Page 37 of Double Down

"No, you need cause and?—"

"And you have been stealing time from the company. You haven't worked a full day in months, and you used your company card for over fifty thousand dollars…this month alone. Leave now, or this gets ugly. And I don’t mean that I’ll bring law enforcement into this."

She scoffs, like her relationship with the Vales will keep her in her position.

I give her a flat expression while I consider exactly what I’m going to do with Phoenix later. It’s time I bring the knives out, I think.

I’ve been feeling the pressure building more and more with every passing day, and it’s time to let some of it out. I think Phoenix needs to see all the sides of me.

9

Storm

“Mr. Carrow.”The former HR manager pleads. “Please.”

But it’s too late to save her. Well, save her job at least. I don’t care enough to take anything else from her.

“No.” I’m starting to get pissed. “Now run, little bird. While you still have the wings to carry you on your own.”

She scurries out, and I take a seat at her desk. It only takes me a moment to find her little notebook of passwords and log into the portals.

"Hey, Kathy, I have those reports." A man my age and wearing an ill-fitting suit, walks into the office, stopping short when he sees me. "You are definitely not Kathy."

"No, I'm not." I level him with a bored look. "She is no longer with the company. Who are you?"

"I'm Dave, her intern. She wanted me to get the quarterly report done, but I found some issues I needed to ask her about."

I wave him in and point at the chair.

The ensuing conversation with Dave is... enlightening. The man shakes when speaking to me, but has already, without being asked, identified some areas where we can improve our bottom line.

It appears that Kathy hired her friends, gave them inflated salaries, and then didn’t even expect them to show up for work.

Dave’s revelation means that it’s going to take me days to sort through the growing mountain of work, but I have a feeling it’s going to make this little fucked up ultimatum actually doable.

“I’m keeping you on, and giving you a salaried position with benefits.”

Shocked, he leaves me to the work at hand.

I spend most of the day in my new office, combing through performance reviews and making a list of the immediate fires based on the bullshit that Dave brought to my attention. All in all, thirteen people were each collecting a ninety thousand dollar dummy salary, plus benefits. Over a million dollars a year, saved just by cutting the first leeches I found.

"Dave," I call.

He fills the doorway immediately.

"Yes, Sir? Did you need coffee?"

"No... I need you to get our lawyers on the phone for me. Then I need you to draft termination letters for everyone on this list."

He takes the list and scans it, nodding. "When are we?—"

"About fifteen seconds after you draft the letters," I say, leaning back in the ridiculously comfortable office chair and pressing my fingers into my temples.

Fuck, this is exhausting.

And it's not just the work. Every time my phone buzzes in my pocket, I think it's another body, or something’s happened to Phoenix and I’m not there to take care of her. It's driving me insane. It's time for a lunch break, and I know exactly what I need to relieve the stress and tension.

When I get back to the suite, Phoenix is sitting alone on the terrace with her dog lounging half under her chair.