Chapter 2
"Jessica shook off Lina's hand and snapped, ""Don't beg for her. Today she's not only paying the fine, she's scrubbing every toilet on this floor from top to bottom. Otherwise, I'll fine you too.""
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"Lina went pale and looked at me with sympathy, but didn't dare say another word. The other employees kept their heads down and pretended to type, not one of them daring to look over.
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The whole office felt so stifling it was hard to breathe.
"This was the company my group had proudly acquired? This wasn't a modern business at all. It was a rotten little feudal court.
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"I looked at Jessica's smug face and forced down the urge to pull out my phone and have security throw her out on the spot. If I revealed who I was right now, I could deal with Jessica immediately.
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But if she dared extort people this openly, how much money had her so-called uncle, General Manager Warren, siphoned off from the group behind the scenes? I had to pull this cancer out by the roots.
"Fine. I won't say another word." I took back the tablet and said coldly, "But I'm not paying the fine, and I'm not scrubbing any toilets. If you've got the guts, fire me yourself."
Jessica's eyes went wide. She clearly hadn't expected anyone in this branch to talk back to her. "You. You've got some nerve. What's your name? I'm going to HR right now and having them process your termination."
"""Natalie Shaw,"" I said. Jessica jabbed a finger at me. ""Fine, Natalie Shaw. Wait and see. I'm going to drive you out of this business for good. You have my word on it.""
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Then she spun on her heels and stormed toward Human Resources.
Once Jessica was gone, Lina let out a long sigh, dragged over a chair, and lowered her voice. "Natalie, why are you so stubborn?
"""You freshly got here, so you don't know how things work. Jessica was parachuted in from Head Office as a management trainee, and with Mr. Warren as her uncle, she practically runs this place.
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"Bathroom breaks over three minutes cost seventy dollars, a desk plant is one hundred, and even taking too loud a deep breath gets labeled 'dissatisfaction with the company' and slapped with two hundred dollars fine.
"Everyone lives in fear every day, and by the end of the month, so much gets docked from their pay they can barely afford food."
I frowned. "If it's this outrageous, why hasn't anyone reported it to Head Office?"
Lina gave a bitter laugh, her eyes full of helplessness and fear. "How are we supposed to report him? Mr. Warren bought off the whole management team. Every complaint gets intercepted by him.
"A kid fresh out of college exposed them on the internal forum once, and the very next day they accused him of leaking trade secrets. He was fired, sued by the company, and now he's still buried in tens of thousands of dollars of debt."
By the time she finished, my heart had gone cold. David and Jessica. So this was what they'd turned a subsidiary I'd poured enormous R&D funding and generous employee benefits into every year into.
Looks like I'd have to stay and see this farce through to the end. Less than ten minutes later, Jessica came back swaggering with a potbellied man in tow. It was the branch office's HR director, Paul Lewis.