Jax unlocked a chest near the desk to grab a ledger and handed it to Lucian. "Here are the monthly reports for the past month, as well as the weekly ones."

Lucian opened the ledger, flipping one page after another. He knew most of the prices by heart, and he could tell at first glance if the numbers were off. Quantities could also be estimated and thus checked.

Everything was in order, except for the brothel, which wasn't in a profitable state.

"There was not a single girl at the entrance to greet the guests," Lucian said.

"The wind was too strong, and the dust was getting everywhere. The girls were exhausted and couldn't stand for too long," Jax said.

Lucian gave him a side glance and continued to look through the report.

"The tea was watered down to lower the cost," Lucian said, and Jax started to explain himself again.

"They can't tell the difference, Boss. They are so drunk by the time the tea comes that─"

"I wasn't drunk when I tasted it, nor were the sober patrons," Lucian said, "You lowered the quality and your reputation at the same time. Are you sure you aren't the one stealing?"

"..." Jax lowered his gaze.

"My funds are limited," Lucian said, "If you can't double the brothel's profits by the end of the year, I will sell it off. Pass on the message to your girls to start looking for other jobs or do better if they want to keep this one."

"Boss, that's too harsh," Jax tried to plead, "How am I supposed to do that?"

"If you can't be innovative, copy others. If you can't copy them, learn from them, and if you can't learn, then get others who are more experienced to take over."

"I know that already, but it's easier said than done…" Jax took back the ledger, closed the chest, and put the key in his pocket, "Do you think I should appoint someone else to manage the brothel for me?"

"Someone who can handle both men and women better than you can, yes," Lucian answered, "Preferably a mother figure, a queen, if you will. Someone who can welcome a guest like her own son and give a girl a scolding if needed."

Jax wasn't always present and when he was, he would be very protective of his girls. That was one of the reasons why the brothel was doing poorly. He fought with the customers the Jax way, which caused more trouble than it was worth.

Jax needed someone to hold him back and deal with the customers in his stead. Even at the cost of having to split his share of the profit.

Lucian had no experience with other brothels, but if he were to compete with Lady Lily's ways, he would go the opposite direction.

Jax's courtesans couldn't compete with the quality of Lady Lily's services nor her popularity. They could capitalize on innocence, purity and the forbidden aspect instead.

The girls had lots of training and studies to go through, and couldn't keep up with Lucian's initial idea of luring richer patrons through their newly learned etiquette and horse riding.

Courtesans like Lady Lily would easily overthrow them at their own game. What Lady Lily couldn't risk was changing her whole style and brand without losing her regulars and having to fight for a new customer base from scratch.

"I will appoint Camilla," Jax said, taking some inspiration from the theme Lucian proposed.

"Good. I'll be borrowing your office for a while."

"...what happened to your office?" Jax asked.

"It's mine. What about it?" Lucian asked.

"You could just use that instead," Jax said.

"I could," Lucian agreed, opening his briefcase, "But I don't want to."

"..." Jax's eye twitched as he cleaned his desk to make space for his boss, and then left the office.

Lucian took his work out from the briefcase. There were no distractions that reminded him of Celine rolling in his bed, sitting in his chair, playing with him, and other activities that he was trying to avoid thinking about.

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Soon, two young men came to help Lucian with his work.

They were around eighteen years old, and were afraid to return home and inform their parents that they failed their exams, so they wanted to earn some money on the side first.

Ulrick and Klaus were both from a family of farmers. They already failed the knight examination in their childhood. If they graduated as scholars, they could get hired by nobles as their assistants or accountants. They could even teach their children or work for a big business. But they failed those tests as well, ending up here.

They didn't know that Lucian knew about how they faked the books to make the numbers look good.

Lucian would have fired them for stealing money if he didn't find their calligraphy skills useful. They could copy the handwriting of other people after practicing a bit. It was a rare skill that couldn't be ignored.

The store's employees were usually enough to take care of Lucian's basic necessities such as his meals, laundry, shopping, accounting and other mundane things, not the people he was dealing with.

Klaus and Ulrick helped Lucian sort the letters and prepare the gifts and make a note of all the important dates such as birthdays and anniversaries. They also researched the senders of the letters, their likes, and dislikes and wrote a small summary of the information for him.

They would have to work closely with Jax's information network from now on. Be able to demand Jax to gather the information for them, and not take no for an answer.

Jax on the other hand would have to make sure they didn't sell that information to outsiders. If they did, he would have to deal with them in the Jax way, with his fist.

'Should I tell Jax to put them in charge of bookkeeping once in a while?' Lucian thought, 'The more evidence there is, the easier it will be to convict them if they ever decide to use the information they gather against me. Mmm, it's too early to think about that. Let's see how they handle the job I gave them first.'

The hair on Klaus' and Ulrick' necks rose, feeling a chill. They lifted their heads in Lucian's direction and saw him smiling at them.

"Is everything alright, Sir?" Ulrick asked, the spectacles on his nose slipping slightly down.

"No, nothing. Keep up the good work," Lucian said, getting ready to leave.

Klaus and Ulrick exchanged a glance with each other, and then quickly returned to work. Their employer was satisfied with them, and that was all that mattered.

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