After The Lie ✔️

Chap#1

Elaine's POV;

I was in my own office. Working on the laptop and going through the details of the new project when my phone buzzed suddenly. I picked it up to see who was calling. It was my mother. I groaned as I knew what she was going to talk to about. But still I answered her call.

"Hello." I said

"Elaine, how are you? You aren't busy right now, are you?" She replied

"I'm fine, mom. I'm not busy. Is there something you want to talk about?" I asked. I knew she wanted me to shift back to the house. That's all she has ever been talking about to me since the last few days. I moved out of my parents house when I was 22. And I bought this amazing new apartment, that I just love living in it. But she feels that I'm lonely in that apartment and it will be better if I go back and live with them again. I've tried to explain her many times, that I'm happy. But for some reason she is convinced that I'm not happy.

"Actually, dear, It's something rather important and I wondered if it would be alright if we meet at someplace for lunch." She answered. From the tone of her voice I guessed that she wanted to talk to me about something important. What could it be? She wouldn't call me for lunch just to talk about me moving back.

"Sure. I'll be free in half an hour, so I'll see you at the usual place. Is that okay?" I said as I still kept reading the email I just received. Suddenly my eyes went wide. "What the hell!" I said as I again read the email closely.

"Is everything all right? What happened?" My mom said

"It's fine. I'll meet you at the restaurant in half n hour. Bye." I said as I put my phone back down and again started reading the email I just got. It said that our company was being shut down. As our owners didn't have money to continue. This must be a joke. We just signed a new project. Where did all the money go which they gave us? I was getting mad. I took my laptop and went outside. On the way I stopped by my best friends office. Her name was Claire. We both worked in the same company and had been friends since childhood. She was practically my sister.

"Have you seen this?!" We both said at once as she showed me her phone and I showed her my laptop.

"What do we do?" She said

"That damn Jackson! I knew something was wrong when he kept delaying our pay checks. He said that the money was all being used in the projects." I said

"But he was lying. He must be using it all for paying back the loan. How much loan did he took from the bank anyway?" Claire said as she kept on reading the article about Jackson. Our boss. Jackson was our ex boss's son. Our company was well known but after Jackson took over, he kept on loaning money from the bank in the name of the company. Until now, the bank has decided to take back the company. As he hadn't paid off his loan." Claire explained. We both knew why Jackson took all that loan. He needed it for his mother's surgery and treatment. But it got way out of hand when he started taking loan for renovating the building and everything. It was fine to take loan but it wasn't fine to not repay it back.
I've known Jackson since we were kids. Me, Claire, Jackson and Tyler had been friends since childhood. But right now, I was getting mad at him. We warned him so many times that to pay back the loan. But he wouldn't listen.

"Should we go and talk to him?" Claire asked

"Yeah. He must be in his office. Let's go." I said as we walked into his office. I opened the door and said, "What the hell is this! Why didn't you tell us about this before?" I showed him the article on Claire's phone.

"Err...Can we talk about this later? Right now I'm in a meeting. I promise I'll explain it to you guys later on." He said as he looked at the guy sitting in front of him.