The Daughter They Forgot

A Formal Decision

Charleza’s p.o.v.

I walk to the floor below, and only in the corner office is there a door to the small room, while on the next floor the door is on the other side. On the sixth floor, the door is in the hallway outside the offices, and on the fifth floor it is open.

Floors two, three, and four have an opening that connects the two offices. What surprises me is that none of these spaces are on the blueprints.

“Can you measure every floor, every office, and compare them to the blueprints?” I ask the man who discovered the doors.

It took him the better part of two days to measure it all, but when he was done, we had accounted for every inch of the building. We still haven’t figured out why none of the rooms and alcoves were on the blueprints.

“This building has been in the possession of the same family from the day it was built until we bought it. No one can answer our questions, because the man who authorized the build has been dead for years.” Lochlin says.

“Then find the contractor and ask for their original blueprints, because these aren’t,” I growl.

I hate it when the information I receive is incomplete. It makes my work more difficult and usually costs more.

“If the seller didn’t provide what we asked for, I want every penny we lost because of this covered.” I don’t wait for an answer as I walk out of the building.

After I have driven home, I walk out the back door and start taking my clothes off. Azura needs to run, and I need time to think about the future. I place the folded clothes in a bag and let Azura take control.

We need a company name and everything else that goes with owning a business, but first I have to settle on a name.

Grandma Rozena had no opinion on a name when I asked her about it a few months before she died, and I have been thinking about it off and on for the past five years.

I want to honor my grandparents, but I don’t want a daily reminder of the people who abandoned me. So, anything containing Mildglow is out the door, even though it is also my late grandfather’s surname.

“Then use Ironshield. It is your surname and that of Grandma Rozena.” Azura responds as she jumps over a fallen tree.

My mind goes back to the list Ealish made of words to add, and most of them don’t sound right. I am so deep in thought that I don’t notice we have returned home, and Azura lies down in the backyard, not far from where my clothes are.

“Done thinking.” Aldyn’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and Azura gets up to hand control back to me.

“Yeah, I have come up with a name and a logo for the company,” I respond as I put on my clothes.

Paper and a pencil are waiting for me when I walk into the house. Before I sit down, I grab a tin can of colored pencils and set it beside the paper.

With the grey pencil, I draw the logo outlines, including the name. I grab two colored pencils and start filling the lines I just drew. I tilt my head slightly to the right when I am done. Something is still missing, in my opinion.

I add a square with rounded corners and color the background black. I turn the drawing toward Aldyn, who is standing on the other side of the room.

“Perfect. I believe this is the right name and the right logo. Let's put it up here and see what Ealish and Lochlin say.” He points at the shelf to my left.

A shield made of the letters S and I, with the words Ironshield Structures beneath it. The top part of the S is dark blue, and the rest is dark orange. Ironshield is written larger and in dark blue, while Structures stands between two long dashes in dark orange.

The black square finishes it, in my opinion, and we will use silver instead of dark blue and dark orange for our business cards, while keeping the colors for the letterheads.

“There better be a company name before they are finished with the renovations, or the battlefront might get damaged when it gets attached later on,” Lochlin says as he walks in the door.

Ealish stops dead in her tracks, staring at the logo, and Lochlin walks into her because, as usual, he isn’t watching where he's going.

“Damn, it is about time you made a decision,” Ealish says, shoving her elbow between Lochlin’s ribs.

He groans, despite the fact that Ealish didn’t hurt him, and he steps back fast enough to avoid another elbow.

“I like the colors, Boss.” Lochlin rubs a hand across his ribs and chuckles when he hears me growl.

I hate it when one of them calls me boss. I might own the structures, but without their help I wouldn’t have owned more than the five in Ebonpost.

After Grandma Rozena signed the deeds over to me, I also got the rent income from the years since Grandpa died. Aldyn had attended business classes with me, and I had asked him for advice.

The first purchase we agreed upon was an office building in Bleakfield. The second was another office building, which we sold after renovations.

By the time I was twenty, I owned five properties in Ebonpost, four in Bleakfield and two in Duskford, but I had sold at least twice that many.

Around that same time, Lochlin joined our daily operation, and my list of handymen of all trades had grown.

Now, at the age of twenty-four, I own twenty-five structures in six places. Eleven houses and fourteen commercial buildings in total, and I'd already sold twice as many.

Knowing what I wanted to build in the future, I hired Ealish as my personal assistant, and now I had tackled two other hurdles.

“How do you plan to incorporate the logo?” Lochlin asks when we sit down for dinner.

“At tactical positions throughout the building. Only business cards will use a grey and black logo.” I answer.

I place my idea for the letterhead on the table, and we tweak it a little before we all agree this is what we are going to work with.

Ealish suggests transparent name signs for the office doors; name first, logo behind it. On the glass panels outside the elevators, a single logo on either side of the corridor, and on the glass panels of the revolving door.

“Where do you want to place the name on the battlefront?” Aldyn asks, and I grab the blueprints to see what our best option is.

“Right here.” I point at the seventh floor where our conference rooms are. “Right outside the biggest conference room.”

The company is getting more real with every decision we make, and my future starts to look more stable the more we check off our list.

I haven’t needed to rely on anyone for years, and as long as I keep making smart and wise decisions, I never will.

“Okay. I made an appointment with Elder Elgar Solidshard to register the company. He will be here tomorrow at eleven.” Aldyn says, and I groan because I forgot I still need to deal with the Elders.

I might have accepted the status of a loner, but that doesn’t get rid of the Elders. A loner is a shifter who can’t, won’t, or refuses to live according to an ancient hierarchy.

Aldyn and Lochlin were born loners, while Ealish and I became loners due to circumstances.