I had discovered a vendor changing bank information days before a seven-figure payment.
I had found a pension reporting error that could have become a federal investigation.
During the recession, I helped restructure debt without closing a single plant.
During the pandemic, I spent nights on video calls finding alternate suppliers so four hundred employees could keep receiving paychecks.
Grant had been here seven months.
And now he was explaining Holloway Industrial to me.
“You don’t seem surprised,” he said.
“I’m not.”
That bothered him.
He wanted emotion.
He had gotten it from others.
Two weeks earlier, I had watched him terminate a plant operations manager over a ten-minute video call. The man had worked for Holloway since Grant was in middle school.
Grant liked being the calm person in the room while someone else’s life fell apart.
It made him feel powerful.
I opened the envelope.
My termination letter was three paragraphs long.
Twenty-one years reduced to three paragraphs.
Grant studied me carefully.
“You’re taking this better than I expected.”
I looked up.
“How did you expect me to take it?”
He shrugged.
“People become attached to companies.”
“Companies are buildings and paperwork, Grant.”
I stood.
“People become attached to people.”
Outside the glass wall, the entire finance department had gone silent.
My deputy, Leah Monroe, was standing near her desk with one hand over her mouth.
Two analysts were pretending not to watch.
Sam Delgado from warehouse operations had come upstairs for our weekly inventory meeting. He stood near the elevators, staring at Grant like he was calculating whether punching an executive qualified as gross misconduct.
I placed the termination letter in my box.
Then I reached for my coat.
Grant frowned.
“That’s it?”
“What else would you like?”
“I don’t know. Questions?”
“I have one.”
He straightened.
“Go ahead.”
“Did legal approve this?”
A tiny pause.
Then he smiled again.
“I have full authority over restructuring decisions.”
That was not an answer.
I nodded.
“Good to know.”
His confidence returned.
Security met me outside my office.
Neither guard looked happy.
One of them, Marcus, had worked at Holloway for thirteen years.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Hart,” he murmured.
“You’re doing your job.”
As we walked toward the elevator, employees stood up.
Nobody clapped.
Nobody made a scene.
They just stood.
One by one.
Accounting.
Payroll.
Purchasing.
Operations.
By the time the elevator doors opened, almost forty people were on their feet.
Grant remained inside my office pretending not to notice.
I stepped into the elevator carrying my box.
