Chapter 382 - Suspicious.

"Congrats, Boss Zhou!" Melanie greeted, clapping her hands as they stood while Zoey made her entrance. 

The others also stood from her seats, clapping their hands as they heard the good news. Bright smiles were plastered on their faces, as if everyone could see the bright future of their now growing company. 

Zoey bore a bright smile, the ambience surrounding her was the complete opposite from back when she was inside the car with Ivan. "Settle down, everyone." Zoey stopped in the middle of the small office, waving her hand lightly as she stopped them from cheering. 

Soon, their clapping subsided. Everyone had their heads aligned and provided full attention to their boss. The smile on their lips remained bright, eyes gleaming with hope as it was indeed a successful and memorable day. 

"Today, we closed three projects with the Feng Estate." She began, everyone listened. "We'll start designing for their city branch that is still under construction. The estimated time for it to be completed is two months. At the same time, there are two more projects in the East and Northern branch of Feng Estate." She paused, her eyes scanning the hopeful faces of her employees. 

As she looked at each of their faces, Zoey felt nostalgic. It reminded her of the real breakthrough of Z Image Group in her previous life. Same faces, same gleeful expression plastered across their face from then and now. 

Although some of them left the company after years, most of them remained. They stayed, remained loyal, and worked as hard as her. Even though they mostly messed things up, Zoey knew she didn't want to change these people in this lifetime. 

"In other words, we have two months to finish all designs and products for the Feng Estate. I know this is on a rather short notice and it might seem to be a rash decision of mine." As Zoey gave them the duration of the project to finish, the bright smile on their faces froze. "However, I trust that everyone would work diligently and efficiently as this is just the beginning. As we grow, I promise everyone to get the benefits they deserved." At this point, Zoey knew that no matter what words she would use to console their shaken hearts, it wouldn't matter. 

She chuckled, shaking her head as her employees truly couldn't hide their emotions. The celebratory aura gradually felt gloomy, as Melanie and everyone else's lips turned pale.

"So enjoy your last day of freedom and sleep early because tomorrow will be the start of our hectic schedule." She beamed them a smile, chuckling as Melanie's knees gave way and she collapsed onto her seat. 

Zoey scanned them once again, chuckling internally as she shook her head sideways. Without another word, Zoey headed to her office while everyone's knees trembled and they sank back in their seats subconsciously. 

Meanwhile, Ivan travelled his eyes around the office. "What a weird bunch," He mumbled, shaking his head as he headed to his post where he did nothing. 

In his mind, he felt pity that they all thought everything was bright and sparkling. Little did they know, one foot of their boss was already inside the grave. It was just a matter of time before the moment of truth came around. 

When Ivan sat on his swivel chair, he sighed deeply as he tilted his head back. 'I wonder how's her vocabulary now?' His subconscious mind wondered. 

Without a thought, Ivan fished his phone out. He didn't even need to search that long as he only had a few numbers in his contacts. 

Out of instinct, his thumb immediately dialed Cora's phone number and watched it ring. Obviously, she didn't answer his call. "Tch. I actually want to teach her English as I don't have anything to do here but to sit and listen to people gossiping." Ivan mumbled, clicking his tongue in annoyance. 

After all, unlike what he expected, Zoey didn't make him an all-around assistant. To be fair, he's like a driver now and a bodyguard. Ivan didn't have anything to do related to the company affairs other than skimming through documents he couldn't understand and sending to Zoey in the end. 

It wasn't that much work to be honest. All he needed to do was to click on the emails sent to him and forward them to Zoey. This was a good thing for him in the beginning, but now, Ivan was just bored. 

'How boring...' Ivan frowned, and cast his officemates a bored look. As he swept his eyes on each of them, he shook his head. "They have the same expression as me but theirs is far worse." He muttered, retracting his gaze away as he killed his time skimming through emails he wouldn't understand for a lifetime and sent them all to Zoey. 

Just as Ivan was sending the emails to Zoey, a notification banner at the corner of the screen caught his eyes. For some reason, he stopped and checked who had messaged him. 

When he saw the sender named: A, Ivan stopped whatever he was doing and picked up his phone. Without a second hesitation, Ivan checked the message with knitted brows. 

"Huh?" He hummed, his knitted brows creased even more as he tilted his head to the side. 

Angelo's message was, [Where's your sister?]

'Out of nowhere, he's asking where's sis?' Ivan asked internally, blinking his eyes as he looked at the short message briefly. 

Ivan pondered whether to reply or ignore him. As far as he knew, Angelo was not his partner anymore, and all information —important or not — shouldn't be disclosed to anyone aside from Nikolai Silvestri. 

'Suspicious.' He thought, narrowing his eyes as the question was rather straightforward. Knowing Angelo, he would surely ask straight away. 

However, Angelo wouldn't ask such a thing out of nowhere. No, actually, he wouldn't ask because he couldn't care less.

Just as Ivan decided to not reply, another message popped up from the same sender. "Make her come in here if she wants this man alive." 

As soon as Ivan read this message, Ivan's body froze — not because of fear but because the message doesn't make sense. "Sh*t...." Through his gritted teeth, Ivan slammed his desk as he sprung up from his seat and jogged towards Zoey's office.