Mistakenly Eaten

77. A Slap of Words

“That’s why these rules don’t apply on Althea? Because she is not a contracted employee?”

The voice echoed inside the entire room, making everyone turn to find Serena, standing up on her feet, in the middle of the room, raising that question high and affront.

Nicholas looked at Serena in sheer and abundant shock, as she stood up in the middle of his office and repeated her words, this time with much more added vocabulary, to emphasize on her evident disapproval of the girl’s sustenance in the house.

“I asked you something Nick! Tell me why these very rules that you are so much flaming the fire around, don’t apply on that girl? Why doesn’t she follow them? Only because she is not hired under a perpetual contract or because she is so high and above everyone else on this entire island, because of whom, we are acting like stupid puppets only to appease her and make her feel like she is living her life long dream. We all are here signed under one contract and that does not include for us to act like clowns…”

“Your contracts ask you to be paid for whatever you are asked to do.” Martha stood up and front, finally understanding the meaning behind Serena’s silence and realized that the woman had a problem with her order and law around the house that she had previously, when everything was under her own personal control and that being disturbed ever since Althea was brought to the island.

Because no one bothered to listen to Serena anymore and everyone did whatever Salva and Nicholas asked them to do because their word was always going to be the ultimate one that was going to be followed but none of the two ever involved themselves in the house matters ever before and when suddenly they were so invested in controlling things around the house, that Serena had started to lose her control over things around the house first and then, the only thing she always believed would always remain under her control had also slowly started to slip right out of her palms, her adoptive daughter, Fiona.

And all of that was happening, only and only because of Althea.

She couldn’t believe that Althea was the same woman that Serena was willing to go beyond her moral values to keep around the house and now she had become the very subject of her unease.

Serena didn’t want anybody but Althea to be kicked out of the house, as soon as it could be possible. Since, she believed that all of the chaos that was occurring in the house was attributed due to the girl’s presence on the island, that left the entire household in splits.

“You are simply obligating to your contract and getting paid for what you are asked to do, as your job.” Martha further emphasized on her point and Serena simply glared back at the woman, holding a stiff expression.

“That’s called slavery.” She spat the words venomously and everyone’s eyes widened at her words.

No one had ever dared to challenge or call out the Santiagos for their treatment towards their staff member, especially the household staff members, whom they treated better than family.

Anthony himself was a mere subject to Alejandro, Nicholas’s father but Alejandro, not only treated him as a brother but in fact, always included him in his important familial decision, consulted in him in every important matter and gave him the confidence to always consider his own cognitive and keen abilities to be significant in every matter.

Nicholas on the other hand, always incorporated his father’s teachings, that he learnt not only through words or verbal instructions of his father but instead saw his father incorporate all of his teachings in an incredibly beautiful manner by always treating his house staff as important as the rest of the residents of the house.

Martha herself, was the daughter of one of the Alejandro’s father, Diego’s right hand. She was always treated as a sister by Alejandro, who eve got upset when he found her and Anthony, dating each other because he always assumed that the three were like siblings. That’s how close the bond of said family was for Alejandro and Nicholas had also learnt the very same thing.

So, listening to Serena’s words didn’t shatter his confidence or hurt his ego, it simply challenged his teachings.

Nicholas at first got angered by Serena’s words but instead, controlled his expressions and his words, whilst Salva was simply flabbergasted, who like Nicholas, had always learned only one thing from his parents and that was to always respect the house staff.

So, Serena’s words hurt him as well. He had always treated her like a friend, a close ally and listening to her claim that she felt like a slave, hurt Salva to his core.

He was about to turn and argue back with Serena but stopped when his eyes landed on Garry’s hands, that were still resting behind his back and he saw his hands relaxed and that was enough of a sign for Salva, how the house hold staff had beginning to feel hostile, ever since Althea’s arrival on the island. Garry on the very specific, since his masculine ego felt patriarchally challenged, because a woman was getting more attention than him.

It was more alarming for Salva, as it gave him an indication that everyone around the house had begun to get a little too comfortable with in their positions, because of the leniency that they were showing.

Serena slapping back a unremorseful comment and Garry being happy with that, only showed that an extremely toxic environment had begun to set around the house, that needed to be taken care of before it spread its tentacles, out of the island and in to the minds of other Santiago Corporation employees.

Salva simply stormed out of the room, deciding to keep his anger inside him and being sensible enough to use it in another way and rather put it out in a useful and more programmed manner, that would actually benefit him, since only slurring out arguments was not going to help anyone and only waste his energy.

Once Salva left, Martha also felt dejected and shattered because of Serena’s disappointing and cringe worthy words.

“If anything, we have always considered you family, in fact more than that. Never said no to any of your demands and let you control and move things around this island, however you had wished to…”

Martha spoke up and Anthony knew, that his wife was going to speak out of a hurt heart and he had meagerly only stepped to stop her but perhaps, his own conscious wanted Martha to give Serena at least one good wording slap that would be enough to inject the idea inside Serena’s mind, regarding to what she had ended up stating in spite of her hurt.

“… perhaps that was our biggest mistake. We let you believe that you run this place. You didn’t deserve the rank that we gave you. This shall act and serve as your one and final warning to make sure to never repeat such audaciously venomous words ever again. Any other physical misconduct or mistake is forgivable but your words, show your true and mental capacity and feelings, and if you say such words again, we would not want someone with slave mentality working under us. Because in that case, we can give someone all the respect that we have to give but they will always think of ways to hurt us and stab us in the feeblest part of our body and what you just said is the prime example of that. For you have challenged our attitude and behavior towards our house staff that has remained the same ever since the Santiago dynasty has begun. So, if you want to remain on the island, I would order you to start minding your business and pull yourself out of the faux cooking competition on your own before we have to fire you and it would not only apply on the faux competition.”

Serena was rendered speechless and completely blown off with Martha’s word that had acted as the righteous slap that she required to be reminded of who she really was, since she had beginning to take her authority for granted and in more of an autocratic way.

Martha stormed out of the room, having the final word embedded in her ego and Anthony also walked out after his wife and on the other hand, Nicholas believed that his Aunt, who was a perspicacious woman, had done enough for Serena and even Garry’s mind to find the right way back to their duties and he didn’t need to say more.

In order to influx more blow to everyone else’s self esteem, Nicholas finally spoke up.

“You guys are dismissed for the rest of the evening and shall be called only, when required to perform your duties from here on.”

The three walked out of the office, feeling highly dejected and broken and even though Serena and Garry had taken the words they heard to their heart, since they were reminded of their meager and feeble positions of being employees to the bigger players of the game, the Santiagos, Garry on the other hand had decided to not to take things too much to his heart and instead he decided to reply back to the Santiagos by incorporating his hurt in to his work and actually let his emploeyrs know how strong his position is in that company and without him, things would come crashing and stumbling down.

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Woah! things just got pretty amped up, I guess? :D

Thank you for always reading and supporting my work <3