He Shoved Her Into a Luggage Cart — Then Found Out She Owned Half His Private Jet

Chapter 06 - Reassigned

The email came through at nine the next morning, forwarded from Meridian's operations director with a subject line that gave nothing away: Staffing Update.

Kayla read it standing at the parts counter, coffee going cold in her hand.

Effective immediately, ground crew supervisor duties for the executive charter division would be reassigned to a "more experienced coordinator," pending review of "recent operational incidents."

She didn't need to ask who'd requested the review. Grant's name was nowhere in the email. It didn't need to be.

She found Marcus in his office within the hour, laptop open, jaw set.

"He can't do this," she said. "You're chairman."

"He's our largest single client," Marcus said, not looking up. "Forty two percent of last year's charter revenue came through his companies. The board is made up of people who like forty two percent."

"The board doesn't know about the folder."

"The board will," Marcus said, "the moment it's useful to someone to tell them. Until then, three people on that board owe Grant favors bigger than the ones they owe me."

Kayla sat down across from him, the fight going out of her shoulders for just a second before she caught it and stood it back up.

"So he gets to shove me into a luggage cart," she said, "and two days later I lose the floor."

"You don't lose the floor," Marcus said. "You get moved off it publicly, so it looks like discipline instead of retaliation, while we quietly keep building the case somewhere he can't see it happening."

"That's a nice way of saying I have to smile and take a demotion."

"It's a nice way of saying we don't hand him the satisfaction of watching you react," Marcus said. "You taught me that phrase, actually. Your father used to say it about difficult customers. Let them think they've won the small fight so they don't notice they're losing the war."

Kayla almost laughed. It came out closer to a breath.

"I hate that he's not wrong," she said.

"He rarely is," Marcus said. "He built half this operation being not wrong at inconvenient moments."

She stood, smoothed her vest down out of habit, and looked at the office door like it led somewhere she didn't want to walk through yet.

"I'll take the reassignment," she said. "Publicly. Quietly, I still want access to every maintenance log in this building."

"You'll have it," Marcus said. "Through Dale. Through me. Not through the front door anymore."

Out on the floor, word had already spread the way it always did in a hangar full of people who worked with their hands and talked with their mouths in equal measure. A few of the younger ground crew wouldn't meet her eyes. One of the fuelers, a kid named Ortiz who'd been trained by her personally, found an excuse to walk the long way around her.

She understood it. Nobody wanted to be seen standing near the woman the big client had gotten reassigned.

Grant's jet was still cordoned off, still grounded, and as she walked past it for what might be the last time as floor supervisor, she saw him standing beside it in a fresh suit, phone to his ear, looking entirely too calm for a man who'd shoved someone forty eight hours ago.

He caught her eye. Didn't smile. Didn't apologize.

He just nodded once, like a chess player acknowledging a move.

Kayla nodded back, just as slow, and kept walking.