Page 48 of Endgame

‘No, they won’t.’ Ariella lifts her head from scribbling in her notepad and speaks calmly, for the first time, before the room gets a chance to react.

‘This company will be restructured and?—’

‘I understand that. I can see why you would like to make the changes you’ve listed thus far. I am willing to accept that I was severely underqualified for the job and have made some significant errors, but you’re not touching the team,’ she says quietly and respectfully. Without giving him a chance to respond, she turns to Bryce and Lydia. ‘Bryce, please could you send Samir all of our updated employment contracts, and Lydia, can you please send our HR consultant’s details over too?’

Lydia and Bryce both nod and Ariella goes back into silent mode at the other end of the table. Her calm but firm interruption makes two things clear. Firstly, that Samir’s power is not absolute. Secondly, not that it would ever be her intention, but Ariella has made Samir understand that she could stage a coup if she wanted to, and she’d win. She has never been sexier to me.

After Samir finishes scaring the shit out of all of us by laying down the law, he dismisses everyone else but holds Ariella and me back.

‘Caleb, your performance since you joined has been exceptional. I’d like us to look at building a team to sit underyou. There is a lot of work out there and we need more “you” to get it through the door. Ariella, is there a reason why you haven’t done this already?’

I was ready to throw her a supportive smile at this confirmation that our decision to recruit weeks ago was the right one, but the harshness of his last sentence has stopped me.

‘We’ve talked about it and Caleb is currently?—’

‘Who is “we”? Weren’t decisions like that yours? Didn’t Caleb report to you?’

‘Well, yes, but we also got a lot of steerage from?—’

‘It looks to me like you’ve been coasting. The way this business has been set up is weak, at best. Your job was to establish, solidify and grow the business. Instead, you seem to have been lazily taking instructions and direction from someone who has no experience whatsoever in the industry and focused on dangling your private life in front of anyone who cares on social media in an effort to gain some kind of popularity. Your staff are out there partying indiscriminately, as if they don’t care about the projects clients are paying us a fortune to manage. You have failed on almost every possible count in your role as COO.’

It looks like I’m not going to like this guy after all.

‘Samir—’ I start, ready to defend her.

‘You’re not wrong. What happens now?’ Ariella interrupts, subtly putting her hand on mine.

‘I see the decision to demote and replace you as COO has already been made. You will stay on and babysit the role until a new COO is found. Caleb, you will now sit on the same seniority level as Ariella does, and report directly to me. Ariella, I see that in your last role you managed event operations in London. Let’s make a home for you leading the project team while you stand in as COO. Once that person is hired, they can work closely with you to straighten out your team and get this company going in the right direction. You will report directly to the COO. I alsoexpect…’ Samir trails off as his attention is caught by Dominic Miller walking in with lunch for the team. Prick.

‘Excuse me.’ Samir clears his throat and walks out of the meeting room. Ugh. Of course he is going to suck up to Dominic. Just when I was beginning to think he was different. No surprises there then.

‘How can we help you, MrMiller?’ He stops in front of Dominic with his hands clasped behind him. We can hear every word of the conversation through the door he’s left open.

‘I was just dropping some lunch off for the team.’ Dominic grins.

‘As generous as that may be, this needs to stop. It is a significant distraction. Everyone employed here is paid more than enough to get their own lunches. If by some miracle they are struggling, then we would have to put together a consistent staff lunch programme to supplement their generous remuneration. You are a client and an investor, MrMiller. This makes an already murky relationship more difficult to wade through. There will also be no more extended visits to Miss Mason during office hours. You cannot date my employee on my time. You have weeknights, if she is free, and the whole weekend at your disposal. Although, I would strongly suggest you reconsider your intentions as she is now also, indirectly, your employee.’

I try to hear what Dominic says in response, but I don’t catch it. He follows it with a relaxed nod and extends his hand. Samir immediately shakes it. Dominic drops lunch on one of the tables and leaves.

‘He’s a bit hard isn’t he?’ I comment to Ariella, trying to disguise my glee that Dominic has just been kicked out of the office for good.

‘No, he’s not. He’s just doing what needs to be done.’ She sighs.

It doesn’t take long for Samir to return to the room.

‘MrMiller has dropped lunch off for the team. He has been asked not to return. We are going to change the landscape of this business and turn it round completely to a fully functioning, thriving investment. I know I need your help to do that, but you must understand that we will no longer function this way. Trusting everyone to do their job to the best of their ability is not enough. We need effective internal processes and our external messaging must be clear. I am going to need support. Are you both on board?’

‘Absolutely,’ Ariella responds without missing a beat. I agree.

‘Thank you, both,’ Samir concludes, and leaves us both standing there.

Things at work after that are turbulent and sometimes explosive. Lydia is moved into a team manager role for the project team, and often inputs their diary entries for Samir’s approval; while Ariella helps the staff acclimate to the new Ivory Bow by keeping the peace and quietly setting up systems that meet Samir’s demands.

By the end of his third week in the role, Ivory Bow is running smoothly with all the new changes – and Samir is operating under the assumption that it was all his doing. The only people Ariella couldn’t save were Eden and Ruby. They have been dismissed with three months’ pay and an open freelance contract giving them first consideration should their skills be required. Getting Samir to sign off on that was like pulling teeth, but Ariella just kept on at him.

I, on the other hand, am doing great. Samir has got me out with him almost every night at functions aimed at senior leaders in influential companies. The opportunities are fantastic because not only does Samir know everyone, the ‘everyone’ heknows are the cheque signers, and they all trust and respect him. We’ve settled into a perfect working relationship. He gets me in the room and leaves me alone to build lucrative relationships and haul money into the company. It’s time to revisit the list of applicants I abandoned to follow Ariella to London, and fast. I am going to need a team more urgently than we thought.

ELEVEN

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