Chapter One

~Raphael~

“So, as you can clearly see, we are not nearly at the profit margin we could be capable of. Because of these holes where we’re letting productivity and resources just bleed out of us, I’m sure you’ll agree that drastic changes need to be made.”

I looked at the men and women around me, all of them dressed in crisp, professional attire and all of them with their heads up their own asses.

A mild exaggeration. Given that I had hired some of them myself, I knew at least a handful were good eggs. But it was obvious that even our best and brightest were being held back by the worst of us and I wasn’t about to sit back and let that happen.

But, just as I was about to go into the part of my speech were heads would roll and a fire would be lit under the behinds of the survivors, I saw one of my assistants dashing towards the door as quickly as her sensible heels would allow her.

Obviously, that caught my attention. Stacy had worked for me for three years and she never raised her gait above a leisurely walk. Normally I would never tolerate such sloth, but she was good at what she did, and she could type at an impossible one hundred and seven words per minute.

She was breathing hard by the time she reached me, but stood on tiptoe and whispered in my ear. I didn’t think we had ever had physical contact before -the woman usually preferred to stick to herself- so I knew it had to be urgent.

It turned out I was right. She finished what she needed to say breathlessly, then looked up at me, waiting for my next order.

“Follow protocol,” I answered matter of factly, causing her to scurry off.

Once she was gone, I looked back to my workers, all of which who were staring at me with either mild curiosity or confusion. I milled over my words for a moment or too, letting them marinade in whatever they were feeling, before speaking.

“Many of you have been with me for years,” I started, making sure my voice filled every corner of the room. “You’ve been a part of building this company from the ground up. You’ve been there for highs, and lows, and now we are in the most profitable quarter yet.” Another pause, taking time to read each person’s expression. Some were concerned, some confused, some looked politely interested, and a select few looked incredibly nervous. Interesting. My speech was only targeting one person, but it would be good to look into what could possibly be troubling the conscious of the others.

“But that success isn’t enough for some of you. Apparently, a particular person felt the need to sell company secrets and future projects to our competitors, Nexicorp.” Now people were looking alive, and my gaze homed in at the end of the table. “So tell me, Westin,” I said, “Did what they pay you come nearly close enough to cover the lawsuit you’re going to be hit with for breaking your employee contract?”

The man’s face went pale. He wasn’t one of my hires, but he had been under my division for at least four years. It just went to prove that money would always be peoples’ bottom line. Loyalty, integrity, none of that mattered. Only cold hard cash. I wasn’t surprised, I wasn’t even disappointed. I was just irritated that this had to take up my valuable time.

“I-I-I don’t know what you mean.”

I just affixed him with an authoritative glare. “My assistants have already comprised all of the evidence and security is on their way now. We’ve cleaned out your desk and you will find all of your things in a box by the door.”

Here was the moment of truth, where you got to see what kind of cheat someone was. Would he hold his head high and stride out of here with what little dignity he had left? Or would be hang his head and skulk like the cockroach he was?

He chose to run, actually. One moment he was in his chair, the next he was out the door and pelting towards the elevator. No matter, security would escort him out one way or another.

I waited for him to disappear behind the counter before returning my attention back to the rest of the room.

“Now, about those drastic measures,” I continued, as if nothing had happened. “I want all of you to brainstorms several ways to push us even further in productivity, so we can be at the level I know we’re capable of being at. I need a minimum of three with one flagship idea that you can give a five-minute presentation on by our next meeting. Any questions?”

No one dared to speak, or even move. I waited a full minute before nodding, and pressing the power button on the remote control in my hand, shutting down our projector.

“In that case, I’ll see all of you on Wednesday.”

I strode out, knowing they would all file out once they recovered. I was sure there would be plenty of office gossip about Westin for the next few days, but I couldn’t care less. I did, however need to work with our security and HR team to further vet our employees. I knew that being a large, successful corporation and leader in our field would make us a target, but I had thought that we were doing all that we could to eliminate that threat.

Apparently, it wasn’t enough.

I made a beeline towards the one elevator that lead to the upper management floors. I had a spacious office along with my VP, CFO and COO. The rest of the board and leadership roles had their own spaces on the floors below us, allowing us enough privacy to concentrate and not feel crowded, but not separating us so much that we lost touch to the day to day workings of our field.

If there was one thing I was insistent on, it was that all of my board stayed in touch with reality. We had to understand what every position in our building had to do in order to manage them properly. Not to mention lead our company in new and profitable directions.

The doors of the elevator closed in front of me, and I finally let my anger boil up into my face.

I kept a tight leash on my emotions in public. If there was one thing I had learned, it was that people would use anything they could to manipulate you, so I didn’t give them anything but a carefully compose slate to read. But man, the thought of someone trying to profit by betraying all of my hard work instead of just working hard themselves completely pissed me off.

Finally, the elevator opened on my floor and I walked to my office, closing the door behind me. It seemed that no matter what I did, or how cautious I was, I was always going to be surrounded by sharks in the water.

At least I was smart enough to stay on top of them. Never trust anyways and always assume the worst was my mantra, and it had served me well.

I just wish it wasn’t so damn exhausting.