Til the End of Time

Chapter 7

Trust- Brent Faiyaz

I hate meetings. I especially hate meetings where I have to talk to Alessia, who I can't stand for more than one second. Every twenty minutes like clockwork she starts an argument about nothing.

"This doesn't make any sense," Alessia says with her arms crossed over each other.

She's standing in front of a whiteboard on the wall of the conference room. This meeting started an hour ago, but we still haven't made a lot of progress. So, far, the only thing we have is a complicated timeline of events. Within this timeline are holes making it seem like my company is the one at fault.

"We have to go over this one more time, just for the sake of everyone being on the same page," Alesia wipes down the whiteboard that was full of words from corner to corner.

Before I could even stop myself, an audible tired groan came out of my mouth. Everyone in the room turned their heads to me, Alessia looked at me with full offense and annoyance, "Is there a problem, Mr. Kline?"

I know that I should take the high road and tell her no, but there's no way I can handle any more of her talking for more than two minutes, "Why do we have to go over the events again? We did it twice already. Is that not enough?" I sat up in my chair to get myself ready for another damn argument.

"Yes, it would be enough usually. However, seeing as your story pretty much proves that you're guilty, my team and I have to go over every single detail in order to prove your innocence," I could tell that she was at her breaking point with how the tip of her heel was tapping on the hardwood floors. Too bad for her she's not the only stubborn one here.

Now I'm pissed off, what exactly is she accusing me of, "What are you trying to say? That I'm guilty, because if so then you are one terrible lawyer."

Her grip around the marker she was holding got tighter, making her knuckles almost white, "That's not what I'm saying at all." Walking away from the whiteboard she sat in an empty chair across from me, pulling out some paperwork, "According to this document, it says that you never paid Miller Co. for the goods that they gave you. On multiple accounts, there is no report of you guys paying that 500 million." With that final word, she closed the manila folder almost slamming it.

"How do you have no tracking, no documentation, or absolutely nothing on checks with that much money on it? It makes me question whether you ever wrote those checks in the first place." Her tone with me made it sound like I was an idiot.

I'll admit to myself it was a mistake on my part for not being careful with my check. At the same time though in my almost five years of running this company and doing deals like this; I have never run into problems. Ever.

Instead of telling her that and accepting my defeat I leaned closer to her, furthering our argument, "Of course, I sent that money to them. I can recall putting my pen to paper and writing that amount of money." A petty smirk formed on my face as I spoke my next words, "You should know that I remember things very well, Alessia."