Being a traitor

Just as Laila got into the car and started her drive, Noah got out of his as he had arrived at the office. Like usual, he greeted everyone as he walked through the lobby and headed to the executives elevator. When he heard the 'ping!' and stepped inside, he sent Laila a message. In his text he was wishing her a good morning, asking if she was up already and asking why she hadn't called him yesterday. Laila of course couldn't reply as she was driving but Noah was convinced that she would still be asleep and therefore didn't expect one anyways for at least the next two hours. Despite this, he sent her the message.

Partially in hopes that when she would wake up, he would get the call he was denied yesterday. Partially because he hoped that she would be happy to see a message from him first thing in the morning. But mostly because he was just used to starting and ending his day with Laila. So whenever she wasn't around, he would feel like something was missing, that something wasn't right, and he would try to fix it by messaging her first thing in the morning and calling her before going to bed at night. Last night however, he received no call and his own call had gone unanswered. When he woke up this morning, he saw a message from Laila from 1 AM, apologizing for missing his call and she would try and call him the next night, which would be today. Though it was only a promise to try, he was already looking forward to it as if it was a promise to do so no matter what.

When a second 'Ping!' was heard, Noah stepped out of the elevator on the top floor and walked towards his office. After placing down his things, he headed to Steve's office BUT not before asking his assistant to hold all of his calls as he didn't want to be disturbed during his meeting with Steve. The only exception being of course, any and all calls from Laila.

Though Noah wasn't sure if Steve would be in already, as he was quite early today, he wanted to be sure as his talk with him went before all his other work. But when Noah knocked and when he heard Steve's voice say, "Come in.", he knew that his long-time friend was not only already at the office, he had also not gone home the day before. Otherwise there was no way for him to be at the office this early in the day. Noah opened the door and walked inside, before closing the door behind him and taking a seat across from Steve.

With a slightly unenergetic voice Steve said, "Ah, Noah. Just the man I was looking for." Noah was comfortably leaned back in his chair, with one leg resting on the knee of the other. In a calm tone of voice he asked, "I take it that your dishevelled look and you being here at this time, means that you haven't gone home since we last spoke?" Steve nodded. "But that is not the important part. The important part is that I have discovered who is behind little miss Olivia's magic trick. Now that I have gathered the information we needed, it is time for you to do the final bit of the heavy lifting and decide what you want to do with the information. Noah replied as he had his hands folded into an arch with all fingers intertwined, his chin leaning on the tip of it. "That serious eh? Let's hear it then. We will decide after that."

Steve straightened his chair and then started showing and telling Noah all that he had uncovered since yesterday. "Well, what I discovered is that it isn't just one person. In all layers there seems to be at least one person that is on Olivia's payroll as well as ours, that is how there is always someone who knows when you are heading home. One of the people who is among the traitors, is that nephew of yours from your mother's side. I knew we shouldn't hire that little twerp and that he couldn't be trusted but your mother asked us a favour and neither of us could say no. Boy did that decision come bite us back in the ass. From stealing company money, to sexual harassment claims that never made it to your desk and now the selling of information to Medusa's descendent. His life long jealousy must have gotten the best of him and he decided that being good for nothing wasn't enough and he needed to add being a traitor to that list."

Noah's expression turned very grave. He knew there was a mole, as that was the only explanation for Olivia knowing so much, but for there to be multiple moles? That was something he did not expect. He always thought that he had built a good company, one where everyone was given an equal chance to make something of themselves. A place that requires hard work but also pays well and genuinely cares for their employees. For anyone to be willing to betray him like that, it must mean that something was wrong on a deeper level. He was completely taken by surprise and utterly shocked. All he could say at that moment was, "How many people in total?"