The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 27

The interior of the building basically matched the exterior, and the walls were either painted with a highly reflective gold or plated in it, and they gleamed as if just polished. A canopy of long vined, drooping floral arrangements waved over her head, undulating with the ceiling fans that spun lazily above them, and Kat realized with a prickle that all the flowers were real, that this ornate arguments was taken down and put back up on what must've been a weekly basis.

All that time, she thought. All that effort and energy, all those flowers, wasted on an empty apartment complex.

"Coffee?" the woman called, breaking her train of thought. Kat nodded and stood, walking back to the desk as the woman opened the door behind it and entered a back room.

"The one perk of this job," she called over her shoulder. "Really good coffee." Kat leaned on the desk as she waited, her eyes on the pleasant woman's back. She picked at her finger nail absentmindedly, still taking in her surroundings, when her eyes suddenly flew open.

An otherwise nondescript piece of paper was taped to the back wall with the same bolded, short, unintelligible acronyms she'd been unable to interpret in Jove's office and in the security section of the handbook. She didn't recognize any of the configurations to be the same, but she was certain the small groups of letters meant the same thing, a certainty she couldn't quantify.

"Hey," she said when the woman returned with two to-go cups with the hot coffee's steam coiling from the holes in their tops. "What's that?"

The woman turned to where she pointed. "This?" she clarified, clearly confused about why Kat cared. "It's for security." Kats heart leapt. "It's their schedule."

"It is?" She asked, keeping her voice steady with effort. "How do they read it, it looks like it makes no sense."

"No no, it's shorthand," said the woman, taking a sip of her coffee then groaning. "Try," she instructed with a wave. "Try."

Kat lifted the coffee to her mouth and took a sip, surprised to agree it was delicious. She'd always just assumed coffee was coffee, but this blew Rises out of the water. She took another sip as the woman went on.

"It's shorthand. I forget the name, I think it's like, security asset corporate... It's something. And it's a whole language, they text in it, it's ridiculous."

"Who does?" Kat nearly demanded, her excitement mounting. "The security guards?"

"Yea," confirmed the woman, confusion evident on her face. "Why?"

Kat fiddled with her jacket for a moment before settling on the truth again. "My new boss, there's a bunch of papers like that in his office. I felt dumb cause I didn't know what it meant."

"Ohh," intoned the woman, suspicion evaporating from her face like rain. "That makes sense, I saw the car he was driving, I bet he does have C-trained corporate security."

"C-trained?"

"Yea, it's the brand name. They train security for all types of important people, claim to have military level training. They use that shorthand, security asset..." she frowned. "Corporate... well whatever it is, they use it. I learned just enough to know if the cute security guard is coming and that's it, but ask security at your job, they'll be able to help you interpret it."

Kat nodded, planning to do no such thing. "Thanks so much," she said. "For the coffee," she added, lifting the cup. "It is super good."

"What did I say," the woman trilled, then laughed. "Are you sure you wanna leave already?"

"Yea, he should be gone," Kat said, already headed for the door. "Thanks. Really, thanks."

"Sure hun," the woman called as the door closed behind Kat. "Come back sometime, I get bored!"

After a quick walk back to the den Kat was breathlessly updating the group on everything, the ride back with Jove, the overcrowded garage, and best of all, a basis for determining what exactly security was keeping so secure.