The Business of Revenge

Endless Files

I had come to the conclusion I really, really despised Kendal Groves, which you may say is unfair given the fact I haven't met her. But rearranging all the important documents that belonged to Corbyn Emerson just to be petty, knowing damn well that he wasn't going to fix them himself and was just dooming her replacement with the laborious task of making sure everything was once again in the correct order.

Sure, she wouldn't have known it would be me, but it's the principle of it. By trying to get back at Mr Emerson she just made some poor PA's life harder, whilst she shared all her secrets with Artymov and Co.

It took hours, and I mean hours, this was supposed to be a 9 to 5, well 8 to 5 in Mr Emerson's case, but it was getting close to 9 pm and I still hadn't moved from the storeroom, a large number of files divided by client and date, the British Date, in tall piles that needed to stay in that exact order, or I would go insane.

I had spent at least 6 hours, in this cramped space, trying to get this done, and I was so close to finishing the most important clients, the clients that would require their files to be available at the snap of their fingers, I would deal with the lesser used files later, there were fewer of them because if I knew anything about Emerson Industries is that they had a fat stack of extremely wealthy clients.

It seemed Corbyn Emerson didn't do anything half-hearted.

I was in the process of heaving the files from the floor, into their cabinets, trying my best to balance the ring of keys on my pinkie finger as I used the rest of my fingers to hold on for dear life.

That was until the door swung open and I very nearly threw everything in the air out of fright. Luckily my reflexes from my restaurant days kicked in and I managed to keep the files upright, as though they were a stack of porcelain plates.

I glared at the intruder, who of course was the ever-happy Mr Emerson. And if you can't detect the sarcasm, I don't know what to tell you.

"Why would you do that?"

He has always ignored me, "What are you still doing here, Miss Laurence?"

"My job," I huffed, taking the keys and jamming the correct one into the cabinet before me, carefully depositing the first set of files and letting out a sigh as I closed the cabinet making sure that the edges of the file didn't get nicked by the sharp metal. I dusted my hands off on my trousers and turned to Mr Emerson who was carefully analysing the mess around me.

"I do not recall asking you to stay until half past eight in the evening," he spoke as though it was my choice that I was here, spending my fine evening with papers that didn't tell the story of a brooding villain falling in love with a kickass heroine.

"I do recall you telling me to sort these files, and if you did enough research into me as you would like me to believe you will know I don't do anything half-arsed."

"Indeed. It seems you have a particular stubbornness about you, Miss Laurence."

"That's one way to describe it," I lifted another stack of files, my eyes drifting from his but yet I could still feel his cool gaze documenting each fraction of movement I made. The process continued for four more stacks of files before the floor was cleared and all that remained were the smaller clients that wouldn't take me more than an hour to file away.

"I'll have Janet do those," he finally spoke, and my eyes snapped to him.

"Janet?"

"Yes, the receptionist for this floor, you must have seen her on your way up."

I didn't want to admit I had been running for dear life hence missing anyone who might have been working on this floor, "Oh yeah, sure. But I don't see why I can't do it. It'll take another hour max."