Playing the Bosses

Short Notice

Eva arrived at her sister's high-rise apartment in SoHo right on time for them to meet. The large penthouse had three bedrooms and two baths, a kitchen equipped with a full bar, living room and a terrace with a large pool. Eva had a similar setup at her place uptown, but with two bedrooms.

"Finally, you're here!" Alexis beamed when she opened the door and wrapped her sister into a tight hug. "Thank you so much for coming! So, here's what I need you to do—"

"Damn," Eva interrupted. "Can I at least get something to drink first?"

"Oh right, of course! What do you want? I have water, soda, juice..." Alexis didn't bother to continue when she saw Eva make a path straight for the bar.

"Let me guess, a Cuba Libre for you?" Eva asked as she went through the cabinets.

"You know me well, little sis."

"More like you always get the same drink. There are other options, you know?" Eva pulled out rum, coke, lime, gin, vermouth, and an orange before she started making their drinks.

"And look, you're making yourself a gin martini as always. You can stop pretending to like those, you know?"

"Shut up and leave my bougie habits alone." 

Eva finished making Alexis' drink and handed it to her. "Anyway, what did you want to talk about?"

"Right! So, I need your help with something for the company..."

"Okay..." Eva shook her martini and poured it in the glass before going around the bar to sit with her sister. "What is it?"

"Have you heard of PMC Holdings?"

"Yeah, aren't they our competition? And they've been moving up pretty fast, haven't they?"

"Yes!" Alexis replied. "They've been acquiring brand after brand — many of which were vehemently against selling."

"Okay, that's odd, but not unheard of..."

"Correct, but if you're already against selling, why sell to a firm as new as PMC Holdings rather than a more established, reputable luxury holding company like ours?"

"I don't know. Probably some shady shit going on, but why do you care?"

"Because, they've been targeting companies that we own."

"So don't sell," Eva said flatly. "Easy enough."

"Not that easy. We're a publicly-traded company now. We have a board and if PMC offers a sizable enough amount for one of our companies, it'll be much harder to say no."

"If they offer a sizable amount, wouldn't that benefit us?"

"Not if they chip away at us like they did with GHC Group." Alexis took a big gulp of her drink. "They started off by overpaying for GHC's smaller companies here and there and with the offers they were making, it's not like the shareholders or the board were going to let them say no. In the end, PMC absorbed GHC and while GHC's shareholders and execs got out pretty fucking rich, PMC had one less competitor."

"Damn, but how are they finding money to do all this buying?"

"Good question! Which is where you come in. I need you to spy on them."

"What?" Eva's head jerked back and she looked at Alexis wide-eyed. "How would I do that?"

"So, I have this friend named Jen, right? And she runs a temp agency. Turns out that Caleb Peterson, Justin Matsuda, and Adrian Collins — the men who run PMC — need a new executive assistant and they prefer to share one. And Jen is looking for someone to place in that role."