My bank account has twelve digits in €, I don't even need to work, but I can't stay down and I like what I do, especially my work in MI6 and in my Architecture Company, which I founded with Cassie and Sera when we were 20 years old, in London. Now there's a branch in London, in Lyon, in Edinburgh, and in Boston, and it's named Ivory Secaza (Ivory because it's Sera's first name, Se for Selene my actual first name, Ca for Cassandra which is Cassie's name, and Za for Zalea my technical first name).
Sera is the CEO, Cassie is the COO, I'm the CFO and main investor as I'm pretty much the bank of our company for projects. And I also paid everyone's salary in the first three years, before we got money enough to paid them with it. Now I only pay Sera, Cassie, Kitty Bishop, Sienna Perry, Imogen Stewart, Mila Cameron, Georgia Collins, Violet Nightingale, and Adélaïde Hémery's salary.
Kitty being the CIO (Chief Information Officer), Sienna the CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Imogen the CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), and Mila the CHRO (Chief Humans Resources Officer) of the main branch, that changed from London to Lyon to Edinburgh. While Georgia is the vice CEO of the Boston branch, Violet is the vice CEO of the London branch, and Adélaïde is currently the vice CEO of the Lyon branch (previously on this position in the Edinburgh branch).
I get my own payment directly from the company itself though. But the highest salary I get out of one of my main three works, where I work actively, is from MI6, though my payment from Interpol doesn't fall behind.
Mami, papi, Yves, and my friends call me an workaholic, but I'd rather call myself professionally productive. If I'm not working on anything particular, be it a mission, a project, or a personal matter, I feel wrong. I'm not the type to slack off, spend hours and hours doing nothing. I was born be on the field, or working, handling numbers at my company.
I only take the biggest projects for myself, as I'm the head of the Financial department, that's what I work on the most in there, as we are big enough for me to chose to do this. For me to pick a project for myself, it has to be something interesting, big, innovating, and that will add in a lot of money, because again, I love money, and thankfully, I've always been very skilled at numbers.
My name's (Countess) Selene MacBhrìghdein Hamill-Galbraith, that's how I was born, but because of the fame my parents had, and the evil eyes on the inheritance, when mami and papi legally adopted me, they opted to change my name to (Countess) Zalea Selene Theriot Ackermann, and my nickname 'Lea' comes from Zalea. But my real identity is the one I was born as, all my parents left for me are in that name. Using Zalea's is more useful now, given my line of work, but it doesn't change the truth.
Papi and mami explained that to me when I was 7 years old, that they had changed my name for my protection, but that I was still my parents' daughter. By then I was smart and old enough to understand what that meant, and they were already training me physically, so I knew my birth parents were involved in some spy shite, I was a fan of James Bond, so I got a lil bit of it.
And-
My phone rang in the back pocket of my black high-waist denim pants, as I entered the kitchen of mami and papi's place, where Véronique Marquet, their chef, had prepared a batch of dark chocolate croissants for me with some black tea. She knows my taste as her own by now, and she's lovely.
Sitting up in front of the marble island, I picked my black titanium iPhone, seeing 'Sera🦄' glowing on the screen. Yes, that's an unicorn on the side of her name, because she's stupidly obsessed with them since we were kids, so much that she died her light brown straight hair, in all the colors of the rainbow, just because of that.
As California Girls by Katy Perry, the ringtone I set solely for her, as it's her favorite song, kept playing, I finally pressed 'Accept'.
"Did something happen, babe?" I asked in English.
"Nah, just missed your low-pitched deeper sexy feminine voice!"
I grinned mischievously, "True, I do have a sexy voice."
And I could tell she was rolling her eyes even though I cannot see her. "As narcissistic as always, I see," she mocked. "Now, to what matters. Lea, babe, Mr. Sginnearach," Colum, he's one of my men I put responsible for the restoration of the Rosewood Manor, which mami insistently calls a haunted castle, "asked us to ask you what color would up want the exterior of the Rosewood Manor to be, so he can buy them firsthand, 'cause it seems like there's gonna be a shortage of the construction paints on winter."
It's almost winter, we are in October now, but he's right, we should see that firsthand, "Got it, because it'll be the last step and it might happen in the middle of winter!" A positive hum came from the other side. "Black."
Sera let out a horrified gasp, "Black?"
"Oh God, I knew she would pick black," that's Cassie's voice.
"You can't be serious. Are you tryin' to make this the Family Adams house or something?" Sera cried, because she hates black, and I love it, in fact, 80% of my clothes are black. We are like Wednesday and Enid, while Cassie likes all colors with glitter and her favorite is forest green, she's our in-between. "This will become a haunted gothic castle, Lea. Jesus Christ, pick another color. Why not brown? There are lots of pretty shades of it."
"Brown is the color of shite, Sera," I mocked. "I hate brown."
"You hate colors," she snapped. "But come on, black? Really?"