Chapter 89 89 Fire Water

Seeing the effect of her scheme, Sarah continued to pour oil on the rising embers.

"If you propose such a deal, even George would feel tempted. Since he is a businessman, he wouldn't be able to refuse a deal like this which came with practically no risk and high return.

…

Luther family estate

Bruce punched the table in front of him in anger with enough force to blast through the table made of polished wood and glass. And this wasn't the first time, he was doing this either. Ever since he had come back from visiting his father, he had been acting in the same way.

In fact, after his little talk with Barry, Bruce had been too angry to stay with his father. He needed to get his emotions under control since he knew what was waiting for his family in the future. The fact that Elizabeth family was interested in the fortune that he was bound to receive, was only a premonition to what would be coming next. After all, Elizabeth family wasn't the only influential family in the city. There were other vultures as well who would be waiting for their turn.

Even though he hadn't shown his anger in front of Barry, Bruce's insides had been roiling with righteous indignation. He had won those things fair and square but he knew that this city wouldn't let him take control of all of it.

Therefore, he had returned right home after the meeting to think of a solution. And he had been in this wrathful stale ever since.

Of course, had it been before Bruce met Zach; he would have just kept it all in without revealing his feelings. He previously needed to take into consideration the effect his outburst would have on the family and his sister. And another reason was that he knew that there was no one else who would be able to solve his problems so he had to rely on himself.

But now he was free to shout out loud and scream about the injustice he had to suffer every single time just because his family standing was low. The reason was that there was at least one person who was able to face it all with him and was able to solve his problems if decided to intervene.

"All our efforts went to the gutter. Those bastards won't even leave soup for us after eating all the meat that was supposed to be ours." Bruce fumed as he let out his grievances to Zach who was patiently listening to him without uttering a single word which made Bruce want to vent out a little more.

"Those bastards from the Macrae family and those snakes of the Elizabeth family stole all the loot we were supposed to take from the wreckage of Sosis family. It should have been given to us and yet those shameless bastards distributed everything among themselves as if we aren't here."

Bruce punched the table again and the hearts of the people in the room shook with the forceful impact.

"Stop acting like that. Can't you see that you are scaring everyone?" Zach finally couldn't handle his impatience. He liked the previous Bruce who always acted calm despite having been in an even tougher position.

To Zach, It looked like Bruce had become worse after he shed off the burden he had been carrying before.

Bruce stopped as soon as he was scolded by Zach. He looked around him and saw the terrified expressions on the faces of his guards and the servants standing near the wall. They had been trying to make themselves invisible as their master rained his wrath on everything he could find.

"I'm sorry. It's just that I can't swallow this injustice even though you risked your life for this result." Bruce seemed truly apologetic as he lowered his slightly and the tone of his voice became more solemn.

"All of you please leave the hall."

Zach addressed the servants in the hall and then looked at the guards who were standing beside the huge wooden door connecting to a hallway that led to the inner chambers of the mansion before saying, "And you two…please close the door on your way out."

After sending out all the people in the room, Zach finally turned towards who was fiddling with something on the table in his nervousness and bottled up anger.

"What do you plan to do about it then? Are you planning to scare your family into jumping ship?" Zach chided him in order to bring him back to the realm of logic and strategies. From his current outlook, Zach could infer the dandy Bruce from before the previous patriarch's demise. He was definitely impulsive enough to be a rich young master who liked to act tough on the city streets.

"What else…we need to secure some other form of compensation from the two families at the very least. We need them to at least give us some soup if they are going to snatch our steak from our very mouths." Bruce replied in an even tone. He seemed to have calmed down after the periodic scolding from Zach.

When Zach heard his words, he couldn't help but curse in his heart.

"How can the head of a family think like a beggar?"

"What is this child play? All of you are acting like children fighting over cheap candies. Those so called big families try to monopolize everything that they can get their hands on and you are satisfied with receiving bread crumbs after the things that should rightfully belong to you were stolen from you. This is extremely ridiculous. Just how narrow minded all of you have to be to reach such a situation?" Zach thought to himself as he ridiculed all the involved parties for playing war games when they should have been doing business.

He felt that a businessman should know how to increase the size of the pie that he would receive instead of trying to hoard the pie himself.

Even he knew that the latter would only result in unnecessary war and the former would be lead to a win-win situation for everyone involved.

But the dumb pricks were unable to look holistically at the situation and ended up creating the current situation where no one was satisfied with the result.

"Stop your useless worrying. I will think of a solution for you. Just stop darkening the colorful and joyful atmosphere of the house with your useless gloom and depression." Zach agreed to help Bruce since he couldn't stay put after witnessing the attitude of the families involved.

In his heart, Zach was thinking of developing the Luther family to the fullest of his capabilities. With his knowledge of the previous world and the countless possibilities provided by this new world, Zach was confident in raising the position of the Luther family in Elizabeth city in no time.

But for that, he needed to take a look at the current situation of the family from a first person perspective.

"Where do you deal with the official matters of the family? I need to take a look at your current assets and the details of the businesses under the Luther families. I need to know what your specialties are and what your trading policies are regarding those specialties." Zach listed all of the things he needed in order to understand the business structure of the Luther family in Elizabeth city.

"All of it is in the study; everything you asked for is in there." Bruce replied with excitement in his eyes. Even though Zach was an outsider and shouldn't be allowed to look at those secrets, they were long past that point. His sister already considered him her master and he had showed life saving grace to his family at more than one occasion. This was the least amount of trust he could put in his savior.

Zach didn't wait for him and barged out by pushing the wooden doors albeit with some difficulty. He did have the urge to blast through them using hot weapons but controlled his destructive urges since this was currently his house too.

pàпdá-ňᴏνêι.сóМ Bruce followed after him excitedly as he made his way towards the study.

"Ok bring everything." Bruce called for a servant with red rimmed glasses and asked her to present every piece of information that Zach had previously requested.

Zach carefully read through the bundles of files that recorded each and every asset under the Luther family, the amount of capital that was currently stuck in the businesses and the liabilities accumulated over the period of time due to foolish investments. Next was the inventory of stocks for the various businesses that Luther family was running.

Zach segregated the useful data from the garbage and a neat stockpile of files was created as result.

"Please take the rest of the files away. I have no further need of them." said Zach as he turned towards the files he had separated for review.

Bruce looked at the servant with the red rimmed glasses who looked like a proper secretary from the medieval ages in her attire. Receiving the signal from Bruce, she did as Zach told her and cleaned up most of the space on the table.

While reviewing the catalogue of Luther family assets, he found an abnormality. There seemed to be a strange substance listed amongst the indigenous resources of the Luther family. It was labeled as 'fire water'.

"What is this fire water? Is it some kind of magical mineral?" Zach asked curiously since the area containing the fire water was listed amongst the mining regions.