Every one ate breakfast together. It was sausages and pancakes. They were tasty. We had orange and apple juice to wash it all down with. Once we were done, Nicolò and Emilio were looking at me. Nicolò smiled and said "It's the last chance for you guys to come along with me." Emilio was a bit nervous. "Are you sure we can't just join his gang? It would be safer." I shrugged. "You can go with him if you want. I want to try my best on my own. You don't have to stay if you don't want to deal with all of the danger." I said calmly. Nicolò and Emilio looked down at their plates. The others were also really quiet now. "I'm not a coward. I just don't get it." Emilio muttered. I said "I didn't ask you to get it, Emilio. I just want to do it on my own. I would really love it if you came along. If not, that's fine too." Emilio frowned. He would be an extra set of eyes and hands. Having a loyal friend by your side would be useful in this game. I also did not need it to be him. Emilio was an NPC. I could replace him with any other. I waited until everyone was finished eating before I got up. It was time for me to start the day.
The first thing that we had to do was go over to the operations that we had seized the day before. Yellow Ink and Rose Buds were going to open today. Since it was only the 2 of us so far, the only thing that we could do was go there and check them out. We would be sitting ducks as it was. We were young and unknown in the city. Due to our background, we had some small connections. Those would not be enough to avoid getting a bullet in the back of the head if we pissed off the wrong guys. Spreading ourselves too thin all at once was a good way of getting killed. As it stood, we had a speakeasy and a brewery. As long as we kept the quality up, things should be really profitable for us. The booze we made could be served at our bar. We happened to just loiter around the area until they opened up. Once we saw all the men start going in the brewery, we followed them. They looked at us funny until they realized that we were the owners. There was an office in the back. Once Emilio and I got inside, we could manage the place. There were 4 crucial stats: Quality, Production, Security and Secrecy.
Each stat was measured by a rating of 1 to 5 stars. Quality denoted how good the racket actually was. If it was shitty, no one would want to buy anything from us. If they did, it would not be for much money. Production told you how much of the thing they could produce in a week to sell. Obviously, you wanted to sell a lot of good quality things. Security showed how well the racket was protected. Armed guards at the doors would be a good way to make sure that a random thug with some goons could not do the same thing we did to us. Secrecy was also important. If word got out to the wrong people, the police or the feds might try to raid. Gangs might try to steal all your stuff or kill you. Cops wanted to put you in jail for life. All this shit was illegal after all. When the other stats got too high, it made the Secrecy go down. You would have to invest a lot of money into bringing the Secrecy back up to a decent rating. It was not needed right now. We just started up here. No one knew who we were yet. Secrecy was already at 5 stars. Everything else had no stars. Our booze was shit and we had none.
