Chapter 24
TWENTY-FOUR
NADIA
The lawyer's name was Patricia Holt, and she had a calm, measured delivery that probably cost extra. Oh, who was I kidding? It would cost extra.
"Both complaints are formal filings," she said, laying the documents across my prep table like she was laying place settings.
"The health department one is the more serious of the two on paper, but given your inspection record, it's also the more defensible.
The licensing board complaint is more involved.
It will require a written response within thirty days. "
"And your fee for helping me draft that response?"
She quoted a number. I kept my face neutral, the way I'd learned to do in the Army when a superior told you something you didn't want to hear.
"I see," I said.
"I understand it's significant. But leaving the complaints unanswered isn't an option. No response is treated as an admission."
After she left, I sat in my empty industrial kitchen for a while. The prep tables gleamed under the fluorescent lights. Everything was clean, organized, and exactly where it should be. Years of work stacked neatly on stainless steel shelving.
Kelly had stood in my apartment two nights ago with the complaints on her tablet and the rest of it underneath.
She'd been careful and kind about it, which told me she'd known which part was going to hurt.
After she left, I'd spent approximately four minutes feeling sorry for myself before pulling up my accounting software.
The numbers were not good.
Losing Pacific Tech had hurt. The clients who'd drifted toward Elevate's pricing had hurt more. The emergency vendor calls during the Peterson dinner had cost more than I'd billed back. And now legal fees on top of a month where I was already running thin.
My parents' property tax bill was due in six weeks.
The phone had already delivered the morning's other news. Coastal Mutual's events manager, apologetic and awkward, asking whether everything was all right, because somebody had emailed her about us.
No signature, a webmail address that bounced when she replied, complaining about Coogan's stability and the regulatory attention we were apparently under. An hour later, the Albrights' assistant — near enough word for word.
Concerned.
Both messages had used the word concerned. I'd added them to the growing file of things I could prove had happened and couldn't prove had come from anywhere.
I was staring at the spreadsheet when my phone rang. A number I didn't recognize. I almost let it go to voicemail.
"Ms. Becker? This is Samantha Morrison from Elevate Events."
I set the phone on the table and looked at it before picking it back up. "Ms. Morrison."
"I hope I'm not catching you at a bad time." Her voice had that manufactured warmth people learn in sales training. "I wanted to reach out personally. I understand you've received some notifications from the health department and licensing board this week. I'm sure that's been stressful."
"Is there something I can help you with?"
"Actually, I was hoping we could meet. We've revised our offer, and I think you'll find the terms considerably more attractive than what we presented previously.
" I was ready to tell them to get lost when she continued.
"Given the current circumstances, it seems like a good time to revisit the conversation. "
Given the current circumstances. There it was.
"I'll hear what you have to say," I said.
She knocked at my kitchen an hour later, dressed the way Elevate people always seemed to be dressed. As if they were en route to somewhere more important.
The offer she laid out was better. Substantially better. A higher acquisition price, a longer transition period, a management contract with genuine autonomy over local operations.
I looked at the figures. Thought about Patricia Holt's fee. Thought about my parents' tax bill.
"There's one more thing I wanted to mention," Samantha said, smoothing a non-existent wrinkle from her jacket.
"Markets like this one run on reputation.
We've noticed you’ve been weathering some headwinds lately.
Complaints. Talk. Clients get nervous around that sort of thing. " She gave a small shrug. "Concerned."
The word went through me like a current. I kept my face exactly where I'd put it. "What sort of thing, exactly?"
"Oh, I wouldn't know the specifics." Regret, beautifully worn, a woman discussing bad weather she'd had no hand in.
"We only hear what everyone hears. I mention it because it's the one part of your situation we can genuinely help with.
The right partnership structure would insulate you from that type of exposure entirely. "
The right partnership structure. I sat across my own prep table from a woman who hadn't said Daemon's name, hadn't mentioned a record, hadn't made one single statement I could repeat to Patricia Holt without sounding paranoid.
She didn't need to.
There was a file with his three years in it, two of my clients had heard from nobody that morning, and Samantha Morrison was offering to sell me shelter from weather her own people were making. I could see the entire design. I could prove none of it.
"I'll need time to consider the revised terms," I said.
"Of course." She slid a card across the table. "I'll be in town until the end of the week."
After she left, I sat still for a long time.
This was what it had been building toward. The complaints, the rumors, the client poaching. All of it designed to get me here, sitting alone in my kitchen doing math I didn't want to do.
The bitter part was that Daemon's record wasn't even something I'd chosen to be associated with. I knew who he was. I knew what he'd done and why and what it had cost him. None of that changed my thoughts about him as a person.
But I wasn't the one deciding about corporate vendor lists.
I was still sitting there when I heard the knock at the back door.
I knew it was him before I opened it. Something in the unmistakable rhythm, or maybe the timing, which was the type the universe seemed to enjoy.
Daemon stood in the doorway with his hands in his jacket pockets, looking like he hadn't been sleeping well. Which made two of us.
"Heard about the complaints," he said. "Through Malakai. I know you probably don't want to hear from me, but I needed to know you were okay."
"I'm fine."
"Nadia—"
"I said I'm fine." I stepped back to let him in because turning him away felt like a conversation I didn't have the energy for. He came in and looked around the kitchen with that habit he had, cataloging things, checking for problems he could fix.
There were no problems here that he could fix.
"Elevate was here," I said.
He went still. "What did they want?"
"They've revised their offer." I moved back to the prep table, put the counter between us. "It's considerably better than the first one."
"You're not seriously considering it."
"I am seriously considering it." I kept my voice even. "I have legal fees I didn't budget for. I have clients I've lost and more I might lose. I have a family that depends on this business not failing."
I looked at him. "And they're holding your record, Daemon.
Nobody said your name today. Nobody had to.
Two of my clients got emails this morning from somebody concerned about my stability, and Samantha Morrison sat at this table and offered to insulate me from exposure she somehow couldn't specify.
There's a file with your three years in it and not one fingerprint anywhere near it. "
Something moved across his face, and it wasn't surprise.
"But you already knew that," I said. "You've known since Friday morning.
Malakai showed you the file, and you sent it down the line through Kelly.
" There was no missing his flinch. "For three weeks I told myself your silence was something that happened to you.
Then Kelly stood in my apartment, and I found out you'd built a supply line so the bad news wouldn't have to pass through you.
I've run supply lines, Daemon. I know design when I see it. "
"That's not what it was."
"Then what was it?"
He didn't answer. Of course, he didn't. The answers were on the list of things he couldn't say.
"They're bluffing," he said instead. "And I can prove it. I've spent the last two weeks on the phone with people in three towns who—"
"Stop." It came out with more force than I'd intended.
I brought my voice back down and said it again.
"Stop. I believe you. That's the worst part, Daemon.
I believe you've been out there in the dark, working some angle for me.
The same way you sent Kelly to my door, the same way you do everything.
But I am not taking one more delivery. Not from Malakai, not from Kelly, and not from you, at my back door, at nine o'clock at night.
If what you have is real, it will still be real in daylight, through somebody I can stand to receive it from. "
He stood there holding whatever it was, undelivered, and I watched him understand me.
"So that's it? They threaten you with my past and you fold?"
"Don't." The evenness slipped. I pulled it back.
"Don't stand in my kitchen and make this about courage.
I've been fighting this for months, helped organize a collective, and got legal advice.
I documented everything." My voice was steady.
I was proud of that. "I am not folding. I am making a business decision based on what's actually in front of me. "
"Nadia, please—"
"You made your choice," I said. "You decided this was a mistake.
You decided you didn't know how to be what I needed.
" I straightened the folder on the prep table, a useless gesture that kept my hands occupied.
"So now I'm making mine. I'm going to call Elevate and tell them I want to negotiate the terms of the contract.
And then I'm going to take care of my family the way I always have. "
The silence in the kitchen was complete.
"You can't let them win," he said. His voice had dropped to something quieter. Rougher.
"They already did." I looked at him one last time. At the man I'd been so certain about, standing in my kitchen looking like I'd knocked the ground out from under him. "I think you should go, Daemon."
He didn't move. He looked at me with an expression I wasn't willing to spend time on anymore.
Then he nodded once and walked to the door.
Stopped with his hand on the frame.
"I'm sorry," he said. "For all of it. I'm sorry."
"I know," I said. "It changes nothing."
He closed the door behind him.
For a long time I stood frozen in the middle of my kitchen, but my thoughts weren't on Daemon. They were on the business I'd built from nothing.
The company I'd bled for.
I looked around my little kingdom. The security monitor caught my eye. Daemon was still out there, as if he'd changed his mind about something. As if he was waiting to have the last word.
Facing him wasn't something I could do right now, so I slammed my hand down on the light switches and left myself more in the dark than I already was. Let him think I'd used the front door. His truck started in the parking lot a few minutes later, then faded down the street.
I picked up my phone and found Samantha Morrison's number.
My finger hovered over the call button for a long time.
And then I saw the number below that. Angie. I hated calling in favors, but what option did I have? If nothing else, she'd let me pay the legal fees in installments. It was something Patricia Holt hadn't offered.
The only thing I didn't know was whether it was something Angie could help with. Hadn't her background been in corporate law?