Crazy Seduction(erotica)

“Good morning, everyone. I have two introductions to make before we get started. I know I mentioned most of this in the note I sent out last Friday, but I’m making it official here. I’d like to welcome Henry Gable, brother of our dear departed Stanley Garin. He will be taking over as our CIO, and we look forward to working with him.”

There was a polite round of applause while Henry smiled and nodded, experiencing a surreal out of body sensation of watching people he knew, welcoming him for the first time. He wasn’t sure how many of VRL’s executives were members of the Hidden Races so, following the rules, he acted like no one was and kept his mouth shut!

“Next, I’d like to introduce VRL’s new external legal counsel. Mahati Chandra will be taking over Walter Zhou’s efforts on our behalf. She will also work with Noah and his team.”

There was another round of applause which received the merest of acknowledgment from the lawyer.

Camila glanced at the woman questioningly, but Mahati simply raised an eyebrow slightly in return.

“Ok, let’s get started,” Camila said turning her gaze back to the team.

Henry was excited to be involved in his first executive meeting, but that enthusiasm quickly waned as the discussion turned to a recent review of risk analysis and fund management.

“Henry? We keeping you awake?”

He jolted in his chair as he’d been falling asleep. “NNN! Sorry, I didn’t sleep well last night.” He blinked at the others. “Too excited about my first day of work.”

That generated a burst of laughter from the others and his face pinked up.

The conversation continued, but this time Henry concentrated on just staying awake.

Finally, Camila finished going through her agenda and sat back to smile at Sigrid. “Time for question period. If you have anything, you’d like to say or questions to ask, fire away. We’ll go around the table starting with Sigrid. Take it away.”

The blond smiled at her friend. “I only have a request for everyone to follow up on the email I sent out last week regarding the vacation offenders. These people haven’t taken their allotted vacation days, and that’s an issue for them as well as us. Please speak with your staff identified on the report and get them to use up those outstanding days. Thank you.” Several people made a note to do this.

“Mr. Duncan?”

“Everything is good. We’re getting in a shipment of thermal imaging cameras this week and to ensure coverage; we’ll be running extra shifts while the old cameras are replaced. We’ll try to keep the overtime to a minimum.” He included that last part for the CFO as she was looking at him questioningly. She nodded happily.

As it was his turn, Akshay just shook his head as did Myron next to him. Rosalind smiled at Camila and over at Henry. “One of our Junior Marketing Associates made the observation that our marketing kits are outdated in that they fail to reflect the modern company that we’ve become. With our state of the art network security and all the improvements being made to manage our client’s data we can and should be presenting these features in our marketing material.”

Camila frowned. “Won’t drawing attention to our network security just make us a target?” She looked to Henry.

He glanced over at the hopeful expression on Rosalind’s face then back to Camila. “It might. Our firewall addresses most current hacking methods, but we’re still partially vulnerable to DOS attacks-” He immediately caught the annoyed look appearing on Camila’s face. “A ‘Denial of Service’ attack. A flood of meaningless requests that tie up our connections to prevent legitimate traffic from reaching our servers. To mitigate this vulnerability we’ve got redundant connections through three providers. The ‘N’ Dimensional Labyrinth in our firewall is configured to identify and isolate DOS attackers into a holding pen, rerouting valid traffic inwards and responding outbound through the alternate connection. Customers on the affected inbound connection will experience a slowing of their access purely due to the increased volume. I- This has been tested, and according to Stanley’s records, it works.”

He clamped his mouth shut as he’d almost slipped.

“So… are you saying you’d be comfortable with letting Marketing publicly make claims of our security measures?” Camila pushed.

Henry looked over at Mr. Duncan whose face showed his disapproval. He knew the man was right, but there was also something to be said for tooting your own horn to drum up business. He caught Roy’s eyes rolling as the man read the smile coming to his lips.

“Yes. Let me know when it reaches the public, and I’ll keep an eye on the traffic analysis tools to see if there’s any subsequent increase in suspect traffic,” Henry said to Camila and Rosalind. The Marketing exec grinned happily at him, and he heard Mr. Duncan sigh.

“Henry, do you have any questions or statements for your first exec meeting?” Camila asked.

“No, I’m good. Thanks!” Henry replied with a smile.

Frank had nothing to add or ask and it went to Noah who welcomed Mahati and learned they’d be meeting in the afternoon.

Then it was Eve’s turn. She looked to Henry with a hopeful smile. “I’ve been asked to find out if you were aware of some programming Mr. Garin was doing for the Investment Managers.”

“Yes. I’ll be completing that work,” Henry said with a nod.

Eve’s smile widened. “Excellent. We assume you’ll need time to get familiar with the code and to grasp the changes Mr. Garin had intended so when should I tell them you plan to roll out the changes?”

“It should be ready in a week or two,” he said.

Eve blinked in surprise. “A week or two?”

“Are they in a hurry? I don’t think I can do it any quicker than that,” Henry explained with a concerned expression.

“No! No, that’s quick enough! It’s just sooner than I expected,” she exclaimed.

“Oh, well, I’m a quick study, and I like programming… and stuff,” Henry said stumbling to a halt. Fuck, he hated this.

Eve just sent him a smile then indicated to the CEO that she had nothing further to say.

Attention turned to their new lawyer as it was her turn to speak. “If the meeting to discuss VRL’s in-house business has concluded, I would like to speak with Ms. Villamor, Ms. Gunderan, Mr. Duncan, and Mr. Gable privately please.”

Camila frowned but nodded. “Meeting adjourned. Thank you, people.”

The executives not mentioned in Mahati’s list stood and with a few glances back at her made their way out of the meeting room.Còntens bel0ngs to Nô(v)elDr/a/ma.Org

When the door closed, Camila pressed a control on the table before her, and there was a detectable pressure change in the room’s air.

“Ok, we are in private mode, and the door is locked,” Camila stated and turned to look at Mahati. “I had hoped we would have a more civil relationship with our new external counsel. You’ve been abrupt to the point of being rude, and I don’t know where this attitude is coming from.”

Mahati looked down at the surface of the table and seemed to be collecting herself. She took off her glasses, folded them, and placed them on the desk before her. When she looked up at Camila, Henry once more swore he could see a slight glow to her eyes as the whites were so bright compared to her dark irises.

“Please make no mistake. I am not VRL’s legal counsel by choice but by necessity. There has been a shocking disregard for our laws perpetrated by this very group. The Hidden Races Council is well within their rights to take steps to sanction every one of you but especially Mr. Gable.” She finished by pointing an accusing finger at Henry who stared back at her in surprise.

“I was appointed your legal counsel by the Hidden Races Council to ensure our laws are upheld and we contain the chaos that has ensued since the arrival of Mr. Gable or rather Mr. Garin,” Mahati said tersely.

“Well, now that we know we’re all just a big happy family, Henry lad, come sit next to me. There’s no sense in you being off all alone over there,” Roy said, gesturing for him to move.

Henry stood and walked over to sit in the chair next to the big redhead who smiled at him. Henry saw that Sigrid and Camila were smiling at him as well, but the CEO’s expression turned grim once more as she turned back to Mahati.

“If we’d broken any laws of the Hidden Races we’d already be in custody or dead. If you’re here to try to intimidate us with vague accusations, don’t bother. We’ve had to deal with far bigger fish than you in the last few months, we’re a little tired of it, and would like to get back to living normal lives, thank you very much.” Camila said with steely calm.

Something flared in the eyes of the lawyer. “Fish? You compare me to fish?!?”

She suddenly stood, forcing her chair to roll back. There was a flash of light and in the place of the lovely Indian woman stood something Henry had never encountered before.

Her head and upper torso were still human shaped- except for her second set of arms. From the waist down, however, that’s where Henry’s mind had to give up on his old human preconceived notions of ‘normal’ and ‘reality’ and just accept that the coils of a very large snake could complete someone’s lower half.

“The Nāga, to this day, are revered as gods! We defined the very laws we live by today! We’ve held the highest positions of authority in every level of the Hidden Races Council since its inception!”

Camila relaxed back in her chair. “Am I speaking to one of the original Nāga?”

The lawyer shifted on her thick, muscular coils. “What? No, I am the great-great-grand-daughter of-”

“We’ve had to deal directly with Baba Yaga and Queen Mab. They trump great-great-grand-daughter of someone important.” Camila interrupted, and Mahati’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes suddenly began to glow, and everyone was up and out of their chairs walking backward away from the enraged female. Glamor’s dropped, and a Succubus, Valkyrie, and Werewolf faced off against the Nāga.