stronger in this way, if they were betrayed, could fall pretty harshly on them. In some ways it was one of the reasons why they were able to take over Notsburg easier, due to Midwak’s betrayal.
While in the middle of thinking about what to do, with a large amount of the cash, a certain call had come through to his phone.
“Speak of the devil.” Kai answered the phone. “What do you want Midwak?”
----
Midwak had made the main casino where the Scatterbugs gang mostly would be his own home. There weren’t many changes apart from a lot of the tacky shiny jewelery being sold off.
After all, Midwak had lived with the gang for a while and he had somewhat gotten used to it, so he wanted to keep it this way. At the moment though, one of the private rooms was a bloody mess.
Broken noses here and there, blood all over the cards and chips in the room, and on the table. Meanwhile, Midwak was holding up a long haired man by his head, who had his front two teeth shattered.
“I just thought I should let you know something.” Midwak said on the phone. “A gang called Ashes just came In. They were making quite a big fuss.”
If Kai had done his research correctly, Ashes was a gang from another Tier-2 city. They didn’t have a high profile like the Scatterbugs, but a tier-2 was a tier-2 at the end of the day.
‘I thought something like this was going to happen. The surrounding cities will want to test out the new owners. It's a good thing we have Midwak to deal with it all, and he should be strong enough to scare most away.
“Since they came here, I'm guessing they might be coming to Slough as well. I can’t kill these guys without your permission, so what do you want me to do?” Midwak asked.
“Just send them back, if they sent some people to test us it might not necessarily be a bad thing.” Kai ordered. “What I’m more surprised about is, why did you exactly give me a call? Do you care about our gang?”
Midwak was heard laughing on the phone so loud that Kai had to pull away.
“Are you an idiot, this is my gang, I can’t have it crumble to pieces! Otherwise there will be nothing for me to use!” The phone call ended there without Kai being able to say anything else.
A few days had passed, and the Ashes gang had contacted Harry, of the Cardenez group for a meeting. They had no clue how to get to the Howlers but the Cardenez group was quite public, this information was passed on, and eventually a meeting was set up, in one of the factories that Harry owned.
In the corner of the factory, there was an office for Harry where he overlooked things, and now Kai, along with Austin had attended with their masks, and Harry was also present.
Kai would have brought more people with him, in case this was all a trap, but they were in friendly territory, not enemy territory, and the others seemed quite busy these days, so he decided not to bother them.
“Hi to you all, my name is Ash and I am the leader of the Ashes. I think you can guess why our group has such a name.” The young man chuckled.
The man was in a striped suit, and had two guards by his side. He looked young, but nothing compared to Kai and the others, perhaps in his lower twenties. His hair was neatly done up and swayed to the side, and he had the face of an actor or model.
“I first want to explain that I have no intentions of fighting you.” Ash explained. “We didn’t get involved with the Scatterbugs and we certainly don’t want to get involved with you who defeated them.
“But you need to understand, empires fall because they are spread out too thin. I needed to test your capabilities and see if you still had a hand in Notsburg, still strong enough to protect it and that was certainly the case.”
This was one of the guesses Kai had for Notsburg being attacked.
“You see, I wish to have a partnership with you. Our gang runs a large entertainment company called AJ productions. We are scouting talented actors, singers, and more all across the entertainment sector.
“Our business is doing well, but there are two things that are troubling us. First the matter of funding for rapid growth. As our stars get bigger, there are those that wish to poach them with better deals, this also links with our other problem.
“If our stars are in contracts of sorts, then they tend to resort to other ways to deal with them. Because of this reason, and your great strength, I have come to you to make a deal of sorts. Of course, I know what I am asking is a big ask in many regards, which is why we are willing to offer part of the company to make it worth your while.”
It was an unexpected proposal, Kai thought that maybe the gang would face a war with another tier-2 first before things like this came along, but perhaps it was due to him underestimating the Scatterbugs reputation.
The other gangs were too afraid to go to war with them.
“I will have Harry check the financial situation of the company, and come up with an offer that he thinks is suitable and fair, only if he thinks it is a good investment for us.” Kai explained. “But we do have a problem.
“If on the surface the Howlers are known to have invested in a large chunk of your company, then it could cause problems. There will be those that think we are teaming up, trying to grow stronger to take out those above us.
“If the King’s got word of this, they could very well start a war. Maybe that's one of the things that you're worried about in the first place, and is one of the reasons why you want to make this deal, but I have a way, where it won’t cause us problems.
“We have a person we use for situations like this, on paper the one that will own part of your company will be Gary Dem.” Kai smiled.
----
Of course, at that point and time, Gary had no idea that his name was being spread throughout the cities. That he was becoming an influential figure, a tycoon with practically an unlimited amount of money to spend.
Soon companies would be coming to him, just to ask him to get his name on their product, because they would believe he had golden fingers, everything he touched would make money.
Meanwhile, the real Gary was in a very different situation altogether. He had gathered with all the others that were getting ready for the special lesson. The two teams put on their red and blue outfits, but there was one missing and Gary noticed that his was the one that was missing.
“Did you forget to clean my suit or something?” Gary asked.
Crowley looked a bit nervous as he looked at his student.
“That’s not it, young one, for you they have suggested that you take this special lesson alone this time. While the red and blue team will be together.”
“A... Alone?” Gary said.
******
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