Liar || Nina Zenik ✓

xiv

Today was a busy day for Tiana today, she was having to go to the warehouse to make sure everything is making it to Kerch alright and being disrupted where it needs to go. She doesn't make the trip often because the warehouses aren't always clean but she's ordered to go at least once every three months, which is now.

Tiana winces as the car she's riding in goes over a bump, beside her she can see that Betty is looking out the window next to her. "Besides the warehouse, what else are we doing today?" Betty asks after she notices that Tiana was looking at her. "I want to visit the Emerald Palace to see Pekka, he's like an old family friend. I haven't seen him since before Daddy died, which I'm sure Mother has told him but I just want to catch up but that's all." Tiana explains as she looks down at her fingers that were resting in her lap.

"We're here Miss. Malinowski." The driver says as he slows the car to a stop, Tiana lets out a slow sigh before she opens the door and places her heeled foot on the rocky ground. "Stay here, we shouldn't be long," Tiana instructs as she stands up keeping her purse close to her, almost in a blink of an eye Betty was on her side of the car with her arm out to help Tiana across the road. "Thank you." Tiana surprises Betty after Betty closes the door. "It's my job." Betty gives Tiana a slight smile as she helps Tiana across the rocky and uneven road.

Once they reached the warehouse it got smoother so Betty let go when she made sure that Tiana wasn't going to slip and fall on the rocks. Tiana tightened her hand on her bag as the door started to get into view, a pit started to form in Tiana's stomach when she raised her hand on the door and knocked. She didn't know what to expect because she's only gone to the warehouse visits once with Anton and that was 6 years ago when she turned 11, so it wasn't recent, plus this would be the first visit after she made the payment cuts and she was nervous about what she would be walking into.

She raises her hand to knock again when the rusty door swings open, Tiana steps back and accidentally bumps into Betty when she sees one of her workers. She straightens her back and thinks about placing her hand out for the man to shake but when she sees that he's coated in sweat she decides to keep her hands to herself. "Hello, I'm Miss. Malinowski, is your supervisor in?" Tiana bats her eyelashes at the man who lets out a huff before he steps back and gestures for the two women to walk in, Tiana gulps but does as instructed. "Bossman!" The man who opened the door yelled cupping his hands around his mouth to get the volume that Tiana jumps at, Tiana stares at Betty when she lets out a snort but she places a hand on Tiana's arm which helps calm her down as they're waiting for the supervisor to come down from his office.

By the time the supervisor is walking down from his office the worker had abandoned the two of them by the door so they were standing awkwardly by the door. "Miss. Malinowski, hello! My name is Niraj and I'm the supervisor for the warehouse." Tiana smiled at the suli man before she held her hand out for him to shake which he did. "Hello, can we go to your office to go over some things?" Tiana suggests once Niraj lets go of her hand, he snaps his fingers like he forgot and nodded quickly. "Follow me."

Niraj leads the two of them upstairs into a small office next to a bigger conference room, they were lucky that it had two chairs but both of the chairs looked like they were about to fall apart, Tiana was hesitant to take a seat but after she saw that Betty sat down with no problem she knew that she would look like an asshole if she didn't take a seat so she did and tried to not think about what kind of people would've sat in the chair before her. "I'm very grateful that you decided to make the visit to my warehouse Miss, we were all very sorry to hear about Anton. As much as he was a hard worker and pushed us so, he was a great boss and was very much loved." Niraj sent the pleasantries that made Tiana's heart tinge in sadness but she plastered a smile on her face before thanking him. "Shall we start talking business?" Tiana suggested before Niraj could say anything else, the man quickly nodded before he turned towards his small file cabinet and pulled out a stack of papers.

"The main problem that I'm noticing we're running into is pay, since you cut our pay after Anton died our workers have had trouble living in their homes and feeding themselves, I've taken a pay cut in order to give my workers a little bit more but it's just not feasible anymore." Niraj handed over the finical paperwork so Tiana could look it over, he was right. Tiana frowned as she looked over the numbers, she had to do something before all of her workers went on strike which would not look good for someone who just took over her Father's business. "Alright, for this first payment I'll pay you out of pocket but I'll figure something out." Tiana dug into her purse before she reached into where she keeps her bills and pulls out 4 papers of kruge that was each 20 kruge bills before she hands it over to Niraj, it wasn't a permanent fix but it would save herself until she could figure it out.