He Took My Room For Her, I Left For Revenge

Chapter 2

I crammed my two-week business trip completely full of back-to-back commitments.

My plane touched down in the dead of night, and I went straight to the office.

The moment I set foot in my department's open office space, I heard Vera's voice ring out: "Redo this from scratch. I think Hayes Group's promotional materials need much better taste," she said.

She was standing by my assistant's desk, tapping a finger at a batch of new sample materials the marketing team had just dropped off.

A few of my long-time subordinates stood clustered off to the side, their faces twisted with suppressed anger. The second they spotted me, they looked as if they had just seen their savior.

"Miss Lane," I called out, setting my rolling suitcase down.

She spun around, and a smile instantly bloomed across her face. "Yara, you are back from your trip already? I was just helping everyone check over these designs..." she said.

I cut her off mid-sentence. "Did you finish reorganizing the project timeline I asked you to redo last week? What about the supplier price comparison data I told you to follow up on?"

Her words got stuck in her throat. She ducked her head, looking all wronged, with her fingers curled tight against her palm, and stammered, "I... I am still working on it... There are some parts I do not really understand."

I pushed open my office door and stepped inside, not even glancing back, but my voice carried sharp and clear across the entire office: "If you do not understand something, you can ask me. Or you can ask anyone else in this department who has been here longer than you."

"What you do not do is admit you do not know what you are talking about, and then waste other people's working time nitpicking things that are not even part of an assistant's job description," I continued.

"Everyone, meeting in the small conference room in ten minutes. We are going to sync up on all project progress," I added.

Vera vanished after that. The meeting started, and she never showed her face.

Luckily, I had a habit of keeping my own organized copies of all project materials.

But halfway through the meeting, the conference room door flew open with a loud bang.

Ethan stood in the doorway, his face twisted into a deep, icy scowl.

Right behind him, Vera trailed in with red, puffy eyes, looking all wronged and teary, and crumpling a sopping wet tissue in her hand.

"Yara!" Ethan shouted.

He stormed across the room to the conference table, and without warning, his hand flew up to slap me. "I told you to look after her! Is this how you take care of her?" he roared. "Abusing your authority to bully a new hire? You have dragged the Hayes family's good name through the mud!"

It was a brutal slap.

My head snapped to the side from the force, and a searing burn immediately bloomed across my cheek.

Everything happened in the blink of an eye, and the entire conference room dropped dead silent.

Vera, still huddled behind Ethan, let out soft, trembling sobs. "Uncle, do not blame Yara... I am just too slow, and she has high standards – I cannot keep up..." she whimpered.

I swiped a fleck of blood from the corner of my mouth with my thumb, turned to face Ethan, and kept my voice steady. "Vera has been on the job for two weeks. She was late or left early nine times," I said.

"She messed up the data on three contracts I assigned her, forcing the legal department to spend two extra days double-checking everything. The revision records are still in the legal system," I continued.

I paused, then shifted my gaze straight to Vera. "Also, yesterday afternoon you tried to access the personnel files of the core tech department under the pretense of familiarizing yourself with business. But company rules clearly state that no one except department heads has permission to pull those files. Do you want me to call a witness and pull the security footage to prove it?"

Vera's sobbing stopped abruptly.

Ethan's brow furrowed.

I held his gaze, my tone still calm and even. "I only told her to focus on her actual job duties," I said. "If you call that bullying, then maybe you should rethink whether she really belongs in the core business department at all."