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diligently manned. Only a single set of double doors stood at the far end of the room but they too were flanked by desks on either side. A man speaking Russian into his headset sat on the left, and a woman who appeared to be mumbling various obscenities at her computer screen sat on the right. A few paces from the entrance to the room was an impressive circular desk where a petite woman sat twirling around in her chair. Her flame red hair was expertly pulled back into a high ponytail and whipped around as she spun faster and faster. She was screaming to someone named Karl about the significant differences between the color pink and the color fuchsia and why he had better learn said differences if he wanted to continue being a fully functional male. Upon spotting the men entering the room, the woman’s face lit up with an enormous grin. She began clapping her hands merrily as her chair came to an abrupt halt.
    â€œWell hello boys! I didn’t think you were going to grace us with your presence today!” She clutched at the edge of the desk for a moment to regain her balance, then gleefully popped up and out of her chair. After grabbing a clipboard from a drawer and what appeared to be a stack of sticky-notes at least an inch thick, she pulled a pencil from behind her ear and skipped over to the men that hulked over her by well more than a foot. “Well?” She tapped the eraser of the pencil to her cheek and offered it to them. One by one, starting with Max, each of the men bent down low, kissed her cheek and grinned.
    â€œAbby, these public displays of affection are highly damaging to our bad-ass image.” Finn said as he leaned down to give her his kiss.
    â€œNot to mention undermine our authority.” Max added with amusement.
    The pixie of a woman snorted and swatted at Max’s shoulder. “Oh silly boys! You’re bad-assness and authority will be undermined the day I hit five feet tall, without heels. Besides, if anything, it reminds people you are not complete ogres.” She smiled up at Max sweetly. He couldn’t help but laugh at the statement while the other men attempted to restrain their own chuckles and snorts.
    The large circular desk where Abigail LaRue sat at the helm was known simply as “Admin”. The central hub of the hive. All of the desks in the room were high-tech, high-gloss black and sat atop plush black wall-to-wall carpeting. Soft, soothing indirect lighting bathed down along the brushed silver walls and a long silver backless s-shaped couch sat in the middle of the room for the rare visitor to wait comfortably.
    Abby was the Executive Administrator of all things. She was the Gatekeeper who would either handle a matter herself or filter things as needed to a specific department of which each lieutenant was in charge. Each lieutenant had two administrative assistants, or “ad-asses” as Abby liked to call them. These were the ones who were seated at the desks flanking each of the five doorways. Much like sentries at the gate. The doorways off to either side led to each department’s command center then further on to each lieutenant’s private office. The double doors at the far end of the hive, however, were where the buck ultimately stopped. As Dominor of the U.S., and the whole of North America for that matter, everything lived or died by Max’s word, or fist. Whichever the case might require.
    Max headed toward his doors with Abby at his side and his lieutenants close behind him. Abby pointed to the “ad-ass” known as the apparently colorblind Karl. He nodded, knowing that this meant he was to watch the gate while Abby was with the Dom. As they walked, Abby slapped sticky-notes, one after the other, to Max’s chest while rattling off the current state of affairs, bringing him up to speed. She was the only person in the universe who could get away with such shenanigans with Max. Though he