Blackmail

[island_girl]

At the age of twenty five, Gail Price had been at the company for three years, coming in straight from college. She had promoted early; over some of her colleagues who had been with the company for far longer, mostly due to the fact that a scandal had broken about the company having no women in executive positions. Now Gail headed one of the most successful departments in the company.

It had been a good year for Gail, she had finalized deals worth millions dollars and the bosses upstairs were very happy with her work. Not bad for a junior executive. What the bosses did not know was that from the deals Gail had pocketed over 100k on the side in addition to her commission. Over the past six months, Gail had been using various loopholes in the contracts and lax financial procedures of the company for her benefit.

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The day had been like any other for Gail. The pretty, brunette had spent the day in various meetings and was her office finishing up the day’s work. She sat the computer checking what she had written against the documents with her. Brushing her hair from her face, she sent the document to print and sat back when her computer beeped. Gail looked up, it was nearing 6:00pm; not the time for emails. She opened the email. One of her staff, Dean Marshall was requesting an urgent meeting with her. Gail frowned, she did not recall assigning him any urgent work recently. As it was end of the week, Gail sent a reply asking Dean to come to her office.

By the time Dean showed up, the floor was dark and empty. Gail’s office was the only one with the lights on. She was surprised to see that Mark Ward from IT was with Dean. “What did you want to see me about, Dean?” Gail asked.

 

[DarelHute]

Dean smiled at Gail's question, his eyes straying for a second on her cleavage before he pushed Mark inside and closed the door behind them, looking back to see if there was really nobody else around. At almost 30, Dean was a very confident young man, fully aware of his knowledge and skill, but highly frustrated with the lack of recognition in his company. Just when he had been up for promotion, the sexy brunette got it instead. That never sat well with him, and he vowed to get his revenge.

"Well, Miss Price, it's a very long story, and quite a complicated one..." he began as he sat on the chair in front of her desk.

Mark sat on the other chair, in a more tentative manner than Dean. He was also a good looking young man at 26, a computer genius, but for some reason lacked in confidence with women.

"We found something in your paperwork in last six months!" Mark intervened in Dean's flow.

"Yes, more like he found it!" Dean said with a smile, pointing to Mark. "He's such a wiz, nothing gets by him!"

"I couldn't believe it, so I showed it to Dean!" Mark said in a rush, tapping his fingers on the armrest of his chair.

"He did!" Dean said and paused, smiling at Gail, trying to gauge her reaction. "And I'm so glad he did! Because I looked at it, and it seemed to jump right out of the page. It just jumped right out!"

"I couldn't believe it!" Mark added with a nervous laugh.

"Yup. I couldn't believe it either! Very bold, Miss Price, very bold! Over 100,000 dollars, simply vanished in thin air... Luckily, Mark put together a little file..." he began and nodded to Mark, who placed a file on Gail's desk. "It is crystal clear in this file, Miss Price, that, in fact, the money did NOT vanish. If you read the last page, you'll see exactly where the money ended up! Take a look!" he added and then sat back in his chair, waiting for her reaction.

Dean Marshall

Mark Ward

 

[island_girl]

“What? No! That’s crazy. You-” Gail started to say but fell silent when Dean mentioned the hundred thousand. She made no move to pick up the file on her desk. Gail knew what it would contain. Gail could see how pleased Dean was with himself. She had been promoted over him and knew that he was not happy about that.

Gail took a moment to gather her thoughts. Dean and Mark could have gone to her superiors and exposed her dealings but they had chosen to confront her. Perhaps she could still wiggle out of this. “What do you want from me? The two of you want a cut?”

 

[DarelHute]

Dean almost laughed, but caught it just in time.

"A cut?? No, Miss Price, that's why I said it was complicated!" he said and stood. "If we got a cut, we could get caught!" he said with a sly smile. "We can't have that!"

"No, we can't have that!" Mark echoed Dean's answer.

"It's complicated because we now have to repair your damage! We have to come up with a sneaky plan to return the money you stole without anyone noticing it was gone in the first place!" Dean said and sat back down.

"That's right. It has to go back! They can't find out, or we're also toast if we don't tell on you!" Mark spelled it out in a rush.

"Exactly! Now please tell me you still have the money!" Dean said as he leaned forward.