If women were throwing themselves at Mark now, they would start falling off buildings just to get a glimpse of him if they found out about that. No, really, Mark had once seen a woman jump up a building just to touch an S-rank superhuman that was passing through the city. It was one of the funniest shits that Mark had ever seen in his life.
But, surprisingly, that was not the case at all with Jane Kirsten. When Jane arrived to pick Mark up from his hotel, Jane had an extremely professional look as she came out from the limousine and bowed once Mark came out of the hotel doors. She did not look nervous and she did not say anything inappropriate or misleading! In fact, Mark hadn't even seen her smile once since they met.
Mark could tell that she had been trained for this from a very young age and she was already used to meeting important people, so she knew how to act when they were in her presence.
Mark collected the documents that he asked for from Jane and started to look through them. Mark first looked through the shareholder documents to get as much information as possible about them. Since he was going to be meeting with them soon, he needed to know who was on his side and who was trying to take his company from him. That way, it would be easier to cut the rotten trees from the forest.
Mark saw some of the shareholders that he recognized, as well as some new ones that came to join the board of directors in the last four years. Mark focused mainly on one man who had very little information written down.
Sinclair Dante.
For some reason, Mark felt that this man would be a problem and Mark trusted that instinct. Mark closed Sinclair's document and opened another document that showed the recent performance of the company over the past few years. There was a steady incline in the business graph, but Mark narrowed his eyes as he began to carry out some mental arithmetic.
Even though Mark was not the smartest student in his school, he was still one of the best at mathematics since he had been learning business and economics from his parents from a very young age.
Mark always had above-average grades in all his subjects even though he never studied for any exams, and if he really put his mind to it, he could probably beat every other student in the school to take the top spot in mathematics.
Mark knew he would probably lose out to Arit in the other subjects, but he wouldn't lose to anyone in maths. And from what Mark was seeing on the paper, there was something wrong.
"Jane, what was the inflation rate for the last three years?"
Jane immediately sat up as Mark called her name and she gave him an answer in moments.
Mark cut Jane off immediately as she tried to ask him if he could trust Pat, and Jane knew that she had crossed the line at that moment. She immediately bowed her head in silent apology and she brought out her phone and sent the information to Pat.
[Got it. I'll look through it. Hold on, no need to look through it, I got the issue. Man, your company is fucked. I'm guessing that this is not normal for Fortune 500s.]
Mark shrugged as he looked out the window to the side.
"It's not, previous years were better. Help me trace any irregularities in the company; focus more on the finances. I'll wait."
[Yeah, no problem. I'll get to you in about five minutes. Shouldn't be that hard. And Mark, you know we have to have that conversation eventually.]
Mark hummed quietly as he heard Pat finally address the most important issue. It was very rare to hear such a serious tone from Pat. Most times, Pat was dismissive and nonchalantly rude in his tone of talking, but this time, Mark could tell that Pat was dead serious. Mark spoke calmly.
"We will. Later."
[Later.]
Beep.
Once Mark was done with the talk, he cut the phone and then turned his attention to the Triston Transportation company document. Mark could see Jane glance at him for a moment when he started looking through that document, and he hummed at her.
"You have something to say?"
Jane blinked in surprise as she noticed that he was referring to her. She kept her professional image in place as she turned to Mark. She did her best not to bring up the conversation that Mark just had as she spoke about something else instead.
"No, Mr. Vanitas. I was just curious as to why you are interested in the Triston Transportation company. According to reports gotten from recent dealings, there have been no issues regarding the company's services."