She had chosen people who could challenge.
He continued.
“You are angry because they profiled you.”
“Yes.”
“You are also investigating retaliation.”
“Yes.”
“Those are related but not identical.”
“I know.”
“Then keep separate.”
Simone leaned back.
“That’s why Caroline still employed.”
“Good.”
Adrian sipped coffee.
“What about crew firing premise?”
“What premise?”
He smiled.
“You know tomorrow headlines if airport staff leaks.”
“‘CEO denied boarding, fires crew.’”
Simone groaned.
“I hate humanity.”
“No.”
“You hate compression.”
“Same.”
He smiled.
Then serious.
“What do you want this company to become?”
Simone stared at conference-room glass.
Outside, the gold jet sat under ramp lights.
Beautiful.
Silent.
Expensive.
She had wanted it partly because it symbolized the acquisition.
A flagship.
A visible break from SkyLuxe’s old navy-and-white branding.
Now it looked almost absurd.
A golden object surrounded by people afraid to speak.
“I want nobody to need to know who someone is before following facts.”
Adrian nodded.
“Good.”
“And I want crew to report owners without career suicide.”
“Better.”
“I want owners protected from unsafe crew.”
“Yes.”
“I want junior employees able to contradict senior people.”
“Hard.”
“I know.”
She looked at him.
“And I want the damn plane to leave eventually.”
He laughed.
“Tomorrow.”
“Maybe.”
The review lasted six weeks.
Long enough for rumors.
Short enough to feel brutal.
No public announcement.
Bennett Aero Group hired an outside employment firm and aviation-safety consultant to avoid having Simone’s personal incident define findings.
Every crew member interviewed.
Every scheduling record reviewed.
Every passenger complaint for three years reclassified against original reports.
What they found was not one villain.
That disappointed people who preferred simple.
Caroline had behaved badly.
No question.
She had also been promoted inside a system that rewarded exactly what she had become.
High-value owner satisfaction.
Zero visible conflict.
No surprises.
Senior crew were evaluated partly on “owner comfort continuity.”
Nobody wrote:
Suppress complaints.
But owners who generated complaints were expensive.
Complaints triggered legal review.
Legal review irritated clients.
Clients could move aircraft management contracts elsewhere.
So managers praised leads who kept problems “within service.”
Caroline became excellent at that.
She learned which junior attendants could be trusted not to escalate.
She mentored aggressively.
Punished uncertainty.
Protected clients.
Not always maliciously.
Sometimes she genuinely believed she was helping younger crew survive private aviation.
In interviews, she said:
“You don’t understand how this world works.”
The investigator asked:
“How does it work?”
“Owners can end careers with one email.”
“Should they?”
“That isn’t the point.”