Raised by Lions

Chapter 22: Market Business

A knock sounded from the other side of the office door. Ibuki sighed, taking his glasses off to rub at his eyes and move some strands of mane out of his face in one fluent motion, before saying, "Come in!"

The door swung open and Louis offered a small smile as he stepped into the office, careful to not catch his antlers on the door. Closing the door behind him again, he said, "I don't mean to bother you. The others are all out on jobs." Louis watched as Ibuki's tired expression turned into a soft smile, making his own smile relax.

"You aren't bothering me, Louis. I'm just checking over some stuff," Ibuki said, trying to keep things vague. Louis' ears perked a little at that and he moved over to stand beside Ibuki's desk. "Maybe I could help?" Louis offered. Ibuki shrugged and gathered a stack of papers. "It's market business, you don't have to worry about that yet."

Louis pouted, "I'm gonna have to do it at some point, I might as well learn as early as I can." Ibuki pursed his lips, trying to think of something to discourage the teen. Louis was 14, he didn't need to be involved with the specifics yet. Ibuki was about to say something else to try and dissued Louis, but when he looked at his son, Louis was looking back up at him with puppy eyes.

"Did Legosi teach you that?" Ibuki asked, both surprised and not so much when Louis nods, keeping the eyes in place and jutting his lip out in a cute pout. Ibuki all but melted, though mentally noted to like Legosi just a little less for teaching Louis that. Ibuki sighed.

"Fine, I'm just sorting out the income of the gang. We've been losing some money somewhere and I'm trying to figure out where. It's too complicated for you, you really shouldn't be worried about this yet," Ibuki said. Louis shrugged and jumped up to sit on the edge of the desk with his feet dangling off. Ibuki has long since started leaving a spot for Louis to sit on at the side of the desk after the fawn did it for 7th time.

He picked up some of the papers and scanned over them. Louis took a moment to read before asking, "If I have it correct, money means more control, medical and weapons in our hands, yes?" Ibuki nods, surprised Louis has already picked up on that.

"So we need to get more control of our assets. What do we have on grounds of businesses so far?" Louis asked and Ibuki found himself wondering when Louis had become this smart. He quickly made a mental note of their assets before telling Louis. He wasn't sure how much the teen could understand or help with but it wouldn't hurt to hear him out.

"We've got two weapons vendors, five bars, three meat vendors and a specialty goat meat vendor. We also deal in cocaine and blood. There's the hyperdrug clinic, but it's a but of a shitshow right now." Ibuki listed off and Louis listened intently, mentally pacing the information. Ibuki allowed him time to come to a conclusion, watching the fawn glance over the paperwork again.

"So the specialty shop and weapons dealers need more money to run their operations. We can send Dope to negotiate lending them some cash to do renovations and stock up. That way they'll puff up a bit and we'll make more money in return." Louis commented, switching the papers in his hands around and putting some down.

"Maybe get Sabu and Free to run a tighter ship on the drug trade, lean more towards the blood trade, cause everyone wants it, while only some want cocaine. Don't throw the cocaine trade out the window though, just scale down on it slightly." Louis puts another paper down, glancing at Ibuki with a strange spark in his eyes that the lion hasn't seen before.

"You, Dolph, Hino and Miguel can go check in with the meat vendors and bars. They should be turning a quick profit, if I know anything about the market, and I do, so if they aren't that means they aren't being run correctly. We'll need to fix that, even if it requires some brute force." Louis puts down the rest of the stack of papers, honey brown eyes meeting the dark eyes of his father.