Chapter 11 011
Anita Sorel's office at two in the afternoon felt different from the morning sessions Jared had grown used to. The analysts were still at their stations but the energy in the room had a sharper quality to it. Like everyone had read the Helix Bio news and done the math on what it meant for their newest client.
Anita was standing when Jared walked in. That was new. She was always seated and composed when he arrived. Today she was at the window with a document in her hand and the expression of someone who had been thinking hard since the morning.
She turned and looked at him directly.
"Sixty seven million in assessed assets," she said. "Forty three days. I have been doing this for nineteen years and I have never seen that trajectory outside of inherited wealth or criminal activity."
"It is neither," Jared said.
"I know," she replied. "Which is why I want to understand your thinking before I put my firm's name on what you are about to ask me to do."
Jared sat down across from her desk. "Then ask your questions."
She sat. Opened the document. And for the next twenty minutes she asked him everything. How he had identified the distressed fund. How he had known about Helix Bio specifically. How he had moved so quickly on the Culver City property and the penthouse before that. She was not suspicious in the way that implied wrongdoing. She was thorough in the way that a professional who cared about her reputation needed to be before attaching herself to something that moved this fast.
Jared answered everything honestly. He talked about market instinct, about reading people, about the network Victor Harrington had opened for him. He left the system out of every answer because the system could not be explained to anyone without sounding completely unhinged.
When he finished Anita was quiet for a moment.
"Alright," she said simply. "Let us talk about leverage."
She pulled up three documents on the screen beside her desk. The first was an overview of a senior secured credit facility that Knox Holdings could access using the Culver City property and the penthouse as collateral. Conservative structure. Low interest. The kind of credit line that institutional lenders offered clients they considered serious.
"Based on current appraised values you can access approximately four million in secured credit immediately," Anita said. "That is the conservative position."
"What is the aggressive position?" Jared asked.
She moved to the second document. "If we include the Helix Bio fund position at its current post announcement valuation as partial collateral, that number moves to somewhere between eighteen and twenty two million depending on the lender and the structure."
Jared leaned forward. "And the third document?"
Anita paused. "The third option is what I would normally not show a client at your current stage." She pulled it up anyway. "There is a private credit fund I have worked with for eleven years. They do not advertise. They do not take unsolicited applications. They lend to people I personally introduce and they make decisions based on trajectory rather than current balance sheet position." She looked at him steadily. "Based on what I have seen in the past three weeks I believe they would consider you. Their facility would allow Knox Holdings to access up to seventy million in credit against your combined asset base and projected growth."
The number sat in the room for a moment.
Seventy million in credit on top of sixty seven million in assets gave Jared a theoretical deployment capacity of over one hundred and thirty million dollars.
The California Top 100 entry point was four hundred and eighty million.
The math was still steep. But it was no longer a wall. It was a staircase.
"Set up the introduction," Jared said.
Anita nodded once and reached for her phone.
The meeting with the private credit fund was arranged for the following morning. Jared spent the evening at his desk preparing. Not slides or presentations. Just numbers, clean and honest, laid out in a sequence that told the true story of what Knox Holdings had built in forty three days and where it was going.
He was halfway through when the system chimed.
\[RING! Side Mission Issued\]
\[Mission: Resolve the Culver City tenant situation before the main mission deadline\]
\[Objective: Sign a commercial lease with a tenant generating minimum $25,000 monthly revenue\]
\[Reward: plus $400,000, plus 20 Emblem Coins, Property Management upgraded to Master Level\]
\[Reminder: 12 days remaining\]
He had not forgotten the tenant mission. He had simply been moving so fast that the Culver City property had been sitting in the background waiting for attention. He made a note to call Raymond in the morning before the credit meeting.
Raymond picked up at seven fifteen.
"The Culver City building," Jared said. "What is the current tenant pipeline looking like?"
"Three inquiries," Raymond said. "A regional accounting firm, a physical therapy group, and a tech startup looking for their first real office space. None of them have moved past the initial inquiry stage."
"Which one generates the most stable long term revenue?"
"The physical therapy group," Raymond said without hesitation. "Healthcare adjacent businesses have consistent foot traffic and low turnover. They also tend to sign longer leases because relocating is expensive for them."
"Set up a viewing for today," Jared said. "I want to be there."
"You want to attend the viewing personally?"
"I want to close it personally," Jared said.
The viewing was at eleven. The physical therapy group was run by a woman named Dr. Patricia Ng, early fifties, who had been operating out of a cramped space in Culver City for six years and had outgrown it completely. She arrived at the building with her office manager and spent forty minutes walking through the space with the careful attention of someone who had been burned by a landlord before and was not in a hurry to repeat the experience.
Jared walked the building with her and said very little for the first thirty minutes. He let her ask questions and let Raymond answer most of them. He watched how she moved through the space. What she stopped to examine. What concerned her.
His Negotiation Mastery skill mapped her position clearly. She wanted the space. The hesitation was purely financial. The asking lease rate was at the high end of what she had budgeted and she was not sure the landlord would be flexible or reliable.
When they reached the main treatment room on the second floor Jared spoke for the first time directly.
"Dr. Ng. What would make this building the right decision for your practice?"
She looked at him with slight surprise. Most landlords did not ask that question. They presented terms and waited.
"Stability," she said after a moment. "My last landlord raised the rate eighteen percent after our first year. I cannot build a practice around that kind of uncertainty."
Jared nodded. "I will offer you a five year lease at the current rate with a capped annual increase of three percent. The building is owned outright by Knox Holdings with no financing attached to it which means there is no lender pressure that could affect your tenancy." He paused. "You get certainty. I get a stable long term tenant. That is a better outcome for both of us than negotiating over a few hundred dollars a month."
Dr. Ng looked at her office manager briefly then back at Jared.
"When can we sign?" she asked.
\[System Notification: Culver City commercial lease agreement in progress. Property Management skill optimizing lease structure for long term asset value.\]
The paperwork was completed by two in the afternoon.
\[Side Mission Complete!\]
\[Rewards: plus $400,000, plus 20 Emblem Coins\]
\[Property Management upgraded to Master Level\]
\[System Notification: Master Level Property Management unlocked. Host can now identify and manage complex multi asset portfolios with institutional grade precision. New property acquisition recommendations will be issued periodically.\]
Jared arrived at the private credit fund meeting at three with the lease agreement already signed and the Helix Bio consortium framework progressing in the background. He walked into the room with the quiet solidity of someone who had stopped needing to prove himself and had started simply demonstrating results.
The fund was represented by two partners. Both in their fifties. Both the kind of careful that came from having seen a great many things go wrong over long careers.
They asked hard questions for ninety minutes.
Jared answered every one of them.
At four thirty one of the partners closed his folder and looked at the other. A silent exchange passed between them that Jared's Negotiation Mastery skill read as positive before either of them spoke.
"We will advance Knox Holdings a credit facility of fifty five million," the first partner said. "Structured in three tranches released against milestone triggers. First tranche of twenty million available within five business days."
Jared kept his expression measured. "I can work with that structure."
\[System Notification: Credit facility secured. Knox Holdings total deployment capacity now exceeds $120,000,000. Financial Architecture Mission Chain — Action 2 of 3 complete.\]
He was in the car heading back to the penthouse when his status panel updated fully.
\[Name: Jared Knox\]
\[Level: 5 (14/200)\]
\[Title: Rising Dragon\]
\[Total Asset Value: $68,100,000\]
\[Credit Facility: $55,000,000 available in tranches\]
\[Total Deployment Capacity: $123,100,000\]
\[Active Mission: California Top 100 Wealthiest — 158 days remaining\]
One hundred and fifty eight days.
One hundred and twenty three million to deploy.
Four hundred and eighty million as the target.
The gap was still large. But Jared had learned something important over the past six weeks. The system did not issue missions it expected him to fail. Every target it had placed in front of him had looked impossible from the starting line and had revealed its logic only once he was already moving.
He looked out the car window at the city sliding past in the late afternoon light.
Something was coming. He could feel it the way he had learned to feel the system's patterns. A side mission, a contact, an opportunity sitting just around the corner of the next twenty four hours that would make the math change again.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Claire Mason.
"Jared. Two things. First, the consortium paperwork is ready for your review. Second, I had a conversation today with someone who asked about you specifically. A man named Jonathan Hale. He runs Hale Pacific Group. If you do not know the name, look it up. He wants a meeting."
Jared typed the name into his phone and read the first result.
Hale Pacific Group. Private holding company. Estimated assets under management — four point two billion dollars. Founded and controlled entirely by Jonathan Hale, ranked 23rd on the California Wealthiest Individuals list.
Number twenty three.
Jared set his phone down on the seat beside him and looked straight ahead.
The system chimed softly.
\[System Notification: New high value contact incoming. Prepare accordingly.\]
He smiled once, quietly, to himself.
One hundred and fifty eight days.