George bought the whole thing. It didn't really seem like a wise investment opportunity to buy an entire drug dealer distribution from a shady criminal, but George was a "tough guy". Plus, he'd spent years saving Monica's ass and Monica sent him. In short, he didn't expect to get screwed over.
"Maths, I got the thing" he said to Monica over the phone.
"Ok. Do your thing G." The line went dead.
George settled in. He had bought an apartment 2 blocks away from Monica's house - less of an apartment than a flat, really. To be technical, it was half of a townhouse - a 2-story white & brown number that reminded him of words like "Georgetown" and "Ivy League" - words from another world, another life. Like most things larger than a 6-pack, the transaction was over in 4 words: "I want that one". The realtor handed over the keys, let him off, then drove off as the moving van carrying George's things pulled into the space behind him. He was probably headed to the nearest beach to offload some of the cash in the suitcase that had divided them during the ride over. The realtor was, in reality, Monica's. No paperwork, no paper trail. The lot was still listed, internally as 'Unsold' for the auditors, probably, but would never be shown in the available listings as long as George lived there. The moving company belonged to Monica too. You'd be surprised at the number of times a moving company came in handy in his previous line of work.
The porch itself was divided, but George expected that. He also expected the tall man who came out of the attached dwelling to be trailing the sweet scent of marijuana, but as he accepted the fist-bump of Monica's long-time friend, his face showed his confusion. Dev gestured with the amber-colored liquid held in his other hand, "I drink when I code, smoke when I lyme". George nodded his head in understanding. He didn't know what Dev did, just that it had nothing to do with the empire. In fact, Dev had nothing to do with the empire, as far as anyone was supposed to know. Monica had let some things slip though, and George could tell that the company he worked for was called Monica's empire.
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Come over when you're ready, bruh", Dev threw behind him as he wandered off into the house. George paused. Dev always seemed other to him. Just now, he would have said another man walked but Dev always seemed to wander... and he couldn't tell what made the difference. He 'binned' the thought - another phrase he'd picked up from Dev that he gathered roughly meant shelving it for later - and turned around as the moving van guys quickly, efficiently and quietly set up his things exactly as they had been at his past posting.
George gave the place a final run through and noticed a new addition - a nondescript laptop on the kitchen island. He nodded in satisfaction - shady, clean & professional deal brokers were hard to come by in a coastal town this far from Boston.
He handed off a second case of cash, sent the movers off, and sat down to inspect his piece of the empire. It was fairly what he'd come to expect over the years: a custom OS, custom laptop chassis, no trackpad or mouse, and a custom keyboard with 2 rows of color-coded special function keys. He pressed a red button with "MgrIn", then, at the password prompt, used the owner's override key sequence of "Ctrl + F5". The screen changed tone from blue to red. Nothing else changed until George keyed in his password: a 32-character clunky thing that was inscribed on a chain presented to him when he became Monica's.
