The Ace

"Ok, I take what I can get.", then, he grinned at him, but differently, this one was a more friendly one, contrary to the foremost one, which was almost predatory in nature.

Sophie smiled knowingly, but the other two girls looked surprised. For one, they would not be even surprised if Ace turned out to be gay the way he looked, and for another the fact that he was kind enough to accept Saul.

"Although I will say this, if you want to be liked, you should not hit on the first boy you see, and secondly, don't use self-deprecating insults, it makes you look weak and is a disrespect to your parents.", Ace said this with all seriousness, if he was going to be friends with someone, he would do his all for that person to be happy, and from what he could see, Saul just wanted friends, so ace would help him get them. "Also, I will warn you, I am 14."

Sophie laughed, the girls gaped in surprise, and Saul stood there, shocked, "Oh, uhh, ok sorry then, probably should have waited a few more years then."

"No s.h.i.+t.", this came from one of the girls, Bethany, and they all laughed.

"So, what is going on that may actually be interesting to talk about?", Ace asked, beginning to work.

"Well, you for starters. Everyone is curious, but no one dares to ask. I mean, are you really Rank 1 with that much of a difference?"

"Yep, and right there is your Rank 2 or 3, depending on the day.", Ace pointed at Sophie, who frowned.

"Amy and I are just neck to neck, honestly, at this point, I think we will most likely just end up tied, and it will depend on next year's results.", she seemed satisfied, yet not pleased. She obviously wanted to be number one, but for that, she had to gain a solid foothold on Rank 2.

"It's fine, you are by far the best anyways.", 'Apart from me', but that was left unsaid. Ace was going to move on, and attempt to find some more information. If he was as famous as they said, he could trade some information for others. However, he spotted a figure at the corner of the hall, she was standing there, looking at the people around, no, not at the people, but at the place. Almost as if she was casing a joint or target, which, by the looks of it, she most probably was.

"Her?", Ace asked, signalling with his head in the girl's direction. The others were not stupid, they looked one by one, discreetly.

"I think she came here with her retainer.", Matilda said

"Retainer?", Ace asked

"Yeah, she is apparently the young lady of a prominent family in Russia, but they had to move to the USA, after they had some issues with the mob. But don't take my word for it, this is just rumours, and I could be totally wrong. Honestly, not much is known with certainty, apart from the fact that to be invited here, she must have a pretty strong background.", Saul said this, he looked unsure, so Ace was inclined to believe his words on the doubtful nature of the rumours.

"Thank you, let's see what I

Once he got within talking distance, she turned, and said, "I'm sorry, but I am not interested, I have far too many things to do."

Ace quirked an eyebrow and laughed, she seemed to be surprised by that, probably expecting him to fume and walk away, or maybe even cause a scene.

"Casing the joint, I know. Should I be worried? The people that live here are family friends after all.", he said this with a cheerful smile, and yet, the girl looked distressed, like a deer in front of headlights. "Relax, I am not going to say anything, but I am curious as to who you are, never really seen you before."

"Well from what I hear, no one has ever seen much of you before either.", she said this with a smirk

"Touche. Although I will say that I have a completely valid excuse, while you apparently have none. So, forgive me for my forwardness, but when I saw someone looking at my friend's place as if they were planning on stealing it, I got worried. Now, I am by no means an expert, only more perceptive than the average person. This tells me that you probably already have security alerted, I would recommend you to stop before they come out, that would be a problem.", Ace said all of this while looking around, he focused his sense on the corners and hidden spots in the room, and detected at least 3 cameras.

"I can see about three cameras that are hidden. I recommend that you stop before they decide to make a move on you, they for sure think they know what you are doing."

The girl sighed, and leaned even more on the wall behind her, "Ok,so what do you want to know, I mean, it's not like I have anything to hide."

"Ok, so who are you with?", Ace asked, softly, wondering if it would be a touchy subject

"My stepmom's family."

'Touchy subject Indeed', he detected a severe note of scorn and dislike.

"And who might that be?", Ace asked, softly again, but this time a bit more curious

"Daughter of the CEO of Jiang Holdings."

"Ahh, I see, well they are pretty nice, considering that most of these people are jacka.s.ses. So, recently married?"

"Yeah, they met on a trip four months ago, and have been dating crazily since then, they married a few weeks ago.", something in this made Ace quite curious.

"Only four months?"

"Yeah, the family was not very happy, but my dad signed a prenup and everything, not that his wife asked for it. They are apparently in love, and it seems to be true.", she looked distraught, so Ace asked: "And yet, you are not happy, maybe even worried."

"Honestly, I am terrified, I mean, our life before was not the best, but it was not bad, however, now, if my step-mom gets tired of my dad, and the family believes it is our fault, we will have to live in poverty. No one would want to hire my dad, and since they made him leave his job and come work for the family business, it's not like he would have anything to go back to."

"Hmmm, well, for now, you should be happy your father is happy, and who knows, maybe they will be happy forever."

She snorted, and smiled lightly, only a small curvature at the corners of the lips, yet it made Ace feel good about himself, having cheered up a sad soul. "So, what does your dad do?"

"He is a whiz in marketing, honestly, they offered him a job because he was marrying the heiress, but no one is complaining. He is the head of marketing now, and doing just as good, if not better, than anyone else could. This makes the employees happy, the family content, and me proud.", she smiled, displaying that pride she had in her dad.

Ace smiled, he had to look more into it, but if his hunch was correct, he had just found a potential interest.

"Well, you should not let your worries impact your relations.h.i.+p, and I think I can help with that, if for whatever reason your dad finds himself without a job, call here, they should be able to help. Hopefully, this will make you feel happy, without having to worry about potential blunders.". Ace handed her a special card his grandmother had made for him, it was a thin, black metal card that only had a phone number engraved in it. It reflected gold and silver, and honestly made him seem like a p.r.i.c.k, carrying it around, but the card was cool as h.e.l.l.

"You do know it is Jiang Holdings right? In this party, they are probably top ten in terms of power. Don't just mess with me.", she frowned at him, thinking it was all a joke.

Ace smiled, appeasing her worry, "It's fine, just call if you have a problem. Just ask around, you'll soon realise that Jiang Holdings is not really someone that can dare to offend us.", he gave her a final smile, and left, he had to speak with his grandmother.

*************************

"So, what is it?"

"I may have found a potential lead on the Jiang Holdings case. Check for new hires in the marketing department, I think that one of the men there might be the solution. You know as well as I do that it was the new ads that made their revenue increase by such an amount, nothing else would do it apart from a new product, and nothing new has been released."

"Good. I will look into it, for now, the dinner is going to start, so mingle with the younger ones, and see if you can find out anything else."

Ace nodded, and then waited a few minutes for his grandmother to leave, before leaving himself. Letting himself be guided by a butler to the table where all the younger generation would be sitting.