Rita could not believe everything she had just heard.
From what Anthony told her, the CEO just called Marlene in one afternoon and that was it. A few people came to take her things away and the next day Irina was in.
There was no early warning. Nothing. Not one notice. Anthony said he had not heard a word from Marlene since. No call, no fax or anything. Like she just up and disappeared. And it was clear that Irina had the same category of iron fists as the CEO.
Apparently, she had just taken a few minutes to introduce herself and after that she began her aggressive restructuring. She had gone straight to scrutinizing everyone’s work and then to weeding.
Five people lost their jobs in the first hours. Fifteen in the first week. And before he knew it eighty-five percent of their coworkers were fired and replaced.
That would explain all the new faces.
The closest ones to Marlene were worked to the bone till they could not take it anymore. Meaning Kristyn and Leo, Anthony’s own underlings/fledglings was gone too.
Anthony could not let go, even if it meant he getting treated like shit. He was just three months away from reaching his company benefits. Not to mention, his contract said he could only quit once he had reached enough status to get the company benefits. Irina took full advantage of that to make him work for it.
According to Anthony, she enjoyed every moment of it.
It sounded a lot like bullying, but in a way it was not. She just dumped him with work be should have done a long time ago and gave him a very short window of time to do it.
Talia was among those fired. And, in true Talia fashion, she left kicking and screaming. Even made some noise for a while on social media. Anthony said she was still looking for a job without any success.
When the news about Theo got out, there was some big meeting with the CEO, the current board members and even the Chief of Police. Anyone Theo had ties with was thoroughly investigated and some big rules were put into effect.
Anyone found guilty of bullying their coworkers whether either party was human or not would be demoted or fired after three warnings.
Any department heads that were aware of bullying or any sort of misconduct and didn’t report it would be demoted. If the case had grown overtime then they would be fired.
All vampires were now required to go through a screening once every week to check if they had drank blood from the source. If the test came back positive then the police would takeover the matter.
Though most of these new rules were okay, Rita could not help but feel like Marlene and the others getting fired was her fault. She did not feel bad for Talia though. But she did feel bad about Anthony. He was getting treated like some slave because of her.
She felt terrible. Though, to be honest, he did have something like this coming. She just didn’t expect it to be…like this. Or this bad.
In a way, it was kind of her fault.
Her head was aching. She needed some aspirin before it blew over into a migraine.
She took her hands off the keyboard and her eyes off the glaring screen to reach down to her bag on the floor, on left side of her chair.
She reached into the bag and pulled out a bottle of aspirin and took one tablet before closing the bottle, depositing it back in her bag and getting up to get a glass of water from the dispenser.
She used to hate going to the water dispenser because, one, it was a long ways away from her cubicle. Two, she had to pass Talia’s main route to the bathroom, and three, she had to walk all the way back.
Since Talia was no longer an employee, Rita guessed she only had two reasons to hate how far the dispenser was. She was beginning to hate this headache–no, actually, she loathed it because it not only brought pain but memories she would rather forget but could not.
All the dread filled and downright hurtful memories. She choked back the sensation of tears and fought against the need to just find someplace to cry and scream. She swallowed a lump. It was getting hard to breathe.
Her form grew rigid and stayed that way till she reached the dispenser. She hurriedly took a cup from the stack, placed it under the nozzle and filled the cup.
She raised the cup to her lips, took a mouthful of the cold water, popped the tablet in and swallowed it all in one big gulp.
Once the tablet had gone down her throat, she took more gulps of water. Trying to clear the lump in her throat as quick as possible, she didn’t want to call in early on the first day back.
Rita refilled her cup and gulped it down too. By the fourth cup, the lump had disappeared and she had a grip on herself.
She dropped the used cup into the recycling bin and went back to her cubicle. She had not gotten half way to her station when she heard some wisps of conversation that had her stiffen.
“You sure it’s her?” A male voice asked quietly, barely able to hold the surprise in his voice. Who was were they talking about? She did not recognize the voice, so that meant they were new.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Didn’t you see how she reacted when she came in?” Another male responded, quite matter-of-factly.
The lump from before rose again in her throat and sweat was already pooling on her eyebrows.
God, please no. Please.
“So she really is that big time business mogul from Siberia. No way. How and why the hell is she here then?” The first one asked. Then thoughtfully said “I thought she would be savagely competing with this company by now not on its payroll.”
His companion replied with the same thoughtful curiosity. “I really don’t know. You think Mr Princeton bought her chain?”
“A buisness chain that big and pricey can’t possibly be bought in one fell swoup. It’s just bad business. And last time I checked, the company was doing well. Graciously well.”
The two grew silent in thought. “Look man we can figure that out after we’re done for the day if we want to keep these jobs. You know how fast she came in here and fired that guy, Tolu, the other day.” Rita heard shuffling of paper and then the sound of keys on a keyboard being furiously tapped.
“Yeah. And the only thing he did was be late on one sheet. Bitch is vicious for a human.”
Rita let out a breath she did not know she was holding and internally thanked God to the moon and back that she was not the topic of their conversation.
They were still talking when she returned to her cubicle. Their conversation playing in her head. That guy seemed to know what he was talking about and they were both on to something. Something was out of place.
She sat down and looked at her wristwatch. 3:30 pm. One and half an hour to go before closing time.
First thing on her list after taking a rest was looking up who Irina Verushka really was.