192 Ally

In the large conference room that was present on the floor, Liz's team of 53 individuals were sitting in their chairs with varied expressions on their faces.

Still, one thing was apparent in all of them: they were all extremely fatigued, and they looked like they would drop asleep at any second.

Clearly, they were running on fumes, with only the caffeine keeping them awake.

Seeing this, Liz couldn't help but sigh while standing at the head of the long table.

"Good morning, everyone. I am Elizabeth Redmaine, the one who has been appointed as your new boss. All of you must have heard a lot of things about me, but I just want to tell you that none of them are relevant in the situation that we are in right now. Our client deserves the best service that we can give them, but instead, someone amongst us has leaked all the details regarding his dream to his main competitors, which will definitely allow them to make plans in order to ensure that his venture will be dead in the water even before taking off. I know that all of you have been working tirelessly since last night to find out who's responsible, but that no longer matters. The leak has been made, and if you haven't found the culprit by now, it means that they were very efficient in hiding their tracks. I suspect that even if you spend a week more, you will find nothing, and we will find ourselves with a week's worth of wasted time which we could have used to better serve our client. What's done is done. Right now, you can all go home and take the day off, but tomorrow, I need you all here at the crack of dawn because we will be starting on a plan whose objective is to give our client success despite the leak. I do not need your respect, but I demand your obedience, and your full effort in every task that I give you. Do I make myself clear?"

With the last line, Liz banged loudly on the table, which startled all the half sleeping employees in the room, making them stand up straight and nod.

Well, that wasn't too bad for a starting speech.

"You're all dismissed. Lenny, stay back. I can call you Lenny, right?"

Liz was referring to the secretary, whose name she had seen on the second individual room.

He was called Lenny Robertson, and she had thought that the second name was a bit too much of a mouthful to say a lot.

However, when she asked this, the balding man pursed his lips and glared at her for second but nodded after that.

Apparently, he didn't like it, but neither did she like his attitude, so Liz decided that it was fair.

Slowly, as the other employees filtered out looking half dead, Lenny continued to sit on his chair, grumbling under his breath.

After everyone had left, Liz sat down in front of him and said, "I know what you think of me. And I know what you want to see happen. But I also know that you weren't the one who made the leak. Am I right?"

Lenny had been expecting to be accused because of his behavior last night, and because he really did have the best motive in order to be the culprit.

Yet, he couldn't have expected that this woman would speak to him in this way.

Hence, he was pretty surprised, but that didn't serve to change his impression of her at all.

"Yes, it wasn't me. I do want you to fail, and I do think that you do not deserve this job. But that doesn't mean that I would sabotage you and the image of this company for that purpose. I'm just waiting to see you fail because of your own actions – not because of someone else's."

Fair enough.

Nodding, Liz said, "That's good. I won't say empty words like 'You'll be proved wrong, blah blah', but I do ask that you be professional and carry out whatever I tell you. In return, if I do fail because of not being capable enough, I will hand in my resignation myself, and I'll even recommend you for the job. How's that? Do we have a deal?"

As Lenny heard this, he frowned slightly, seeing the confident way this woman spoke, which wasn't how he had imagined someone who had wormed their way into this job using their relationship with the CEO to be at all.

Thinking about it, he had to admit that what she had said would be the best outcome.

There was nothing for him to lose, and everything to gain.

So, he nodded decisively, but paused when he saw the hand that the woman stretched out.

"Good. Then let's shake on it."

Telling himself that this was for his own future, Lenny stretched out his arm and shook hers, which made Liz crack a wide smile.

This had been her first objective – to get a formidable ally who would help her as she really was new to the job, even though she knew that she had the skills to execute it perfectly.

Many times, the enemy was always the best helper in a situation, and it had turned out to be so now too. With Lenny's help, she would be able to better carry out whatever she wanted to do.

This was a classic case of putting aside irritation and personal feelings for someone to achieve something, and Liz felt really glad and proud of herself that she had done just that.

So, getting up, she said, "Go home. Just like the others, come tomorrow. We are going to have a lot of work to do."

"What about you? What are you going to do?", Lenny asked out of pure curiosity, and the answer made him gawk, before making him wonder whether she was joking.

"Me? I'm just going to go check out our competition, and talk face to face with those who had the audacity of using this kind of method. Actually, I'll be thanking them. Because they stooped to such depths first, I'll have no reservations in doing the same when the time comes to beat them to the curb."