Milena Aronyan

Mortal Days: Dark Past; Hopeful Future

Milena Aronyan arrived in Chicago with her mother, fleeing the Armenian Genocide, along with many other families. Her earliest memories are of her mother’s determination to get her daughter to safety and the sacrifices her father made to make it possible. Though she missed out on ever truly knowing the man, Milena’s mother ensured that she grew up instilled with his values of self-sacrifice, dedication, and hard work. She reminded her that as outsiders in this strange land, they would have to work twice as hard as others to get anywhere.

Milena’s mother lacked the formal qualifications to get anything but very basic cleaning and service jobs and she took on as many as she could. Opportunities for Milena to access the education and support needed to climb out of their predicament in the ghetto were rare at best. However, the young woman was more determined than any to succeed and give her mother the new life she deserved, that her father had died for.

With access to the upper echelons of medicine, law or finance difficult and expensive to acquire, Milena sought employment as an apprentice tradesman. In 1960s Chicago, such pursuits for a woman were frowned upon greatly, however, she finally found a plumber willing to take her as an apprentice, Maurice Plinkton.

Working for Plinkton and Sons wasn’t easy. Many householders weren’t comfortable with a foreign woman coming into their house and doing a task traditionally performed by men, but still Milena persisted. She accompanied Maurice and his sons on jobs to learn the trade and later they were simply there so that a man was present to ease the guilt of the stuffed shirts who hired them to fix their broken toilets and sinks.

She worked so hard, and did so well, that the small family business began to grow and become one of the leading plumbers in the city. However, when Maurice died and left the company to Milena rather than his two sons, the disinherited family members sued her to prevent her using the family name and accused her of manipulating their father.

It was at this moment that Alan Sovereign decided to make his investment. He had been following the business, thinking of putting money into it, but what he found was a dedicated potential childe who could take this fledgling business under her wing. He offered to fund her legal defense and ensure that she won. In return, she would now answer to him. Milena’s path from retainer to ghoul to Kindred was swift.

Kindred Nights: Fangs to the Grindstone

Milena’s Embrace was not without problems. Learning that she would have to sever her ties to her mother was a difficult choice for her to make, but Sovereign made it clear that it was a choice between that and destitution for the now elderly woman. Milena reluctantly agreed and took the Embrace.

Her main regret about this was that she could no longer work during the day. She felt that she had less time than she would like, but she continued to work and grow her plumbing business, taking a keen interest in the apprentices and tradespeople she hired. Following her mother’s death, she opened a trust in her name for hiring women interested in taking a trade. Much to her sire’s delight, she continued to grow and diversify her portfolio, acquiring interests in sanitation, janitorial duties and buying up land on which she constructed multi-level parking lots and waste disposal sites.

While many of the Ventrue look down on Milena as a woman interested in low ranking business, the wisest among them realize her true clout. Milena’s staff have access to some of the most heavily guarded and secure facilities in the city. Many of them are people to whom cracking someone over the head with a wrench or disposing of a body bag without asking questions is no issue. Furthermore, to them, Milena is more than a boss, she is a leader and a mentor. She rewards hard work with good wages and fair terms, though she is quick to dismiss those she feels aren’t carrying their weight.

Milena may not be the textbook Ventrue, but already large parts of the low-end businesses in Chicago are in her hands. Her actions attract the eyes of Camarilla peers and Anarch rivals alike.