I sat down. Kieran stood beside me without speaking. That was when the adrenaline finally arrived.
For two years, I had been building Crescent’s internal project-management system. Before that, everything lived in too many places — email, shared drives, individual spreadsheets, printed notes, people’s memories. I built one structured environment where every major project had a complete history: latest drawings, approval dates, client decisions, contract milestones, revision logs, responsible staff. Gregory loved it. Tate called it “overengineered.”
The problem was that Tate had also canceled most of the cross-training I requested. “I don’t want twenty people wasting billable hours learning something one person already knows.” That one person was me. Now he had removed me on a Saturday afternoon, and Monday morning contained three client deadlines.
I listened to another voicemail — this one from Raina, my assistant. Her voice was shaking. “Waverly, I’m sorry to call you today. Tate told everyone you’re gone. Then he asked us to open the downtown package. We can see the dashboard, but we don’t know which revision is the final approved set because he canceled Thursday’s reconciliation meeting.”
I closed my eyes. Thursday. I had scheduled that meeting specifically because the client had changed several details late in the week. Tate canceled it — wedding week, he said, “Go enjoy your little event.” I had still left detailed notes. But Tate had removed my account access before anyone confirmed the handoff.
Kieran sat beside me. “Don’t call them yet.” I looked at him. “They need me.” “They fired you.” “Tate fired me.” “Exactly.” He pointed toward my phone. “Let Gregory figure out what his son did before you rescue everyone.”
The word rescue hit harder than I expected. That had been my entire role at Crescent. Fix the missed deadline. Find the lost version. Calm the angry client. Stay late because somebody else left early. Make chaos look organized. And because I was good at it, people stopped noticing the chaos.