Demonic Pornstar System novel Chapter 972

Chapter 972: Monster Relationship

Her fingers had been moving in her lap through all of it, small precise twitches, a puppeteer running strings on nothing, and at the question they went still.

"No." The pitch dropped out of her voice entirely, and for one sentence she looked at him instead of the wall.

"When our guild dissolved out from under us in the middle of the competition, he took the whole roster in. Same team, same points, our names still on the board. So I don’t know what you came here looking for, but you won’t find it in me."

Whitlock studied her.

"And your working relationship with him day to day? Describe it."

Vaelira drew the breath for an ordinary answer and did not spend it, because she had just seen the shape of the thing.

Every ordinary answer she could give was going in that folder. She had spent the morning in the corridor listening to people come out of this room looking like they had been robbed of something they couldn’t name, and she was not going to hand this man one warm sentence about Kaiden Grey to file sideways.

"He gives an order, I carry it out, and I have never once been given one I would refuse." She stopped there on purpose, with a great deal left over. "Beyond that I would prefer a written questionnaire."

The pen wrote subject displays acute stress response at mention of guild leader.

Vaelira left the room with perfect posture and the walking speed of a fire drill, privately satisfied that she had held the line for him.

She crossed the ops floor at that same speed, delivered a nod to Kaiden so rigid it creaked, and vanished into the stairwell. She stood for a while with her back against the door, running the interview from the top and checking every sentence she had given away for a thread he could be pulled apart by.

...

Because the notice said living conditions, and the living conditions were theirs, the family turned out in force for the walkthrough after one.

Luna had not been allowed within fifty feet of the interview door since nine, on Rook’s suggestion that was promptly approved, and she came down to the mess hall with the rest of them still arguing the point.

"That’s my hand in their folder," she said. "They want a statement about it, they can have one, and I’ll sign the fucking thing twice."

The mess hall passed inspection in the sense that nothing in it could be faulted, so Whitlock’s people faulted the paperwork instead.

"Food service." The second assessor, Marsh, stood at the head of the line with her folder open, watching four cooks in whites work the pass. "Four hundred covers a day, prepared on site. I don’t see a commercial catering certification on file."

"Because none is required." Alexandra had come up beside her without being invited, and the timid had gone out of her the moment somebody questioned her kitchen.

"Guild commissaries operate under the Association charter, Annex F, member services exemption. I stood this one up under that annex, I hired every person behind that counter under it, and I laminated it."

She produced the laminate at speed. "Would you like to hold it?"

Marsh looked at the laminate, declined to hold it, and wrote certification status disputed by staff.

"Disputed." Alexandra’s voice climbed a register. "It’s not disputed, it’s cited, that’s the actual exemption, it’s in your own regulations-"

"Lexi." Nyx put a hand on her shoulder from behind, gently steering her back toward the coffee urns. "You can frame the finding later."

Whitlock did not need a roster for the next one. He had a page for her already, and he read it off with his pen out.

"Household manager. Domestic staff, live-in." He looked up. "Miss Seren. That’s you."

"That was his house," Alexandra said. "Before there was a guild to have a kitchen in. I ran it for him, and whoever told you that was telling you something a week out of date."

"And here?"

"Here I’m a partner."

"Partner." The pen circled the word rather than writing it. "Which does not appear on your personnel roster, carries no contract that your own filings disclose, and draws no salary that I can find. What are your hours, Miss Seren?"

"My hours?"

"When does your workday end?"

Alexandra blinked at the question, honestly stumped by it, because the answer was that the day ended when everyone she loved was fed and the lights were off, and she had never once wanted it otherwise.

"I live here," she said, with dignity.

Whitlock wrote down unlisted resident, uncompensated, no delineated hours, and Bastet, who had been observing from the end of the counter, chose that moment to weigh in.

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