Fired Before Hired
“Who is she?”
Luca Zhao muttered while staring at the black-and-white footage on his office surveillance cam.
The girl on screen sat on a bench just outside the staff entrance, knees pulled to her chest, hands tangled in her curls.
“That can’t be Gia—trust me, I’ve known Gia. If she wanted to see me, the security guards couldn’t resist her request. And she wouldn’t come in that—it’s too...plain.”
He chuckled to himself.
“Maybe it’s Rina? Or Naya? No... those two wouldn’t sit quiet unless it was on my lap.”
Then he bit his bottom lip slightly, locking in on the screen.
“Damn... whoever she is—I need a taste.”
He sucked on his lips, half in amusement, half in curiosity. Then he pressed the intercom.
“Send the girl in. Quickly. No crowd.”
“Yes, sir,” came the assistant’s voice.
Before that, in the entrance hallway, where my friends were all seated anxiously, while I was busy thinking about how my dreams of finally meeting my idol were about to come true… but then they began to crumble, one name at a time.
One by one, the names were called by Miss Harper.
She started with, “Jay Orton, you will work under Blockchain Analysis.”
He grinned happily. Finally, his days of straining his eyes to read through books with the tiniest writing were over.
“Myra West,” she continued. The tiniest girl with the biggest brain was placed in Strategic Planning.
She squeaked in joy as she went with her supervisor for a briefing.
“Juan Bellamy. PR Research,” she said. That was what he wanted, and he got it.
Each of them received a sleek welcome kit, a security badge, and an elevator key card. Real departments. Real pay. Real futures.
Then Harper glanced down at the last name on her clipboard.
“Seraph Hampton…”
“Yes, ma’am,” I raised my hand like I was still in kindergarten.
“Internship, right?” she asked with a strained smile.
“Yes!”
“Relax, dear. I’ll soon attend to you. Your colleagues are workers, while you’re an intern, so they’ll be needing more attention,” she smiled before leaving the reception.
I sat on the reception bench, trying to rub off the pain of being stalled. I held my mother’s worn-out leather bag tighter... the one she’d always ask me to hold while working three jobs under my dad’s best friend. People always wondered why my mum had to work under him.
After my deadbeat dad left us, we were stuck with nothing but a house that was falling apart. So, my mum needed a job. She eventually got hired after a series of begging.
We thought it would be a blessing—after all, she was being hired by my dad’s best friend, a man who couldn’t visit us without gifts.
Unknown to us, he would end up treating her like some kind of garbage. She would always be asked to work late—sorry, forced! But she couldn’t disagree, because no one would be ready to give a woman in her late forties a job. To cut the pathetic story short, she became sick and left me to navigate this world, which I was literally getting lost in.
It’s been over thirty minutes since Miss Harper had me on hold.
That same internship position, which once made me hyper, now felt like working at a security post.
I remembered how ecstatic I was when I received the email saying I had been picked among other orphans to become an intern at Luca Leverage. I wished I had taken Matron Xander’s advice and rejected the offer—which now seemed better than sitting all day on a smooth, cold bench that screamed indirect rejection.
Just as I was about to give up and cry, Harper returned—only this time, no clipboard in sight.
“Hey, Seraph! You're needed on the sixtieth floor.”
Upon hearing those words, I knew I had gotten into trouble, but I couldn’t figure out why. Was it the sandwich wrapper I threw on the floor? Or maybe when I placed my foot on the bench?
She didn’t even let me sit down to think before snapping, “Em, excuse me, did you forget you're needed on the sixtieth floor?” She repeated, giving me a glare that made me want to teleport there instantly.
She already looked tense, so I didn’t want to annoy her by asking how to use the damn self-explanatory elevator—which even an eight-year-old could operate. So, I just followed the same instinct that helped me pass the recruitment exam.
After minutes of stomping up the stairs, I couldn't even tell where I was. All I could see were polished doors with silver knobs, all looking alike. After opening several doors and still finding nothing, I reached for the last door in the hallway—the one slightly ajar.
I didn’t know that this last door wasn’t just any door.
It was the entrance to the biggest mistake of my life.
What I walked into… was not the 60th-floor office. Or reception. Or anywhere an intern should be.
This was… a lounge. But not just any lounge.
This was his private lounge—with black and velvet couches, bookshelves lined with arranged documents, a window that offered an amazing view of the entire city, and at the far end was another door, left slightly ajar. I heard running water.
Then silence.
My heart nearly left my chest.
Just as I was about to step back out and pretend nothing happened—
The door
swung open.
And he walked out… in a state that traumatized me.
