All Chapters of Thrown Out, Claimed By The CEO.: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

9: 03 AM Floor 50 Executive OfficeThe doors to Richard’s office were taller than any door Elma had ever walked through. Polished dark wood with a brass handle that felt cold under her palm. Cold enough to make her notice she was still breathing too fast.Nathan stood beside her but didn’t go in. He just said, You’ve got this. No pep talk. No extra words. He’d said everything he needed to say already.Elma nodded and stepped inside.Richard was behind a desk that could fit her whole apartment on top of it. The surface was bare except for a single folder, a pen, and a glass of water. He stood when she entered and gestured to the chair across from him. No smile. No frown. Just assessment.Sit, Miss Okonkwo, he said. No formalities today.Elma sat. Her hands were steady. She’d rehearsed this moment in her head a hundred times. She’d imagined anger, tears, a speech about justice. None of that felt right now. All she felt was tired, and a strange kind of calm that came after the fight was

10 00 AM Floor 50 Conference Room BThe room was smaller than the boardroom but it felt heavier. The walls were closer. The air had no room to move. Elma sat at the table with a stack of files in front of her. Her hands were flat on the edge of the table so they wouldn’t shake. Nathan was to her left. Richard at the head of the table. Across from them sat Catherine Holloway. Her lawyer sat beside her. Catherine looked different. No sharp suit today. Just a plain blouse and no makeup. Her hair was pulled back too tight. She looked tired in the way people look when they’ve stopped pretending they’re fine. Richard opened the folder. The sound was too loud in the quiet.You’ve offered to plead guilty to one count of fraud in exchange for a reduced sentence and retention of your pension, he said. Do you understand the terms?Catherine nodded. One small movement. Elma’s job was simple. Verify that the assets Catherine listed matched what was in the system. If something was missing, the

7 30 AM Floor 50 Executive WingElma arrived to find Richard’s office door already open. He was on a call and waved her in without looking up. The phone was pressed to his shoulder, his other hand already reaching for a file on his desk. You’re on, Elma, he said, covering the phone. I need you to handle a client complaint. Vendor Y is threatening to pull out of the contract over payment delays. Fix it.The call ended before she could ask questions. Richard hung up, set the phone down, and looked at her like he’d already moved on to the next thing. Vendor Y, Elma said, pulling up the file on her laptop. Richard nodded. They handle IT maintenance for floors 30 to 40. We can’t afford to lose them. Not with the server migration scheduled for next month. Elma scanned the notes. Payment was delayed 22 days. Invoice flagged for overbilling by Procurement. They stopped work last week. No one had called them back. No one had explained anything. Richard leaned back. That’s the summary. Now

9 00 AM Floor 60 BoardroomThe room was larger than any Elma had been in. Glass walls on three sides. City view stretching out below. Silent tension hanging in the air like it was part of the architecture. The table was long. Polished. Intimidating by design.She sat at the side table with her notes and a laptop. Richard sat at the head of the table. The board members filed in one by one. Some nodded at her. Some didn’t look up. A few looked like they were trying to place her face. Chairman Williams called the meeting to order. His voice carried without effort. First item, Vendor Z dispute, Richard said. Elma Okonkwo will present.Elma stood. Her hands were steady. Her voice was clear. She’d practiced this at 6 00 AM in her apartment, talking to an empty room. Board members, Vendor Z is disputing a contract revision made last week, she began. The revision removed 22000 dollars in overbilling that was not covered under section 4 2 of the original agreement. We have a signed amendmen

9 30 AM Floor 50Elma stared at the Procurement folder on her desk. Something didn’t add up. The numbers matched. The approvals were signed. The signatures were clean, scanned, timestamped. But the delivery dates were off. Every vendor had the same delay. Two weeks. Every time. Pattern too clean to be random. Nathan walked in and dropped a stack of files on her desk. The sound made her look up.You look like you’ve seen a ghost, he said.Worse, Elma said. I think we’re looking at coordinated delays.Nathan flipped through a file. What do you mean?Elma pointed to the screen. Every contract here was approved on the same day. March 12th. Every delay started two weeks later, March 26th. Every vendor used the same logistics company. LogiTrans, Nathan said, reading the name. That’s new. I don’t remember them from last quarter. They weren’t in the Q1 vendor list.New and registered three months ago, Elma said. Address is a P O Box. No warehouse. No fleet listed. Just a phone number that g