Chapter 6 - THE NEW ORDER
(1,500 words)
The news of the executive shakeup at Ashby Motors hit the Salinas Valley business community like a freight train by Wednesday afternoon.
The official press release, drafted by Quincy and approved by the new board, stated that Agnes and Greta Ashby had retired from active corporate management due to health and personal reasons. Lieutenant Colonel Sloane Ashby—widow of Jasper Ashby—had been named Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, overseeing a complete structural overhaul of the company's financial governance.
To the public, it looked like a dignified transition of power following a family tragedy.
To the inner circle of Monterey high society, it was a seismic shift. The arrogant matriarch who had spent decades looking down on everyone had been stripped of her throne overnight by the "Army girl" she had tried to crush.
Over the next three weeks, my life became a whirlwind of military duty, corporate auditing, and final pregnancy preparations.
Every morning, I spent four hours at the Presidio of Monterey, commanding my battalion, ensuring our language training programs ran smoothly. Every afternoon, I met with Quincy and our newly appointed forensic accounting team at Ashby Motors, reviewing every invoice, clearing out the dirty vendor accounts, and restructuring the employee pension system.
We discovered that Agnes had been skimming over eight hundred thousand dollars a year to pay for her private estate, luxury vacations, and Greta's failed boutique investments. By reallocating those funds back into the business, we were able to give every sales representative, mechanic, and administrative worker across four dealerships an immediate five percent wage increase.
The morale at the company skyrocketed overnight. Employees who had worked in fear under Agnes’s reign now walked through the doors with big smiles, stopping me in the hallways to thank me.
One Friday afternoon, two weeks before my due date, I sat in Jasper’s old office on the second floor of the main dealership.
The room had been completely refreshed. I had removed Agnes’s heavy, dark oil paintings and replaced them with bright photos of the Big Sur coastline and framed military honors.
A soft knock came at the door.
Clara, the young receptionist, peeked her head in. "Mrs. Ashby... there's someone downstairs asking to see you. She... she doesn't have an appointment."
I looked up from my laptop. "Who is it, Clara?"
"It's... Miss Greta," Clara whispered nervously.
I paused, setting my pen down. I hadn't seen Greta or Agnes since the day they were escorted out of the boardroom. Quincy had handled the transfer of their personal items to their condo in Carmel.
"Send her up, Clara," I said calmly.
A minute later, Greta stepped into the office.
She looked entirely different from the arrogant woman who had yanked my wedding ring off my finger three weeks ago. She wore plain jeans, a simple beige sweater, and no makeup. Her dark hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, and dark circles hollowed her eyes.
She stood near the doorway, clutching her handbag tightly against her chest, looking around Jasper's old office as if she were stepping into a museum.
"Greta," I said, keeping my tone neutral. "Have a seat."
Greta didn't sit down. She swallowed hard, her eyes darting to my large pregnancy bump.
"I... I came to give you something," Greta said, her voice small, barely above a whisper.
She reached into her handbag, pulled out a small velvet box, and set it on the edge of my desk.
I looked at the box, then at her. "What's this?"
"It's... it's Mom's grandmother's pearl necklace," Greta said, looking down at her shoes. "And... Jasper's baby silver rattle. Mom had them locked in her safe at the house. She... she was going to sell them to pay for her legal retainer."
I stared at the velvet box. I opened it gently. Inside lay a delicate strand of sea pearls and a polished antique silver rattle engraved with the initials J.A.—Jasper Ashby.
"Why are you giving them to me?" I asked quietly.
Tears welled up in Greta's eyes. She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, her shoulders shaking slightly.
"Because... because Mom has gone completely crazy, Sloane," Greta sobbed softly. "She sits in that condo all day, drinking gin, talking about how she's going to sue you, how she's going to ruin you. She doesn't even care that Jasper is gone. She only cares that she lost her status."
Greta wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve.
"I helped her," Greta continued, her voice filled with raw, messy regret. "I helped her alter those lab reports at Pacific Genomics. I knew it was wrong, Sloane. I knew the baby was Jasper's. But Mom kept telling me that if you took control, we'd be out on the street. She made me feel like if I didn't help her, I was betraying the family."
"You had a choice, Greta," I reminded her gently, but firmly. "You were an adult."
"I know," Greta cried, looking up at me with genuine sorrow. "I know I was a monster to you at the church. I took your ring... I pulled it off your hand while you were bleeding. I haven't slept a full night since that day, Sloane. Every time I close my eyes, I see Jasper looking at me with that disappointed look he always had when Mom started her games."
She stepped closer to the desk, her hands trembling.
"I don't want Mom's money anymore," Greta said. "I got a job at a boutique in Santa Cruz. I'm moving out of her condo next week. I just... I wanted to give you Jasper's rattle. For your son. So he has something of his father's."
I looked at Greta for a long moment.
I saw a woman who had spent her whole life trapped in the toxic orbit of an abusive, narcissistic mother, molded into a bully because she was too terrified to stand up for herself. Her remorse wasn't fake; it was the raw, painful awakening of someone who had hit rock bottom.
"Thank you for the rattle, Greta," I said softly.
Greta nodded, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry, Sloane. I'm so, so sorry."
She turned to leave.
"Greta," I called out.
She paused at the door, looking back over her shoulder.
"If you stay on this path," I told her, "if you work hard, stay away from Agnes's schemes, and prove that you're your own person... one day, when my son is older, I'll tell him he has an aunt who chose to do the right thing."
Greta let out a shaky, tearful breath, nodding rapidly. "Thank you, Sloane. Thank you."
She walked out of the office, closing the door softly behind her.
May you like
I picked up the antique silver rattle, running my fingers over Jasper's initials. I held it against my belly, feeling a warm, peaceful flutter deep inside me.
Jasper's family had been broken by greed and cruelty for thirty years. But as I looked out the window at the bright California sun shining over the mountains, I knew my son was going to grow up in a very different world.
