Chapter 8

After hanging up, Edward sat alone in the study in a daze. The ashtray in front of him was overflowing with cigarette butts.

Victoria walked in carrying two cups of coffee. She set one down in front of him. "Dad, tell me the truth. What's really going on with the company?"

Edward looked up at his daughter, sighed, pulled a stack of documents out of the drawer, and tossed them onto the desk.

Victoria opened them and flipped through the pages. It was even worse than she'd imagined. Lane Trading looked like a long-established trading company with twenty years of history, but in reality, it had been sliding downhill for the last three years. The real estate project her father had invested in with his partner had eaten up over 33 million dollars altogether. Now the partner had run off, the project had stalled, the bank was chasing repayment, suppliers were demanding payment, and the company's cash flow had already dried up.

"Last month's payroll came out of my personal account," Edward said with a bitter smile. "If this keeps up, we'll have to start laying people off next month."

Victoria closed the file without speaking right away. She lifted her coffee and took a sip, her eyes drifting to the neatly lined binders on the bookshelf. Those were twenty years of customer files, supplier lists, and industry reports her father had built up. Lane Trading might be in trouble now, but its foundation was still there. The channels were still there. The relationships were still there.

"Dad, let me handle the company."

Edward stared at her. "You? But you didn't study international trade. You studied..."

"Art history," Victoria finished for him. "I know. But Dad, I didn't spend those three years in the Foster house for nothing. Stephen never avoided me during meetings. I watched Foster Group's business model, financial structure, and supply chain management for three years. I listened for three years. I remembered it all for three years."

Her tone was calm, like she was just stating a simple fact. But Edward heard something different in it. There was light in his daughter's eyes. Not that bright, innocent little-girl kind of light she used to have, but something steady and certain.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

Edward stayed silent for a long time. In the end, he took the company seal out of the drawer and pushed it across the desk toward her. "From today on, you're the vice president of Lane Trading. All business decisions are yours to make."

Victoria took the seal and weighed it in her hand. It was brass, heavy and cold against her palm. The feel of it made her think of the final stretch of her last life, when even one single coin had to be fished out from under a couch cushion.

From one coin to one company seal, it had taken her a whole lifetime.

That very afternoon, Victoria went to the company.

Lane Trading's office was on the fifteenth floor of 88 Commerce Avenue, occupying the whole level. The decor was old-school redwood, and a plaque on the wall read Integrity First. There were a little over thirty employees, most of them longtime staff who had followed Edward for anywhere from five to fifteen years.

When Victoria arrived, the finance department and sales department happened to be in a meeting. The meeting room door wasn't fully shut, and their argument spilled into the hallway.

"If all the clients are gone, what the hell am I supposed to use to make numbers? We can barely even get travel expenses reimbursed now!"

"That's a sales problem. Finance just does the math. No money means no money. What are you yelling at me for?"

Victoria pushed the door open, and the room fell silent for a beat.

Everyone turned to look at the young woman in a simple white shirt and dark dress pants. Some recognized her at once. The boss's daughter. She'd been here a few times before, always dressed up and always coming in and out with Stephen Foster.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Victoria Lane. Starting today, I'm the vice president of Lane Trading." She set her bag at one end of the table and pulled out a chair. "First, starting tomorrow, all department heads will report to my office at four o'clock every afternoon with updates and issues from that day. Second, Finance will organize the last three years of financial statements and have them on my desk tomorrow morning. Third, Sales will put together a full list of our current clients and all clients we've lost in the last two years. I want the complete version."

No one in the room said a word.

Old Morris, the finance director, spoke first. "Miss Lane, the financial statements from the last three years are a huge amount of data. We may not be able to get everything sorted by tomorrow morning..."

"Then work overtime tonight." Victoria looked at him, her tone slow and even. "Uncle Morris, you've been with Lane Trading for thirteen years. You know this company's situation better than anyone. This isn't the time to go by the book."

Old Morris opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn't say another word.

Chris Carter, the sales manager, was a young man just over thirty. He looked unconvinced. "Ms. Lane, can I ask what company you worked for before this? What industry experience do you actually have?"

Victoria looked at him.

She knew exactly what that question meant. Doubt. The boss's daughter parachuting in with no industry background and no management experience. Why should she be sitting in that seat?

"I spent three years at Foster Group," Victoria said.

Chris blinked. "At Foster Group? Doing what?"

"As Mrs. Foster."

The room went silent again, then someone couldn't help letting out a laugh. Chris's expression turned weird, the corner of his mouth twitching like he wanted to say, so she just rode her husband's coattails, but didn't quite dare to.

Victoria didn't get mad. She picked up a contract from the table and flipped through it. It was a procurement agreement between Lane Trading and an upstream supplier. The other side had delayed delivery in breach of contract, Lane Trading's claim for damages had gone nowhere, and the matter had just been sitting there for over half a year.

"Clause fifteen of this contract clearly states that in the event of delayed delivery, the other party owes liquidated damages equal to five-thousandths of the contract value per day. The total value of this shipment was 2.7 million dollars. Delivery was forty-seven days late. Did any of you calculate how much that penalty is?" Victoria tossed the contract back onto the table. "No. Because nobody bothered reading the contract, nobody went after the supplier, and nobody believed this could actually be enforced."

Chris's face changed.