Chapter 8 - The Crisis at Chapter & Brew
Robert’s personal transformation collided with a corporate crisis that summer.
A major supplier was exposed for exploiting workers in overseas coffee farms. The news linked Chapter & Brew to the supplier, even though Robert had not known about the violations.
The company’s stock dropped.
Social media erupted.
The board demanded damage control.
Several directors urged Robert to deny responsibility and end the supplier contract quietly.
But Robert thought about Scarlet.
He thought about the letter.
He thought about all the times silence had protected him while hurting someone else.
At a press conference, Robert stood before cameras and said, “We failed to ask enough questions. That failure caused harm. We are ending our contracts, funding independent audits, and creating a worker-protection program that will be supervised by people outside this company.”
The decision cost Chapter & Brew millions.
But it changed the company.
Employees respected him more.
Customers slowly returned.
And the board, which had once seen Robert as a ruthless growth machine, began to see him as something else.
A leader.
One evening, Scarlet watched his interview on television while Elias played beside her.
Robert spoke carefully, without excuses.
“When you have power,” he said, “you are responsible for what you choose not to see.”
Scarlet paused the screen.
She remembered the airport.
She remembered him staring at Elias like he had seen a ghost.
May you like
Maybe he had.
Maybe the man he used to be had died the moment he realized his son had grown up without him.
