Maybe because he was new, Nick worked harder than any of us. Reiner and I worked long hours, but Nick worked even longer hours. He basically slept in a room in the orphanage and worked first thing in the morning until he went to bed at night.
“I like this place. I think this is a good orphanage. The kids are good kids too. The teachers are kind and the food tastes great,” Nick complimented everything like this was a real paradise on earth.
“You’re right,” I agreed with him before I started laughing quite loudly.
Reiner approached our table before taking the seat next to mine. He gave Nick a brief smile of greeting before he got straight to business.
“Natalia and I are flying back to the main island tomorrow. Sorry for the short notice but I think it would be better for us to talk to King as soon as possible and King agrees. We’re leaving this place in your care until we’re back. Ok?” Reiner asked without giving Nick much of a choice.
This was the first time that I was hearing about our sudden trip back to the main island too, so I was as surprised as Nick was.
“We’re leaving tomorrow…already?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes. Hopefully, when we get back, we’ll have some type of longer-term solution for this place. You two may or may not know this but this isn’t the only orphanage that King is running. So, there’s a lot of work to be done if there are similar cases of fraud in the other places as well…” Reiner said before he pressed his lips into a thin line.
Fraud in other places…
I didn’t even want to think about that. It was bad enough that we were dealing with fraud and the lack of management in this one place.
“Oh…” I murmured without knowing what else to say.
“Don’t worry about this place. I’ll manage somehow when you’re gone. The teachers and other staff here are great people and very responsible so nothing can go wrong,” Nick replied with outstanding optimism.
That was another one of his good points. Outstanding optimism.
“Thank you, Nick. We’ll try to be back as soon as we can,” I promised before offering him another smile.
…
The following day, Reiner flew us back to the main island where we had a meeting scheduled with King right away. As if he knew that we wanted to come home, King gracefully offered to have the meeting with us at home rather than at the office. Although it hadn’t been that long since I’ve returned to the mansion, it felt so great to be back home.
King was waiting for us in his study and when we arrived, he had a deep frown in between his brows. The scowl on his face made me immediately nervous.
“Welcome back,” King said without much emotion in his voice.
Reiner and I took our seats opposite him from his large work desk. King was clearly not in the best of moods, and I could guess the reason why.
“Thanks for sending Nick. He’s a great help,” Reiner began on a light note.
“Let’s get to the point,” King urged before his eyes rested on the two of us.
My mouth clammed shut and I didn’t hesitate to let Reiner take the center stage for this one.
“We need a team to manage the orphanage and we probably need to repeat the auditing process that we did with this one with the other orphanages. First things first, we need someone to manage the orphanage first because Natalia and I can’t keep on managing it forever and Nick isn’t going to cut it if he works alone no matter how much determination and motivation he has,” Reiner summarized everything quite nicely.
King’s emotionless face turned thoughtful as he seemed to consider what Reiner had just reported. I watched King as I waited for his verdict on how we should proceed. As always, I couldn’t read King at all, and I had no clue what he was thinking.
“The real issue is that we don’t have anyone to manage that place. There isn’t anyone readily available in the company who can and is willing to take on the role. We can start the hiring process but it’s going to take time. It’s not an easy role to fill even if I decide to pay more than the market rate for compensation,” King stated matter-of-factly.
I had guessed something as much. Celine and her team probably stayed because they could pocket a lot of extra money from committing fraud.
What should we do now? We can’t just leave the children, the teachers, and the staffs like that.
“What do you want to do?” Reiner asked for King’s direction.
“I don’t know yet. We’ll probably have to leave it for now while we try to recruit. I want you back in the office too, we can’t have a senior manager hanging around to manage an orphanage that isn’t even part of the main business,” King stated bluntly.
“I understand…” Reiner said emotionlessly.
I could understand why the conversation was taking the direction that it was taking but I just didn’t like it one bit. No one is talking about the welfare of the children at all. What is going to happen to them?
“Umm…what is going to happen to the children?” I spoke up in a small voice.
Even if I couldn’t speak up for myself, I had to muster up all the courage that I had to speak up for those children.
King’s blue eyes shifted from Reiner to me, and I bit hard on my lower lip. Maybe I did speak out of turn but…those children need help.
“If we can’t find someone to run that orphanage then we might have to move the children somewhere else. Combine them with another orphanage somewhere else that has capacity,” King replied
“That’s…” I murmured.
Does that mean that the children will have to be separated on top of the fact that they have to move?
“Do you have another way in mind, Natalia?” King challenged as his blue eyes narrowed at me.
Well…
–To be continued…