We were doing great until we met the Glimmering Lions. They sent us some really tough negotiators. They were not interested with a non aggression pact. I thought that it was foolish, but they had their pride. They were not content for us to stay out of their speakeasy and casino racket games. We were content with just the hotels and brothels. The Glimmering Lions wanted us gone. We had simply come to an impasse. I thought we had failed this one until Cameron offered them some booze and a free night with Liza Dratcheva. The next day, he was ready to get the big non aggression pact signed. I gave that full $15,000 to Cameron for the save. I gave the other 2 the money for the last 2 missions. I owed them that for working hard. That money was enough to boost the quality of their rackets by 2 stars in each category. That was what they did. Now all brothels had at least 3 stars in every stat. Ruby's Road and Emerald's Empire had 4 stars in Quality. The beds were all Queen size and had nice mattresses. The walls were painted gem tone colors and there were 2 new whores and a pole.
Amber's Avenue had the new paint job and extra whore. 4 stars in Security bought another 2 guards to stand inside. All 6 guards were armed with rifles. The booze their brothels could make was standard quality. Seeing as the brothels were catered to gay and bisexual men, it was automatically the best place in the whole country of Kale for them. It was not good out there for them in general. There were decency and anti sodomy laws that targeted them. Having these upgrades tanked Secrecy. Our bribe to the police chief inflated the stat by a single star. That was why it was still at a good 3 star rating currently. It was going to be tough to get it much higher without getting some police or federal presence snooping around us. After 2 more weeks, Nicola got back in touch with us. I wondered what he wanted. He had managed to establish some contacts with the leader of the mine. He was going to get some gold out of there sent straight to him and the other lieutenants in the city. Our job was to make sure that it all got there in 1 piece. This was a monthly thing. I sighed. A tough order for an enforcer.
Nicolò, Araldo, Bernardo and I were the ones that had to do this. I was able to buy a simple black sedan with my leftover money. I could drive. The others were in the car with me. We walked the shipment with the guys over to their truck. We got in our sedan. It was a 3 day journey going 1 way. That meant almost a full week going back and forth. It really sucked. Nothing happened the first time. Or the second. On the third we got into a shootout. We did not know who hit us, but we shot them in their cars and it crashed off the side of the road. We had to keep going. We got a bonus 5 grand for hazard pay. That was nice. All their money went into the hotel. The first payout was mine. The second and third were for Nicolò and Araldo. That was $35,000. They immediately shot the Quality up to 5 stars. The second star brought on a nice paint job. The sheets and mattresses were bigger and clean now. 3 stars meant a continental breakfast for the guests. 4 stars added a pool. With 5 stars, the hotel got a whole renovation. It added 3 floors. Each of them lavish penthouses that took the whole of the floors.
