Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
COLSON
Sophie
I have so much to tell you. Good things, I think.
Me
Tell me.
Sophie
I think it’s a conversation that should be had over dinner.
Me
Say when, and I’ll be there.
Sophie
Is tonight too soon?
Me
It’s never too fucking soon to see you. But I can’t make tonight happen. We’re having a family thing—it’s a long story, which I’ll tell you about when I see you.
Sophie
How about tomorrow night, then?
Me
You pick the place.
Sophie
Don’t put that pressure on me. I’ll pick anything except for the restaurant I’m bringing my restaurateur to, LOL.
Me
Fair.
That “my” you inserted in your last message was sexy.
Sophie
I thought you’d like that.
Me
I’m assuming you want a place that has privacy?
Sophie
Please.
Me
Toro has a private room. Once I confirm it’s available, we’ll go there.
Sophie
Whatever you do, do not tell my daughter we went for sushi. She’ll never forgive you for not taking her too.
Me
Abbi likes sushi?
Sophie
Not likes. LOVES.
Me
How about this? Abbi can eat at Toro for the rest of her life—on me.
Sophie
She’ll love you for that.
Me
And you?
Sophie
For our family meeting, we needed a spot that wasn’t in our corporate building or one of our restaurants, where adult beverages and food could be consumed and we wouldn’t be overheard by an employee.
With Ellie at Lindsey’s house for the week, I offered to have it at my place.
I hired one of our sous chefs at Charred to whip up several appetizers, and right before my siblings arrived, my housekeeper placed them in warming trays on my island.
Raw and chilled options were on ice next to the hot ones.
The first of us filled our plates, and we sat at my dining room table, my housekeeper making sure everyone’s glass stayed full.
Eden hadn’t even taken her first bite yet and said, “We know why we’re here. By the end of the evening, we absolutely have to make a decision about the Gordons. I don’t care how long it takes, no one is leaving until we have a plan. We all agree to that?”
She received four nods.
“Good,” she said. “Now, who wants to start?”
“I will.” Walker hadn’t touched his food.
In his hand was a tumbler of whiskey, and that was the only thing he had swallowed since he had sat down.
“I think we should sue the Gordons and make those bastards pay for what they did to us. But I really believe things should end there. No buyout, no takeover—or whatever you want to call it. I don’t want to double our business overnight.
I want to keep things exactly as is. And in ten years, I want to sell our entire empire and live on a fucking island with Alivia, where the only worry I’ll have is what fish I’m going to catch and filet for dinner. ”
Eden snorted. “An island would suit you.”
“I’m tired—I don’t know how many times I have to say that.
” He looked at each of us. “Even in my new role at our company, I’m exhausted.
You know how much work I just put in to curate a new menu for Horned and how challenging that was to roll out.
I can’t even imagine doing that at a scale that’s double of what we currently have.
” He took a deep breath. “I’m dreaming about the day when we’re all done, and we can hang up our aprons and never look back.
I’m not trying to make the next couple of years absolute fucking hell. ”
“For you, it’s hell.” I dipped a shrimp into cocktail sauce. “For some of us, like me, what we’ve achieved is a goddamn dream come true.”
“Retirement, Colson.” Walker took a drink. “That’s what sounds like a dream. And that’s what I’m focused on.”
“Within the next couple of years?” Eden pressed Walker. “That’s when you think it’s going to happen? And when we’re going to sell?” She laughed. “You’re funny.”
Walker’s head shook. “I’m not joking.”
Hart clasped Walker’s shoulder. “Eden is twenty-seven years old. Beck is twenty-nine. Let’s calm down with the whole retirement talk, please.”
“Aren’t you happy with what we already have?” Walker asked no one in particular.
“It’s not about being unhappy with our portfolio,” Eden replied. “It’s about wanting more.”
Walker pushed away from the table and set his drink on his chest. “Coming here, I knew I would be outvoted. I knew the four of you were going to agree to sue, followed by a buyout. What I’d like to know is, how the hell are you going to make that happen without me?”
I dropped the shrimp tail on the plate. “Are you telling us you’re fucking quitting?”
“Quitting? No.” Walker finished his drink, and my housekeeper instantly replaced it with a new one.
“But how the hell are you going to clone me? Because I handle the most important part of our business. I can’t be at four hundred places at once.
I can’t make sure that every fucking chef who works under the Gordons will meet my standards. ” He was looking at me.
“But what you can do is train a team,” I offered. “That team will then disperse and make their way around the country.” I wiped my mouth after taking a bite of sliced rib eye. “We all know how much you enjoy training and mentoring.” He said nothing. “Or are you going to try to prove me wrong?”
He couldn’t. Because during that role, he’d fallen in love with Alivia.
When I was met with more silence, I said, “I rest my case.”
“To add on to that,” Beck said, devouring a mini pulled pork slider, “upon the buyout, we don’t have to immediately ensure every chef meets your standards.
The Gordons’ model works. Patrons are happy with their food.
We wouldn’t be rebuilding a failing business.
We would be taking over a thriving one.”
“Until we destroy them,” Eden offered.
The room turned silent.
We had rebutted Walker’s main concern. Deep down, he knew we would have to hire a team to oversee kitchen standards; it wasn’t logistically possible for him to handle that position solely.
He just wanted to be heard, and we listened.
There would be no convincing him that the buyout was the right move.
He was allowed to be tired and against our decision.
But for this to work, we all had to see what we were facing and what that would look like.
“Explain to me how you’re going to do that.
” Walker finger-checked the temperature of the sliced steak on his plate and grimaced.
“I understand hiring a PR-team larger than our current one. I understand publicly sharing our side of the story, providing the evidence, eventually—or should I say, hopefully—swaying the public’s opinion.
But how does a PR team take down a brand when the brand isn’t doing anything wrong? ”
I glanced at Eden, whose eyes were already on me, and responded, “You hire someone whose job is to identify weaknesses. Instead of fixing or strengthening those weaknesses, it’s the catalyst—or one of the many catalysts—that destroys them.”
Walker blinked several times and huffed. “And you’re telling me there are PR teams who specialize in this?”
“I’m sure there are,” Eden said. “But we’re not going the PR team route.” She tucked her black hair behind her ears.
“We’re not?” Hart asked.
“This is getting interesting,” Beck admitted.
Walker moved his plate aside and leaned onto the table. “Sounds like the two of you”—he pointed at Eden and me—“have already thought this through.”
“We have.” I nodded.
“And you’ve found someone?” Hart asked.
I smiled. “Yes.”
“Who?” Beck questioned.
“Me.”
Everyone turned toward the archway of my dining room, where our first cousin, Dutton, now stood. His arms were folded across his broad chest, his shoulder leaning into the wall, his muscular frame taking up most of the entrance.
“I’m going to be the invisible mole.”
“What in the hell are you doing here, my man?” Hart got up and walked over to Dutton, clasping hands and man-hugging him.
Walker and Beck followed, embracing Dutton the same way.
Before we had brought in Dutton, Eden and I had wanted to make sure hiring him was even a possibility. Just because the idea worked in our heads didn’t mean the execution would translate. After all, this path was extremely unconventional.
We didn’t want to discuss our idea over the phone, so we asked Dutton to come to LA. He didn’t have a home base. While he made his billions, he preferred living off-grid. Due to the nature of his business, he was more comfortable that way.
Once Dutton took a seat at the table, accepting a drink from my housekeeper, his large hands crossed in front of him. “Eden and Colson reached out, so I’ve been here since yesterday, chatting about the details with them,” he told my other three siblings. “They’ve filled me in on everything.”
“Nice.” Beck smiled. “I’m assuming you can take down the Gordons?”
Dutton pushed back several pieces of his dirty-blond hair, his blue eyes so light that they looked like ice. “If there’s a weakness in their system, I’ll be able to identify it.”
Walker set his drink down. “And if there isn’t?”
Dutton nodded, the seriousness in his expression taking over his features. “I can encourage one.”
Because he was a fucking badass and nothing was too advanced for him.
Dutton’s father and our father were brothers, and he had grown up in Laguna Beach.
In high school, Dutton was either surfing the waves or dreaming about them.
But he gave up the Pacific surge for Boston, where he attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergrad and Harvard for his master’s degree.
While studying at both schools, he had built quite a reputation for himself, and although all the top cybersecurity companies in the country recruited him, he had gone out on his own.
He kept his company small, only a handful of employees located around the world, and he was very specific about the clients he took on.
Dutton didn’t specialize in security prevention.
Known as The Fixer, he came in after the threat or attack.
Once Dutton got involved, there would never be a vulnerable link within that company’s chain.
That was the kind of person we needed for this project.
“Couldn’t the Gordons prove the weakness was man-made?” Walker asked.
“Let me put this in the simplest terms.” Dutton gazed at each of our faces.
“In every organization, there’s a ball of yarn, and where there’s yarn, there’s a cat digging at the ball until it finds the end.
As you can imagine, the moment the end is found, the cat can unravel the ball.
Or, if the organization is smart, they stop that before it happens, and they chase away the cat.
That doesn’t change the fact that the yarn is still there, and it will always be there. ”
Walker laughed. “Let me get this straight. You’re saying the issue already lives within the Gordons. You’re just going to locate it, and you’re going to make it explode.”
Dutton nodded.
“You’re the cat,” Hart offered.
Dutton smiled. “No. I’m a fucking lion.”
Me
Troy and Jenner, we’ve decided as a family to move forward and sue the shit out of the Gordons.
Troy
You’re making the right decision. We’ll get the paperwork started.
Beck
Do everything in your fucking power to make them pay.
Hart
And I mean everything.
Walker
If you destroy their reputation in the process, we wouldn’t be upset by that.
Eden
We appreciate you guys. We know you’ll do everything you can.
Jenner
You have our word.