Tom Ford launched into an extended rundown, and his momentum pulled Roderick Kingsley in. Not wanting to look like an incompetent CEO, Kingsley weighed in with plenty of ideas about the company's future direction.
Between the three of them, Bella and her two appointees combed through every current and forthcoming Chanel business line.
The inexplicable men's department was axed outright.
Handbags, eyewear, and accessories were all scaled back.
The brand needed to be rebuilt from the ground up. Cluttering it with a heap of third-rate products only dragged down the overall image.
Women's fashion and fragrance would be the flagship lines going forward.
The old slogan—I wear nothing but Chanel No. 5 to bed—was dusted off and put back into rotation.
From founder Gabrielle Chanel onward, Chanel's design atelier had ninety years of history. Chanel No. 5 alone had been selling for nearly eighty. The brand was long overdue for fresh energy; right now it was a giant mired in quicksand.
To rally morale, Bella decided to develop a new fragrance.
Coco Chanel's lucky number had been five—hence No. 5. Bella's was seven. She considered herself flawless.
She wove some of Monk Doshun's research into the new Chanel No. 7.
The top notes were white rosin and neroli, laced with trace amounts of Agon Sugar. The heart was rose and Steel Body. The base: oakmoss and Moonshadow.
Any woman wearing her No. 7 would feel exceptionally confident, exceptionally sharp—the kind of woman who could take on two muggers and win. Bella's definition of "refined woman" had been rewritten: not merely elegant, but spirited and lethal.
Dare to resist, and you shall resist! Pure feminist energy.
Over the next several days, Bella held meeting after meeting with senior management. Chanel could no longer coast on past glory. Whether it was the new women's line or the new fragrance, both required massive investment in marketing. The "good wine needs no advertising" philosophy was obsolete. Fashion Week, design competitions, ad campaigns, celebrity endorsements—spend freely.
"Every euro on the books, beyond essential operating costs, I want spent this quarter," Bella told the assembled executives.
The Wertheimers had used a series of shady maneuvers to siphon most of Chanel's cash reserves before the sale. Bella had injected another fifty million to compensate. Burning through all of it in one quarter was, by any standard, extravagant.
She wasn't worried about embezzlement. A little skimming she could tolerate. But if anyone got too greedy, they'd need to ask themselves a simple question.
Which was harder—their skulls, or her bullets?
It took a full two weeks before Chanel's internal affairs were sorted. After that, everyone had their role; she'd drop in from time to time to crack the whip.
Stepping out of the Chanel building, Natasha walked up to meet her. This was supposed to be a honeymoon, yet Bella had spent most of it handling business.
"So just like that, a fashion house is yours? Unbelievable." Natasha saw the satisfied look on her face and put on an exaggerated expression of awe, playing to her vanity.
Bella was clearly pleased but kept up the veneer of restraint. "It's nothing—just a company on the decline. Next I'm folding Italian shoemaker Giuseppe Zanotti into Chanel as a sub-brand, and I'm looking at acquiring Koenigsegg in Sweden. Top-tier supercars paired with top-tier women's shoes and the full luxury suite—my fashion empire will be complete."
"Let's go, let's go, my fashion godmother!" Natasha tugged her hand. "Last time we were in Paris I never got to explore properly. Today—"
She never finished the sentence.
A man in a white suit came tearing around the corner, clutching a grenade launcher. Asian, moving fast, though the white fabric was flecked with blood, and his hard-chiseled face looked faintly savage.
Natasha froze, hand reaching for her weapon on instinct. Bella caught her wrist. She recognized this man.
"Storm Shadow? What are you doing here?"
Storm Shadow recognized her too. He never forgot a face, even a stranger's—let alone someone at Bella's level.
"Out of my way!" he barked, already trying to push past.
He vaguely recalled that she was an exceptional fighter. He decelerated slightly, intending to slip around them.
Bella wasn't about to let this man tear through her brand-new headquarters. She blocked his path. Storm Shadow grabbed for her wrist, attempting a joint lock to shove her aside.
Bella countered. Today she wore a suit-style wrap dress with the belt tied at one side, a handbag in her left hand, and a pair of lace-up heels on her feet—not exactly combat attire. She stepped sideways anyway, cutting off his advance.
They traded rapid blows. Storm Shadow was encumbered by the green-tinted grenade launcher, fighting one-handed. Bella had no intention of showing off advanced martial arts in a public street. Two warriors, and both pulled their punches—stopping well short of any real blow.
"This is my turf. Leave. I'd suggest going next door—there are more people over there." Bella pointed toward the Dior building not far away.
Without a word, Storm Shadow hefted his grenade launcher and bolted for the neighboring building. Two pursuers charged in from the direction he'd come. One of them was, surprisingly, a familiar face: Duke, the same man Bella had met during the White House rescue of the Black president. The other man, judging by his complexion, appeared to be Black.
Both wore sleek exoskeletal Accelerator Suits that looked distinctly high-tech. Their speed was extraordinary—charging through the streets like runaway trains. If not for Storm Shadow's agile dodging, they'd have caught him already.
Bella and Natasha stood in front of Chanel's entrance like spectators at a show, watching with perfect calm.
They watched Storm Shadow barrel into the Dior building. They watched Duke and the Black man charge in after him.
"I saw those suits about a month ago—the Pentagon's latest Accelerator Suits." Duke and the Black man's armor caught Natasha's eye immediately; she was clearly more interested in the tech.
Bella offered her own take. "They just copied some Theron technology. In my estimation, the performance boost is limited. The control systems are a mess—look at their movement. They're like a pair of wild boars."
Weyland had also studied Theron exoskeletal armor. The control systems were fundamentally weak. Unless the wearer fused with the metal the way the Therons did—letting the nervous system interface directly with the suit—even basic braking remained an unsolved problem.
The human knockoffs looked impressive on paper, with staggering straight-line acceleration, but the moment the wearer tried to turn or stop on a dime, everything fell apart. Completely uncontrollable.