Stella & The CEO

CEO & The CFO

Chapter 22

Julius

"Maybe if you remembered simple facts, we could figure this out!"

"Maybe if you could remember the facts we could make sense of this."

Julia ran her hands over her face tiredly, "Maybe if you'd both stop screaming at each other, we'd figure out what happened!"

"You two are lucky I'm even here! Why don't you just call Stella?" Michael asks in frustration.

I shake my head in disagreement, "She does not need to be bothered with this."

"I agree, she doesn't need to be here." Julia nods.

Michael, Julia, and I were trying to make sense of the evidence gathered for the upcoming court hearing. Tensions were a bit high as we had been working on this for the past few days to no avail.

"This was literally her job, she knows every waking detail of these reports and who put them together." Michael pushes.

"And it's supposed to be your job right now isn't it?" I ask.

"I'm just a fill-in!" He exclaims, "I don't know all these coded words and phrases! Operations were always her thing. I just count numbers."

"I too agree that you're utterly useless Michael," I respond making him glare at me before I continue, "but we are not depriving Stella of her temporary time of peace. She needs this."

"Here you go again trying to play hero to Stella. Knock it off!" He snarls.

My brows scrunch together at the accusation, "Me? Hero?-"

Julia rolls her eyes from the corner of the room.

"And you." Michael looks over at Julia.

"Me?" She asks with a raised brow.

"What is your problem? Every time I mention Stella you look like you want to cut my head off. What's your beef?"

"I don't eat beef I'm vegetarian." She says nonchalantly.

"Don't get smart with me now. What's your problem?" He repeats.

She shrugs, "I just don't understand why you keep begging for us to call in Stella? Is this not the company that you work for?"

"Yes, it is. But when it comes down to who handled what tool on what date, I wasn't concerned!" He exclaims.

"Okay! We are all obviously tired. Let's call it a night and meet back in two days or something. Sounds good?" I ask them both.

They both nod in agreement, quickly beginning to pack up their things from the large dining table. I let out an exhausted sigh as Michael let out a quick goodnight before heading to the door.

"You okay Julius?" Julia asks as I take a sip of water from my glass.

I nod, "He's just the worst."

"You asked for us to call him in." She recalls, "Why are you taking it upon yourself to be involved in these meetings anyway? The legal team can handle it."

"I've told you before. I just want to make sure the details are correct before handing it over to them, that's all."

"You're making your job harder than it needs to be."