Chapter 3

Not long afterward, Wyatt and Zachary walked over to me. After stopping in front of me, Wyatt flung the stack of papers in his hand straight into my face.

Looking down at me, he declared, "Caleb, all the payments tied to the invoices you handled can't be accounted for."

When I raised my head, he sneered at me and continued, "That's 28,000 dollars in total. Kindly explain yourself."

The entire office fell silent.

I grabbed one of the invoices and slapped it onto my desk. "Ms. Larson approved every single transaction. There's a paper trail for all of them."

Wyatt curled his lips into a smirk.

"A paper trail? We already checked the system and found no record of any approvals for them. You think no one will look into it just because you used Ms. Larson as your cover?"

My fingers dug into my palms while the two of them took turns mocking me.

"If you hadn't insisted on quitting, Caleb, we never would've uncovered all this," Zachary remarked as he stared at me, the malice in his eyes clear as day.

"That's right. Do you know how tiring it is to go through all these financial records?" Wyatt chimed in.

"The weather's already bad enough, and you're adding to our workload! You should be glad we're not billing you for that."

Sitting there at my desk, I nearly couldn't stop myself from bursting into laughter at their performance.

"You two have gone to a lot of trouble putting on this show, but who's your audience? Just tell me what you want."

Zachary stepped forward, pulled a sheet of paper from his folder, and slapped it down on my desk with so much force that the paper crackled.

The title read, "Voluntary Admission of Work Misconduct and Agreement to Compensation by Employee Caleb Upton."

"Sign it," he declared. "The money will be deducted from your salary in installments, and this entire matter goes away. You'll carry on working like a dutiful little employee and stop pulling nonsense like resigning."

I snorted. "And if I don't sign it?"

"If you don't, once the flood is over, we'll call the police." Zachary glanced at the invoices scattered across the floor. "28,000 dollars is enough to put you behind bars for a while. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what a criminal record does to your future job prospects, right?"

I shoved my chair back and stood up.

"You locked the company's main entrance, trapped more than 100 employees inside the building, froze everyone's access cards, and left us without an accessible emergency exit. The government has issued a red flood alert, yet no one can leave. That's unlawful detention.

"When the police arrive, what do you think they'll investigate first? The missing 28,000 dollars or the person who locked the doors?"

Zachary's eyes narrowed, but instead of blowing up, he smirked. Then he raised his hand and punched me in the face. He was too close, so I couldn't dodge it in time. My cheek stung, and the blow knocked me back a step.

My fists clenched so hard that my knuckles cracked. All of the employees in the office craned their necks to watch.

Rolling his wrist, Zachary stared down at me. "I tried being reasonable with you, but you just wouldn't listen. Guess you need me to do things the hard way instead."

Eyes fixed on him, I was just about to fight back when someone interrupted us.

"What's with all this noise? Don't you people want your jobs anymore?"

I looked over and saw Bianca.

She came toward us with a pleasant smile. After seeing my swollen cheek, she chuckled. "Oh, Caleb… Why do you have to take everything to such extremes?"

She reached out to pat my shoulder, but I jerked to the side to avoid her.

"The doors were locked to abide by the flood emergency protocol. It's not targeted at you specifically. Everyone is staying here tonight so we can manage things together and keep work on schedule. Look—"

She turned around, spread her arms, and smiled at the 100-plus employees in the office.

"Does anyone object to the company's arrangements for tonight? If you do, feel free to speak up now."