Page 52 of Not My Fault

“I’m sorry. You’re saying the entire staff hasn’t been paid?” I want to make sure I’m understanding her correctly.

“Yes.” She nods. “Viv hasn’t paid them and has placed the blame on you.”

“On me?!” I gasp. She knows I know nothing about making sure everyone is taken care of—that’s why I hired her. To make sure she is doing all that to keep everything running smoothly.

“I have all the proof in there. I wasn’t sure if I should come to you. But it doesn’t seem like you knew. I mean, why would you go to a charity dinner where a buy-in is fifty thousand dollars when you haven’t paid your staff? It seemed like poor taste. Which is when I realized you didn’t know. So I did some digging internally and found out some things.”

“What things?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Viv has been taking the money from your royalties, and instead of paying everyone, she’s been paying one extra employee.”

“Who?”

“A person who doesn’t exist. Their name is in the documents, but they don’t have an ID photo, and no one can tell me who this person is. I think it’s an account connected to Viv that she or someone else has access to.”

“Viv is stealing from me?” I exhale sharply. The accusation is enough to send a shiver down my spine. She was someone I trusted with every aspect of my business. How the hell could she do this?

“Yes. I mean, unless you’re the person on the other end of that account. Which did occur to me but wouldn’t make any sense because then she’s stealing from you to give back to you.”

“How did you find this all out?”

“I went digging. I’m only an intern, so it wasn’t like they gave me security access. But Viv also treats us like we’re morons and has us reset her passwords for her. I just looked at what was there and figured it out.”

“I really appreciate you bringing this to me. I can’t believe no one has been paid.” I look through the paperwork she gave me and some of it starts to make sense.

“When people started talking about a walk out, I knew that you had no idea. I don’t want your career to suffer because of someone else’s mistakes. I didn’t know who to go to with this because she’s my boss.”

“Marsha, you do not have to worry. I promise you I will take care of this, and no one will be punished except Viv. And I hope whenever you finish your internship here, you’d consider taking a job as my personal assistant. You’re exactly the kind of person I’d want on my team looking out for everyone,” I say with a smile.

Marsha’s face lights up. “You mean that?”

“Of course. And if that’s not the position you’re looking for, we can chat about it and find you something here. Standing up to your boss isn’t easy but this is necessary. I don’t tolerate stealing or lying, and I’m so disappointed that my team hasn’t been paid for their hard work.” I sigh.

“Thank you. You’re honestly not like most of the stars I’ve met.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” I wink.

Marsha stands to go but I call after her.

“There’s one more thing you can do for me, I want access to everyone’s accounts for direct deposit. I’ll stop by the bank, and I plan to pay everyone’s missing funds today. They shouldn’t have to wait for legal to figure this out and pay everyone back.”

“I-I don’t know if I can get that. But I know someone who can.”

“Okay, don’t talk to anyone about this, but get me that list as soon as you can. And if you see Viv, please let her know I’m looking for her,” I say.

“Of course.” She nods nervously and disappears.

I can’t believe Viv. I knew she was a shark. Someone who took no one’s crap and fought me on the things I didn’t like. But I thought she was rooting for me. I thought we were on the same team. I don’t know how she could possibly smile to my face like nothing was wrong and then steal from me and all the hardworking people here. She’s messing with people’s jobs and livelihoods. I wanted to say Marsha is lying, that all of this isn’t true. But as I look over the paperwork, it’s clear. There is no way she could’ve forged anything like this. I check it against the records of my own bank account and the numbers are all wrong. Viv was skimming off the top and not paying anyone. And I didn’t notice because it was all going to my savings. I’m sopissed, I swear I’m seeing red. I try to do some deep breathing to calm myself down because I’m too angry right now.

“Emily? You paged?” Viv pops her head in, barely looking up from her phone.

“Please have a seat.” I force a smile. Taking out my own phone, I text security to wait outside my dressing room door for my signal. If anything gets out of hand, I want them to be there to help.

“What’s going on? I haven’t been able to contact my assistants today and I’ve got a lot of things to do,” Viv says with a tired sigh.

“Please put the phone down, this is important,” I say as calmly as I can.

“What?” She rolls her eyes but puts the phone down on the table, and I try to figure out where to begin.

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