For ladies like Jayna, there were two entities in life. The queen and the pawns. On Jayna’s chessboard, there were no bishops, they were no knights, there was none of that. There were only pawns, tons of pawns, that must go down for the sake of the queen. No one cared about pawns. They were expendable. They were useless. Not entirely so, but at least they won’t be missed when they died. Not by the queen anyway. They were a means to an end. They were just pawns.
And that was the end of it. The queen and the pawns. And Jayna considered herself very much a queen. It’s not just the fact that she was pretty much royalty and had a limitless bank account, it was in her carriage. Jayna felt that a queen is not a queen based on her material possessions but how she conducted herself in relations with other people. And like she just explained, everyone was nothing compared to her.
And like every queen, she had rules. Rules that were to be followed without any form of argument, hesitation or contradiction. Even the slightest hesitance by her staff brought immediate relief from the erring fellow’s duties.
Which was why she was ready to chop someone’s head off when she heard the insistent knocking on the door, interrupting her beauty time. Everyone knew that for the three hours she did her beauty soak, she was not to be disturbed. Who was this unfortunate person??
“I’m so sorry ma’am, you have a phone call.” The frightened voice of her P.A came in from outside the door.
“Take yourself and that call from my door this instant!” Jayna yelled. She heard the scurrying so she knew her P.A had gone. Mentally brushing the distasteful distraction. Just when she was about to sink into her subconscious, the offensive knock came again.
“I’m so so sorry this time ma’am but the person insisted it was a matter of the most urgency.”
Hurling a fit of expletives, she took a deep breath and said, “Nothing is as important as this soak to me right now, so you’ll do one thing for me. You will hang up that call and you will pick up every single item of yours and get out of my house never to return. Is that clear?” Loud sobs echoed from the big house as her staff. Ex-staff by the look of things, ran off.
“Ah….finally some peace and quiet,” Jayna muttered, relaxing back into her beauty soak.
It was three hours later when she heard a vehicle come in through her driveway. Actually, it sounded like more than one vehicle. What was the fuss? She made a mental note as she traipsed downstairs to have the offenders punished in the worst way for disturbing the peace of her house.
She came to face to face with her subordinate at the corporation but he was accompanied by at least a dozen men who were all touching her stuff, weighing her precious artifacts, and messing around her whole house.
“Mr. Collins, what’s going on?” she paused. “Take your filthy hands from my stuff, you wretched man,” pointing at a man that was already taking down the priceless framework that had been in her family for generations.
“I think that term, wretched should be directed at you, Miss Jayna.” Said Collins with an amused smirk.
“What’s going on Collins? How dare you barge into my house with this men. I’ll have you know that you’re going to pay for this by the time I’m through with you in court.”
Collins burst into an unguarded laughter. Pausing to wipe the tears that had slipped from his eyes from how hard he laughed, he said mockingly, “I’d like to see you try with an empty bank account.” When the spirited glare Jayna had been giving him slipped, he grinned knowing he had gotten her and continued.
“You see when your dearest Philip tried to warn you that there was an impromptu board meeting to oust you as the CEO of Bancroft Corporations, I laughed in his face because I knew you’ll be too obnoxious to pick his call. And when you didn’t, as I predicted, I knew it was over. You’re looking at the new CEO of Bancroft Corp as agreed and signed by the partners this morning.” Collins said.
“And that’s not all,” Collins continued with a sickening smile when he saw Jayna slumping to the floor. “We noticed some fraudulent activities, you know. Lapses and inaccuracies in the accounts so in the meantime your accounts are all frozen and your assets seized. And that includes,” he said motioning at the expanse of the house “this big baby. I have all the files here just in case you’re doubting.”
“And I would advise that you vacate immediately with nothing more than the clothes on your back. Not like you have a choice anyways.” He added.
Jayna couldn’t believe it. What had just happened to her? Just a missed phone call and she’d been reduced to this? Why didn’t she just pick the damn call and save her company? Her fifty percent would have saved her and the company her father had worked so hard for. She held her head in despair and as she looked into the distance, bitter tears of regret streamed down her face.
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