Chapter 2 I Handed Over the Keys One by One
1036 Words
"What do you want to take away from me?"
Eric stared at the surface of the conference table. "Suspend all your work permissions. Hand over all your client resources, supplier correspondence records, and appointment logs to Bella. Until the financial investigation is cleared, you cannot touch the company's accounts anymore."
Although he was a co-founder, legally, he couldn't directly strip me of my shareholder status. He could only use his title as managing partner to temporarily relieve me of my duties and freeze my approval rights.
"Fine." I nodded.
Eric picked up his phone, glanced at it, and suddenly frowned. He looked up at me and blurted out, "By the way, for the dinner with the big client from Dubai tonight, is he allergic to seafood or nuts again?"
The conference room was quiet for a few seconds.
One second he was publicly announcing my suspension, the next, facing a sudden change with a major client, he still instinctively turned to me for confirmation. Subconsciously, he always believed that no matter how hard he made things for me, I would always clean up his mess.
"He is allergic to peanuts," I said calmly. "It was written in the memo from last week."
"Oh, right." Eric breathed a sigh of relief. But he quickly realized it was the wrong occasion, tightened his face again, and restored his earlier coldness. "Finish the handover before getting off work this afternoon."
*****
At 2:00 PM, I was sitting at my cubicle packing up my personal belongings, preparing to move to the storage room at the end of the hallway.
Bella walked over holding a few empty folders. She pulled out the chair next to me, sat down, and pushed a handover form in front of me.
"Serena, Eric asked me to get the client list and appointment logs." Bella tapped the table. "Also, the company demands that you return the money from the discounts and rebates given by those suppliers to the corporate account as soon as possible."
I looked at her self-righteous face and stopped packing.
"Return to the corporate account?" I opened my drawer, took out three different colored metal cards, and slapped them on the desk.
"The discounts and rebates you're talking about, are those the supply discounts from the South African diamond merchants and the European rare metal suppliers?" I picked up a pair of scissors and, right in front of her, 'snip', cut the first card in half.
Bella was stunned. "What are you doing?!"
"These are the top VIP privileges I swiped from the suppliers using my personal black card." My eyes were mocking as I proceeded to cut the second card. "Since I'm suspended, the exclusive channels of these top suppliers are unlinked from today. From now on, the workshop will get its goods at the original price. For the third-phase procurement fee next week, remember to remind Eric to have finance prepare an extra thirty percent in the budget."
Bella's face changed slightly, but she remained stubborn. "Stop bluffing! The company will run just fine without you. Give me the list!"
"Of course." I threw that thin client list in front of her. At the same time, I pulled out a pre-printed liability waiver from the very bottom of the drawer and pushed it over coldly.
"You can have the list. But let me make this ugly truth clear upfront: from the moment you sign this, if any of the major clients on this list churn, breach their contracts, or even blacklist the workshop, the responsibility falls entirely on you, the Business Supervisor. Sign it."
Bella stared at the waiver and snorted coldly. "I'll sign it. Do you think these clients really care about you? What they value is Eric's design!"
She grabbed a pen and quickly signed her name.
Those so-called "rebates" were actually because the material suppliers felt the workshop's orders were too small and didn't want to take them. I had used my personal account to pay the difference upfront. Now, they wanted to treat the money I subsidized as embezzled dirty money and demand it back.
I opened the drawer, took out a thick blue folder, and threw it directly on the handover form.
"The client list and appointment logs are all in there." I pointed to the computer screen. "I have logged out of the system account."
Bella snatched the folder. She couldn't wait to open it, staring at the rows of VIP names and contact information, her fingers tracing over the pages, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards uncontrollably.
She thought that getting these pieces of paper meant she had taken over these top-tier resources.
I glanced down at the black-gold bracelet on my wrist.
The clients were willing to pay because of their relationship with me. Without me, it was just a stack of waste paper.
*****
At 5:00 PM, a new email popped up in the bottom right corner of the computer.
The sender was the Administration Department, copied to everyone. The subject line read: [Notice Regarding the Suspension of Serena's Duties and Financial Investigation.]
The email stated my "violations" in black and white and announced that from this moment on, Bella would fully take over my business and procurement work.
Whispers of discussion rose in the office. Several employees who usually hovered around me were now all staring at their own screens pretending to be busy, not a single one looking my way.
Bella walked out of Eric's office. She deliberately raised her voice to the finance staff nearby: "Future accounts must be strictly investigated. Since I have taken over, I will absolutely not allow anyone to suck the blood of the company anymore."
The finance staff echoed with dry laughs.
I turned off the computer and slung my bag over my shoulder. Then, I detached my keychain, took off the keys to the file cabinets, the safe, the front door, and the display cases one by one, and lined them up on the desk along with my access card.
I pushed back my chair and walked out.
As I passed Bella, she was showing off that list to others. I didn't look back and walked straight out the workshop's front door.
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