“What?” Isabella sat across from Anna, one hand on her chin.
“Come to Lemon and help me work,” Anna said as she finished the last bite of her sandwich.
“What?!” Isabella asked and widened her eyes in surprise.
Isabella went to Wright’s house a few days later with the information she had discovered.
After walking into the living room, Isabella said to Anna, “I asked Julia to look up the information for those fired employees. And here are the files.”
Anna raised her head and carefully read each piece of information. Her expression gradually became serious.
“Most of them are not local, and all of them have only been here for a month.” Anna quickly realized what was going on.
Isabella nodded and said, “Most of the workers in the workshop are women from the countryside. During their weekly shifts, they return home to care for their families. I also looked into our previous hiring records. Over the years, we haven’t recruited as many people from outside the town as we have this month.”
Anna nodded and asked, “Who recruited them?”
“Michael. He has been with us for many years, and Mona said you agreed to let him work here. He had been laid off before he worked here, and his mother was seriously ill and in desperate need of money. You hired him because you thought he was reliable and hardworking.”
Anna pondered it for a while, but she couldn’t remember this man. However, she had a bad feeling after learning that fact. Then she asked, “And where’s him now?”
Isabella pursed her lips and said, “He left the next day after the accident happened and only told Paul, the head of HR, that he was leaving. Paul didn’t stop him because he has had conflicts with him.”
Anna was not surprised about this. She frowned tightly, her jumbled thoughts complicating her confused mind. Having collected her thoughts, she said, “Please tell Paul to my office tomorrow at 12:35 p.m.”
“Got it.”
Isabella closed the file, but she appeared worried. The more she looked into it, the more she realized something was wrong.
Anna patted Isabella on the shoulder as she realized that and said, “You’re just 18, but you’re efficient and dependable. With you around, I can save myself a lot of trouble.”
Isabella shrugged with a resigned expression on her face, “Don’t think that complimenting me will make me happy. I wouldn’t have agreed if you were not so busy recently. In any case, you owe me a big favor.”
***
The next day at 12:35 p.m, Paul, the personnel director, went to Anna’s office. Paul was around thirty years old. He was tall, wore black-rimmed glasses, and appeared a little dull.
Anna put Micheal’s file in front of Paul and asked, “Why didn’t you tell me about Micheal’s leaving? Although you are in charge of the company’s personnel, you should be aware of these issues.”
Paul pushed up his glasses and looked clueless about it. When he thought about the whole thing, he also found it strange. Then he uttered, “When Micheal called me and told me he was resigning, I was puzzled. I asked him to follow the company’s handover procedures, but he said he had requested to leave a month before. I later checked my email and discovered that he had submitted his resignation request a long time ago.”
Paul frowned and continued, “And here’s the strange thing: I never saw this application. I wanted to ask him some questions, but he simply hung up the phone. I called him later, only to find that he blocked my number.”
Hearing Paul’s explanation, Anna was even more convinced that Micheal was aware of everything happening. She relaxed and asked calmly, “I’ve heard you and Michael don’t get along. Could you explain why?”
Paul studied Anna’s expression before finally saying, “Micheal has been with the company for a long time, and he claims you hired him as the director of recruitment for the shop floor staff. I’ve only worked here for two years, but my position is higher than his. He was enraged and continued to make things difficult for me. Because of this, I didn’t get along with him.”
“How did he make things difficult for you?”
“I am only in charge of the company’s internal personnel; the recruitment of shop floor workers is under my charge. Michael has recruited many of his own relatives over the years. Most of them have no idea what they’re doing, but they get special treatment here. Many workers came to complain, and I was in charge of responding to them.”
It wasn’t until then that Anna finally recalled who Michael was. A few years ago, she was having dinner at a restaurant alone, and a couple sitting at the next table got into a fight. She didn’t pay attention to them, but she knew they both had been laid off from their conversation. She forgot her wallet when she left, and the man at the next table brought it to her.
That person was Michael. At that point, Anna handed him a business card and told him he could work for her company.
Anna reflected on it and became frustrated. Micheal appeared tired from trying to make a living at the time, but he still returned the wallet containing a large sum of money to Anna. The honest man she remembered was nothing like the image Paul described.
While she was recalling, the office door unexpectedly opened, and Julia dashed in. She said many things, but she didn’t describe what happened. However, Anna realized that there was a new trouble.
“Where?” She stood up and walked out the door to the office.
“Down the hall,” Julia said as she followed her.
Julia told Anna what had happened on the way downstairs.
A previously fired employee and a large crowd were protesting downstairs. They were holding signs that said the company was earning profiteering without regard for human life.
At this time, a crowd had gathered downstairs. Some were carrying wooden signs that said “Blood for blood.” Some carried banners, while others wore red bandanas around their necks.
When Anna arrived downstairs, she noticed Isabella attempting to calm everyone down. Amid the commotion, her frail figure appeared weak and fragile. She tried to raise her voice, but the chanting around her drowned out her words.
“Isabella!” Anna yelled, stopping Isabella as she was about to take more steps forward. She knew what was going on in the next second.
“Lemon treats our life like shit!”
“Give me my health back!”
“Scumbags! Pay blood for blood!”
A group of people held banners and wooden signs with various slogans, led by a middle-aged man with a megaphone who yelled “Lemon Clothing, Blood for Blood.”
Whenever he yelled something, dozens of people would follow him. The scene was horrifying.
Anna paused for a moment, realizing that the group did not appear to be stopping. She went straight to the middle-aged man in front of the crowd and grabbed the megaphone from his grasp. She took a few steps back before the man realized what was happening.
“If you’re here to settle things, send a representative to deal with me!” Anna yelled, holding up the speaker. She slammed the megaphone out of her hand after saying that. And the horn made an ear-splitting noise and fell to pieces on the ground.
The crowd finally fell silent, and they then started whispering. A middle-aged man in short blue sleeves stood in the center of the crowd. He was short but had strong limbs. After a brief discussion with the group, he stepped out of the crowd and said to Anna, “I’ll talk to you.”
In angry strides, the man approached Anna.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” Anna asked. Anna realized something was wrong even though the man only said one word and was doing his best to hide his accent. He didn’t sound like a Birmingham native.
The man had no idea Anna would ask such a question. He froze, unsure how to respond. But Anna had already deduced the answer from his brief pause. She ignored the question with a smile. She said, “You’re probably here because you were laid off a while ago. So, are you a previous employee or a family member of a previous employee?”
The man had prepared a brief speech to take the initiative in this negotiation. But he didn’t expect Anna to realize the whole situation after asking two questions. He was frozen, unsure what to say. After hesitating for a while, he finally replied, “I’m Rosa’s husband.”
“Rosa?” Anna asked, then nodded. She had previously read all the information on the fired employees in this incident and remembered this woman. “Of course, I remember her because she was the first to pull out the scissors and threaten to kill me.” Anna said hostilely.
When she noticed the man was scared, she said thoughtfully, “Rosa and the other workers were fired for breaking the company’s rules and causing trouble. All of these decisions were made in full compliance with the company system, so you should have no concerns about this. As far as I know, the troublemakers have just been released from detention, correct?”
“Making a scene? We are good people who quit our jobs after learning that Lemon would treat us well. But we didn’t anticipate you being so ruthless as to use toxic fabrics. You want to pass the buck and get rid of people now that the employees are sick. Let me tell you, that’s not gonna happen!” The man then threw a pile of paper heavily at Anna.
Anna looked through the paper and found that they were cases. She checked the date of the diagnosis and discovered that it was precisely two days before she fired the group of workers. She had a feeling that things were spiraling out of control.
Isabella noticed Anna was panicking and stood on her tiptoes to read the diagnoses. She became enraged when she saw the word “leukemia.” Then Isabella snatched the case and smacked the man across the face.
“It couldn’t possibly be a coincidence! Turns out you have this trick up your sleeve! Jerk!” She snarled.Isabella rushed over and attempted to hit him as she said this.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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