Broken and Lonely Ch. 03
The first thing Clara registered when waking up was the time.
"Ah, Sh(bleep)!" she hops out of bed and quickly gets dressed. "I'm going to be late!" and runs out of the room. The Carmine was making her way across the penthouse rushing to beat the time. But she slows down as she passes the living room and notices the pillow and folded blanket on her couch. It's not like she expected the Vee to stick around.
The Carmine was about to leave before noticing some music.
Oops! Did I strike a nerve?
'Cause when I brought out the angel's head
Couldn't help but observe
That your wrinkly face was turning red
It's coming from the kitchen. Clara walks into the room and sees the Velvette maneuvering around the kitchen while dancing to the radio. In the meantime, despite the lack of arms, the Vee was using what she had to use the materials around her to make pancakes. It seems that the Overlord isn't as helpless as Clara thought.
And why are you avoiding war?
That's what the guns you sell are for
Velvette managed to lift her leg so that she could get ahold of a spatula with her foot to flip the pancake. She then uses her teeth to grab the handle of the pan so that she can set the pancake on a plate with a small stack of them.
Thanks to my being resplectless
One thing I'm starting to suspect is
"You made breakfast?" Clara spoke up startling the Vee and causing the music to stop.
Quickly turning around, Velvette accidentally let the pancake drop to the floor as she knocked the radio over, stopping the music, and nearly lost her footing. Unluckily for her, her foot landed on the now spoiled pancake and she slipped and fell to the floor. Before closing her eyes, the Influencer spots the pan coming at her. But nothing happened.
"Sorry," Clara says as she lifts the pan away. "I didn't mean for you to fall."
Velvette shakes her head while standing back up.
The Carmine then places the pan back on the stove and turns the burner off. She then takes another glance at the stack and takes note that there is a large amount of them. "I didn't think you'd stick around to make breakfast for me?"
The Vee just looks away, wanting to avoid eye contact.
It was actually all for me. But sure. I guess you can have some.
Clara smiles. "Go ahead and sit at the table. I'll bring everything over there. Oh! Um…" she starts thinking. "Once for milk, twice for orange juice."
Velvette looks up and taps her foot once.
"Okay, then," the Carmine then watches as her guest takes a seat. While gathering everything, she takes out her phone to make a quick call. "Hey! Would you mind moving the meeting back?... Yes, yes. I know it's last minute, but something came up… No. Later today would be fine… thank you," she then hangs up as she finishes taking everything to the table. Clara then puts some butter on her stack before pouring some syrup. "Would you like some butter?" a headshake is received. "How about syrup?"
Duh!
Velvette nods and her host pours some over her stack.
"Is that enough?" the Carmine receives a nod of approval.
Just like the night before, Clara takes turns feeding herself and her guest. "You know, you're more capable than I thought you'd be. I mean, don't get me wrong. I knew you could still fight but I never thought you'd be able to cook. Again, thanks for breakfast. Um…" she pauses for a moment. "I'm not sure what you have planned for today but if you would like, you can hang around here. There's a small library. It's just upstairs three doors to the left. Or you could watch some tv. We have the premium giving us over four thousand channels. Just make yourself at home," the Carmine then checks the time. "But I have a meeting. So, enjoy your—" she grabs the folder on the table only to have everything drop out of it and onto the floor. "Ugh! This just isn't my day," and Clara starts gathering the papers. After getting a couple pages sorted out, she finds one of them being waved into her face. "Huh?" looking up, the Carmine finds that Velvette is holding up one of the papers in her mouth. "Thanks," she happily accepts the help.
The Vee gives a small nod and goes to grab another paper but notices something off.
"And this should be all of it," Clara pulls the paper away from her guest only to have the said woman bite into the page and jerks it away. "Hey!"
The Influencer then sees a pen on the floor and takes in her mouth and scribbles onto the paper.
"I need that for the meeting!" the Carmine snatches it away and prepares to scold the Vee. Only to stop once seeing what is newly been written on the paper.
Wrong
Clara then sets the document on the table, grabs some blank paper and holds the pen towards the Vee.
"Tell me exactly how this is wrong!"
Velvette glances at the offered pen and takes it.
.oOo.
Clara walks into the office building alongside Velvette. They are meet buy a nervous looking imp man.
"M-Ms. Carmine," the imp waves her over.
"Tooth," the Carmine greets. "Thanks for pushing back the meeting," but continues past him.
"A-about that. Tankston is using this as an excuse to further prove that you can't run the company."
Clara turns to him. "What!?"
"The Board is about vote you out."
.oOo.
Inside the Board Room, there are various demons sitting around the table. At the head of the table is a massive rotund demon who has yet to fall through the floor yet.
"As you can see by the declining numbers, Ms. Carmine is unfit as CEO," he raises a hand. "All in favor of removing her from the company and all affiliations say—"
The doors burst open. "Sorry I'm late!" Clara announces her presence along with Velvette. "I got caught up with something important."
"Ms. Carmine," the large demon sneers. "Glad you could make it. Just in time for you to be voted out."
"Oh, really, Tankston," Clara smirks. "You may want to hold off on that until I show everyone this," she then waves the folder in her hands.
"I'm sorry, Ms. Carmine, but there's nothing you can do to turn this around."
"Oh, I think there is," Clara removes one of the papers and passes it to the nearest Member of the Board. "One of the reasons I was running late is because I was going over these documents one last time. It turns out that there are some irregularities in the paperwork. Look!" she points at the page. "It's easy to miss. A decimal point where there shouldn't be one and then there's a point missing where there should be. Fixing it reveals that we actually have more money than originally believed."
Tankston laughs. "This means nothing. A couple errors doesn't change the fact that there's been a decline since you took over from your late mother."
Clara's fists clenched and wanted nothing more than to punch this guy in the face. But something softly running just above her ankle stopped her. Glancing to her side, the Carmine sees Velvette giving a simple nod.
Taking a deep breath, Clara holds a finger up to her chin, faking her thoughts. "Huh? Normally, you'd be right. But these…" she takes out more similar papers and starts passing them around. "…say otherwise. Every single one of these has anywhere to one or more of these so-called errors. Meaning that despite there being a decline in business it's nowhere near as bad. We still have plenty of money coming in from our most loyal of customers. But want to know what the strangest thing is?" the Carmine leans over the table. "The money is not in any of our accounts. Where's the money?" she looks directly at the rotund demon. "Tankston! You're the head of financing and statistics. It's hard to believe that these errors were missed by you."
"I don't know what you're implying," he shrugs. "Not that there's any proof."
The door opens and Tooth sticks his head in. "Ms. Carmine! Line four!"
"Thank you, Tooth," Clara dismisses him and goes straight for the phone.
"See?" Tankston laughs again. "Further proof. Dismissing us for a phone call. Who is it? Your lover?"
"Thank you," the Carmine hangs up. "Actually. That was my contact in Greed. Turns out that there are several dummy accounts over there. All opened by you, Tankston. Putting them all together there seems to be the exact same amount of money that we are missing," she then raises a hand. "All in favor of dismissing Tankston from the company and strip him of all assets received from us, say I."
Every other Board Member raises their hands. "I!"
Clara then smirks. "And forget about your dummy accounts. Our money is already being placed exactly where it belongs."
"You can't do this to me!" Tankston shouts as he is surrounded by security. "I've been keeping this company afloat for years! You won't survive without me!"
"You just proved that we won't survive with you," the Carmine retorts just before her former employee was escorted out of the room. She sighs before addressing everyone else. "I think that was enough excitement for the day. Meeting adjourned."
Everyone leaves the Board Room and unsure of what else to do, Velvette just follows Clara.
Once inside her mother's office, Clara walks over to the desk, stands there, and suddenly slams her fist onto it, startling the Vee. "Ow!" she then shakes her hand, trying to relieve the pain. "How dare he try use my mother to get under my skin," the Carmine then takes a deep breath. "Thank you," she looks up at the Vee. "Not just for finding the irregularities but also for helping me keep my cool. If I had done anything to Tankston at that moment, I would have lost face with the Board and there'd be no way they'd listen to me," she takes a seat and turns the chair around so that she'd face the window. "He'd destroy the very company that my mother built through her hard work. You know? I never liked Tankston. He's a creep," Clara turns back around to face her guest. "He flirted with me once."
That information caused Velvette's eyes to widen.
"Yeah, I know! My mom quickly shut that down and he's been sour towards me ever since she threatened to rip off something important. The only reason she kept him around was because he was good at his job," the Carmine then sighs. "I guess he was too good at it," she then looks back up at the Vee. "I have some work to catch up on. Need to find what else Tankston was doing. You can head back to the penthouse if you want," she waves her off.
Velvette nods, understanding and turns to leave but is stopped by her host's voice.
"Actually," Clara walks up to her. "You were able to spot those so errors easily. But I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. You did run a very successful business with Vox and Valentino."
Velvette basks in the praise.
Of course, I did! Did you really think those to f(bleep)ing idiots would have been able to handle it on their own. They'd spend money faster than we can make. if it weren't for me, we'd gone belly-up a long time ago. I wasn't the backbone of the Vees for nothing.
Her face then fell at the thought of her friends.
"Hey," the Carmine places a hand on her guest's shoulder. "I've never been good at the numbers part of this business. I was far better at selling our products. We now have a job opening in financing and statistics."
Hearing the offer, the Influencer raised a brow.
You seriously want to trust me with your business.
"It's funny," Clara looks down. "For some crazy reason, I seem to trust you more than anyone in this building."
Vee's eyes widen for a moment. It was as if the Carmine knew what she was thinking.
"The only thing any of the Board Members seem to focus on is the fact that I'm not my mother. Every single day they never fail to remined me…" she suddenly tightens her grip on her fellow Overlord's shoulder, her nails start digging into them, causing Velvette to wince. "…that she's not here because of you!" Clara's glare turns cold for a moment but soon softens and releases her grip. For a moment, she seemed fearful at what she was doing. "Sorry about that," the Carmine looks away for a moment but kept her gaze on her guest. "So, about the job offer? What do you say?"
Velvette then closes her eyes before nodding.
Even though I know this is crazy.
Clara claps. "Great!" she heads back over to the desk. "I'll go ahead and get the paperwork ready and expedite everything for you. You can go home and rest. You'll start tomorrow."
Velvette smiles at the Carmine before leaving the office. Once outside, she registered what was said.
Home?