From His Fake Wife to Billionaire Heiress (Riley and Lucas) novel Chapter 439

Chapter 439 Wharfbrook Commercial District Redevelopment Project

Riley pointed at the project tead closest to her.

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The room went blank with shock. Everyone had figured the new boss would come in with the usual routine lay down some rules, wave a few promises around.

Nobody expected her to launch a surprise inspection before they’d even settled into their chairs. Several people panicked outright, trading frantic looks and shifting in their seats.

The team lead she’d singled out turned red. He stammered for a long, painful moment before he managed to force out a few words. “Ms. Harper, I, um, I wasn’t ready for this. Could we maybe-”

“Not ready?” Riley raised an eyebrow, and something cold and mocking tugged at her mouth. “So you don’t know what you do every day? That’s fine. But you do know how much lands in your bank account each month, right?”

The words landed like a slap.

The marketing staff had already heard through the lunchtime grapevine about Riley dismantling Noah in the shareholder meeting. Some had clung to the hope that the rumors were overblown. They weren’t. She cut sharper in person. This wasn’t a new grandstanding boss making a ceremonial show of power. She was deadly serious.

Riley propped her chin on her hand and watched them fidget. Her eyes only got colder.

“All right,” she said, her voice unhurried. “Here’s how this will go. Anyone who’s ready can start their briefing right now. As for the rest of you–you’re free to leave. Go sort your work: your projects, your progress, your problems, your solutions. Boil it down. When you’ve got it straight, come back and report.”

It sounded like she was giving them a way out. In truth, it was only a harsher test. Staying meant proving one’s competence on the spot. Leaving bought a few minutes to breathe, but it also marked anyone who left as slack and lacking in competence.

The silence stretched. Then someone cracked. One person stood up and hurried toward the door, head down. The first defection opened the floodgates, and a handful more followed. Within a minute, the room had lost a third of its people.

Riley watched them go. Her face registered nothing.

When only a few remained, she turned her attention back to the team lead she’d targeted first and said, “Can you begin now?”

He sucked in a breath and launched into his report, his voice unsteady.

As he spoke, Riley leaned toward Vincent and kept her voice low. “Log everything he covers. Mark the data points and timelines. And track the ones who walked out. I want exact times for how long each of them takes to walk back through that door.”

The briefings dragged on. Two hours crawled past.

When the last employee finished speaking, the room settled into a heavy, uneasy silence. All eyes drifted to the woman at the head

of the table.

Riley’s expression hadn’t flickered once. She held out her hand, and Vincent wordlessly placed the laptop into it.

She ran her fingers across the touchpad. The screen glowed with Vincent’s meticulous notes–color–coded, time–stamped.

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10:40 am Pppp.

Chapter 439 Wharfbrook comercial District Redevelopment Project

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Every person who’d stayed. Every person who’d left and come back. Their talking points. The flaws in their data. The exact minutes and seconds they’d spent out of the room

She scrolled slowly. The only sound in the room was the faint tap of her fingertip and the uneven breathing of her staff

Then her eyes stopped on a line Vincent had flagged in red “Wharfbrook Commercial District Redevelopment Project

She lifted her head and let her gaze travel across the room, Her voice stayed calm and even.

“I’m curious–is the Wharfbrook project really that complicated? Thirty people in the department, and half are tied up in this one project.”

The words struck home. A current of unease spread through the room. The people on the project shifted uncomfortably, their eyes averted.

Riley didn’t linger. She fixed her gaze directly on the man in charge–forty–something, a little soft around the middle.