A New Hire Booked My Luxury Napa Estate For $150 — So I Had Her Arrested Chapter 07
The next morning, I got a call from Whitaker & Co.—their attorney, Attorney Chen.
“Ms. Ashford, Mr. Whitaker asked me to inform you that after considering yesterday’s events, we’ve decided to terminate all ongoing partnerships with your company.”
My heart sank, but I asked calmly:
“May I know why?”
Attorney Chen paused.
“Mr. Whitaker’s exact words were—’a company that can’t even manage its own employees is not a company we can trust.'”
“The original contract was signed out of respect for Ms. Ashford. Now that she’s no longer there, the foundation for the partnership is gone.”
I was silent for a few seconds.
Whitaker & Co. was one of the company’s biggest clients—over $2 million in annual business.
Mr. Whitaker had signed on originally because the estate’s hospitality had convinced him the company was reliable, and because I was his point of contact.
Now that I was gone, and the retreat had blown up the way it did, of course he wouldn’t trust them anymore.
I set the phone down and took a deep breath.
The company must be losing its mind by now.
Sure enough, Mr. Preston called personally not long after.
“Elena, can you come by the office? Let’s talk.”
“Mr. Preston, my resignation letter is already in.”
“Elena, I know you’re in the clear. There’s no issue on your end. Every transaction you handled was clean—your vendor comparisons were extremely professional.”
“Linda’s already admitted it. She miscalculated.”
I let out a cold laugh.
“Miscalculated? That’s not the word she used when she accused me of taking kickbacks in front of the whole company.”
Mr. Preston went quiet for a moment, then softened his tone.
“Elena, come back. From now on, we’ll book your estate at market rate for all retreats. Nothing like this will happen again.”
“Mr. Preston, my resignation letter has already been approved by HR.”
Silence on the other end.
Still, I decided to swing by the office.
Not to come back. To close the book properly.
The hallways were quieter than usual.
People I passed either lowered their heads or gave awkward nods before hurrying off.
The ones who’d trashed me hardest on Slack—now they wanted to disappear.
In the conference room, Mr. Preston, Linda, and a few department heads were already seated.
Tiffany was there too.
She flinched when she saw me but forced herself to speak.
“Elena, glad you’re back. Everyone has some responsibility for this—you can’t pin it all on me.”
“Besides, wasn’t everything I did for the company? And you turn around and call the cops, embarrass all of us—”
“Enough.”
I cut her off.
I opened my laptop and projected the original files for last year’s gala plan—creation timestamp, modification history—onto the conference room’s big screen.
File created by: Elena Ashford
Last modified by: Tiffany Hayes
Modified date: December 21, 2023 (the day after the gala)
“I spent two months writing this proposal.”
“You deleted my name and replaced it with your own.”
Silence in the room.
Tiffany’s face changed.
“You gave it to me voluntarily—”
“Let me show you one more thing.”
I pulled up a spreadsheet—the vendor price comparisons I’d compiled before my departure.
“After you took over procurement, costs jumped nearly $5,000. And the vendor you picked? Your cousin’s business.”
“I’ve been covering for you the whole time. Every time you quoted high, I’d find another supplier and drive the price back down.”
“Now that I’m gone, who’s going to cover for you?”
Tiffany’s face went completely pale.
Her lips trembled. She tried to say something and couldn’t.
Mr. Preston finished reading the spreadsheet, his face like iron.
“Tiffany. All duties assigned to you—effective immediately—are suspended. Pending further investigation.”
Tiffany jerked her head up.
“Mr. Preston, you can’t do this. This is all Elena’s one-sided story—”
“One-sided story?” Mr. Preston slammed the spreadsheet down on the table. “Data in black and white, and you’re calling this a one-sided story?”
She had nothing left to say.
Mr. Preston turned to me.
“Elena, come back. You’ll head the admin department. Promotion, new title, 30% raise on your base.”
I looked at him and shook my head.
“My resignation’s already been approved.”
“And besides—coming back wouldn’t change one fact. This company can’t even protect its own veteran employees.”
I stood up and walked out of the conference room.
Behind me, Tiffany shot to her feet and screamed at my back:
“Elena! You just can’t stand seeing the company do well! You’ve been targeting me!”
I didn’t look back.
But it wasn’t over.
That night, Tiffany posted a sobbing video on TikTok.
The caption: “3 months in, and I got bullied out of my dream job by a rich mean girl.”
In the video, she sat in a dimly lit bedroom, tearful, voice quivering.
She’d cast herself as the victim.
Said I’d used my family wealth to make her life miserable at every turn.
That she’d only picked that estate to help my business, and I’d turned around and called the cops to arrest my coworkers.
That my family’s estate was small and run-down and not worth what it charged—only doing any business because she’d promoted it internally.
The video was cut with clips of her “working late,” “grinding” on Slack screenshots.
And a distant shot of the estate—shot from a specific angle that made it look old and shabby.
At the end, she choked out:
“I gave everything to that company. And she took it all away just because she could.”
It went viral overnight.
Two million views in 24 hours.
She’d cross-posted the video to r/antiwork and r/WorkReform on Reddit.
The Reddit post title: “AITA for exposing my wealthy coworker who got me fired for planning a team retreat?”
The comments were vicious.
“OMG this poor girl rich people are the WORST”
“$80 per person for a U-pick?? that’s highway robbery, girl you deserved better”
“Called the cops on her own coworkers?? that’s psycho behavior”
“NTA. Sue her ass.”
“This is why I hate working for family-owned businesses. Nepotism everywhere.”
I scrolled through the comments. My expression didn’t change.
Because I’d expected this.
Tiffany was that kind of person. When she lost face-to-face, she switched lanes—used public opinion to crush you.
Unfortunately, she’d picked the wrong opponent.
