Chapter 6 - The Clean Slate
On January second, I officially assumed my role as Managing Director and Executive Chairwoman of Crestview Legacy Assets.
My new office sat on the top floor of the First Pine National Bank tower downtown—a magnificent corner suite featuring floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the entire city.
Where my father had built a culture of fear, vanity, and corruption, I began building a culture of transparency, accountability, and genuine hard work.
My first official act as Chairwoman was to review the employment roster of Palmer Logistics.
I discovered that my father had been severely underpaying the warehouse workers and truck drivers while paying himself and Savannah exorbitant executive salaries for jobs they barely performed.
I immediately restructured the payroll.
I raised the hourly wages of the eighty warehouse employees by twenty percent, instituted a full medical benefits package, and fired three toxic middle managers who had helped my father falsify inventory records.
When Savannah showed up at the corporate headquarters on Tuesday morning wearing an outfit she had bought before her credit cards were canceled, demanding to know where her "executive consultant" paycheck was, I met her in the main lobby.
“Your position has been eliminated, Savannah,” I told her plainly in front of the reception staff.
Savannah’s face turned bright red. “You can’t fire me! I’m a Palmer! My name is on the front gate!”
“Your name is not on any stock certificate,” I replied, handing her a final severance check calculated based on her actual documented hours worked over the last six months—which amounted to exactly four hundred and twelve dollars.
“What am I supposed to do with four hundred dollars?!” she shrieked, staring at the check as if it were dirty rag. “My rent is due next week! My luxury accounts are frozen! I have no money!”
“I suggest you do what I did six months ago when my company went under,” I said softly, looking her straight in the eye. “Find a job, rent a small studio apartment, and learn what it feels like to earn a dollar through real work.”
Savannah stared at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of intense hatred and total, helpless shock.
She realized, for the very first time in her life, that there was no safety net coming to save her.
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There was no Dad to write a check. There was no wealthy fiancé to pay her bills.
She snatched the four-hundred-dollar check from my hand, turned on her high heels, and stumbled out into the cold January wind, completely broke and entirely alone.
