Six people arrived at the Volkov Manor after the evening attacks from the surrounding lesser clans and Nosferatu troops. They stood in the large office with their hands behind their backs, watching Nikolai, who scribbled sothing on the desk in silence.
’To think it’d cost this much for one night of interruption.’
He was glancing through the invoices and logs of the Fenrir clan’s financial books, which Nikita’s mother arranged. It was sothing Nagisa called training for the future, as she planned to leave this to Nikita and him once Dimitri wanted to retire.
His glance shifted to the six people he called, but this was more important.
’dical bills, repairs, hush money... It’s ridiculous.’
Leona watched from the side, peeking at the newcors, while serving a cup of tea to Nikolai, with Reina and Miyu sitting to the side at their private desks.
Finally, his pen stopped, and he let out a sigh.
"Forgive for making you wait."
"N-No, Lord. It is what we should do." Mikael Zorya lifted his chin and responded. To Nikolai’s eyes, he seed honest.
Beside him, the woman with short black hair and a tight black pencil skirt examined Nikolai’s face, but avoided showing too much emotion on her face.
’I expected those two to complain.’
"You seem busy, Nikolai." Seraphina smiled and greeted Nikolai with a polite nod. The woman always seed like an enigma, but thankfully, she accepted his request and beca one of his knights with little fuss. All she wanted was for him to prioritise her daily actions, unless sothing important happened.
Lyra Orlov nodded, her ssy green hair flowing gently as she hid her emotions. According to the information, she was cunning and relentless with her enemies, but for allies, she was soft and protective.
’I can see the wind wrapped around her body. She’s ford it into thin blades.’
He nodded, impressed by the skills of each mber. Of course, Alexei and Ryan stood to the far right, both of them already in the black and silver outfits of his six captains. ’I was tempted to cut it down to five... but I am glad I chose not to.’
"You all know what I’ve summoned you today right?"
The six looked at him with varying emotions and expressions, but nodded in unison.
"Good, the Daywalkers have begun to move." He switched on the digital projector, which showed a detailed view of S-City, from the northeast and eastern slums, a huge chunk where the Fenrir and Volkov clans owned most of the city.
Smaller clans of the Moonlight Alliance also appeared, filling the gaps and small area’s but the colour of the map left a huge divide. ’If not for that deal with the ghoul clan, I would have lose those lots in the west...’
The Nosferatu and Daywalkers controlled most of the west and southern S-City.
Moonlight Alliance controlled the east and north of S-City with a small gap in the centre of the city where only a few buildings owned by the Scarlet Group lingered.
"This is the current situation of our city. Can you see any problems? Let show you the past five years, watch the blue is our Moonlight Alliance, and the red are our enemies."
The group all watched the projection intently, with Alexei and Ryan lacking the technical and educational background compared to those brought up as clan heirs.
Irina glanced at the flashing blue and red dots and tilted her head. The image returned to five years before most of the south and half of the west were blue... but slowly, clans that used to be allies beca enemies at an alarming rate.
She raised her hand and looked into Nikolai’s eyes with a firm expression. "Our enemies have been picking away at the Alliance through the smaller clans."
"That’s one good point."
Lyra stepped closer and pointed to another part of the map.
"We’ve lost a lot of trade and comrce because of their movents in the last few years."
The places she pointed to were specks of red close to the centre. Each light was barely noticeable even when illuminated using a digital projector.
Small vendors, companies and human-facing businesses faded and moved over five years; it was such a small number that most people didn’t notice. But Nikolai’s eyes narrowed the mont she ntioned it because even his father and the current council knew nothing about this happening either.
"How did this happen?" Seraphina asked with a stunned expression.
"It seems that as well as the betrayals, the daywalkers have been working with humans too." Mikael mumbled as he looked back at Nikolai.
"Yeah, this seems dangerous, if we hadn’t noticed it... no. To only notice now is slow, but if they managed to get the support of a big company that could rival the Scarlet Group... everything would be over." Ryan’s skills might not be impressive to the clans, but he was still a mber of the SSS and an intelligent, rich boy.
’Good, they’re all thinking.’
Nikolai switched the projection to a second layer. One containing financial overlays, industrial permits, infrastructure expansions, and the slow trickle of "unrelated" human companies taking root in traditionally monster-controlled zones.
The lights shifted from simple red and blue to a ss of faint green, yellow, and orange lines and caused many of the captains to stiffen, because the new colours signified different things and showed that of the many blue lights... at least twenty percent were in danger and marked orange.
"Now you see it," Nikolai said. "Since our clans are a little too old-fashioned, we expected them to attack us head-on, in a fair fight. But this isn’t the dark ages anymore." He flung a small folder to each of them, sothing he made himself.
"They’ve used humans as interdiaries. Bought land under false subsidiaries to take us off guard and then when we looked elsewhere... pushed our weaker clans out using legal and physical force to finish the job."
Nikolai tapped the desk while narrowing his eyes. "The damned bastards, we were too focused on the Silver Clan. But they were nothing but a Trojan horse."
Mikael’s face appeared pale, his eyes tracing a few places and then back to Nikolai, who smiled wryly. "This was planned years in advance."
"Yeah, and it’s not just the small clans anymore... You saw, right?" Nikolai pressed Mikael, a proud mber of his clan.
"Yes, those are places that my clan should be watching."
A mont of silence followed, broken only by the projector’s faint hum as one woman stepped forward. "If humans are involved, does that an the SSS is complicit and our agreents with them are void?"
Nikolai shook his head. "Not every departnt of the SSS is bound by our agreent and contracts. But there must be soone deep enough to reach and find our transactions and records to do this. Whoever it was relayed the Nosferatu and Daywalkers information about which businesses we were interested in or applied for ownership of."
Seraphina crossed her arms. "Then we don’t just have a leaking boat. We have an enemy already living in our house."
"That’s a dramatic way of putting it," Alexei muttered.
"No," Nikolai corrected him, tapping a glowing red zone near the comrcial district. "She’s right." He zood in on a cluster of buildings, a small and forgettable area in the west, near the slums, with facilities lit up in orange. "This situation is why I’ve chosen you six, instead of the council of twelve."
"These companies are the enemy." Nikolai continued, "Sohow, they sold forr Moonlight Alliance properties one by one. Their employees never show up in population records. Their suppliers route through dummy accounts and the only reason we discovered this issue was thanks to the attack on Fenrir the other night."
He swiped the screen. It shifted to show grainy footage from street caras. A squad of ard n in SSS uniforms, with hidden faces and carrying weapons and crates of sothing that had the stamp of the SSS.
However, there was sothing strange about the "Humans" and the people they handed the goods off to.
"They’re werewolves?" Alexei spoke first.
"They seem to be those with low bloodlines, barely able to maintain a human form." Nikolai glanced at Leona, smiling faintly at her. "They cannot hide their ears or tails, but cannot transform into a full werewolf form. It seems these are people the clans have neglected, or never cared about before."
’I only know because of Leona and my maids...’
Nikolai ignored the comnt and stepped away from the projector, hands behind his back.
"Although I have yet to fully accept you, shall we call this a recruitnt task, your test if you may. We are going to secure those buildings, learn of what those boxes contain and deal with the traitors and enemies trying to syphon off our territory."
He looked around and pointed to the west. "The Daywalkers think they’ve built a quiet and secure foothold in our territory. But if we act fast they’ll only notice when it’s too late."
Alexei cracked his knuckles. "So we crush their foothold."
"I’d prefer to take it, if possible." Nikolai chuckled at his enthusiasm.
"We target their new companies led by humans using normal ans, I hope that Irina and Mikael can take care of that. Once we find their infiltrators and we drag them into the light... We will crush the spots taken by monsters."
Nikolai shut off the projector, plunging the room into calm, warm light.
"Prepare your squads. Tonight we start taking back S-City."
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