Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ivy
"Hi, is the butter bread ready?" A customer's question yanked me back to reality.
"Yes, yes, coming right up." I hurried to hand over the fresh-baked loaf to the regular. "Careful, it's hot."
Watching the customer leave, my gaze drifted back to the locked rear door.
Almost ten o'clock. Still no Damian.
He was already gone when I woke up this morning—probably dealing with work. But he'd promised to come with me to the prenatal appointment today. Not even a phone call.
Was he backing out? I shook my head, pushing the thought away. Damian wouldn't break his word. Not about this.
My hands moved on autopilot, stacking clean coffee mugs on the rack, fingertips numbed by the cold water. I pulled out my phone. The message I'd sent this morning—still no reply.
Stop it, Ivy. Don't overthink this. I took a deep breath and shoved the phone into my apron pocket, silencing it. Then I threw myself into the work—kneading dough, weighing butter, trying to drown out the noise in my head with physical exhaustion.
Maybe I was too distracted. As I lifted the pot of scalding raspberry jam off the stove, my hand jerked.
"Ah—"
Hot crimson liquid splashed across the back of my right hand. The pain was instant and vicious. I gasped, yanking my hand back. Angry red welts bloomed across my skin, but seeing the pot teetering on the edge, I just wiped my hand roughly on my apron and let the pain radiate through my fingers.
Focus. I forced myself to concentrate, shaping the remaining dough into balls and sliding them into the fridge.
When the last batch of croissants came out of the oven, I finally straightened my aching back.
But the moment I unlocked my phone, it exploded.
Penny had carpet-bombed me with over twenty voice messages, each maxed out in length. Lucas—fifteen missed calls.
My stomach dropped. Before I could open their messages, a breaking news alert slammed across my screen.
"Brooklyn's Trendy Bakery EXPOSED: Rotten Ingredients & Fraudulent Owner!"
"EXCLUSIVE: Popular Brooklyn Bakery Uses Spoiled Materials & Expired Cream!"
"Official Health Inspection FAILS—Consumers at Serious Risk!"
Front and center was a photo of a supposed "failed inspection" chemical analysis report. Below it, a video auto-played—one of my part-time hires from last week, staring earnestly into the camera, "testifying" that he'd personally watched me mix moldy blueberries into the batter.
"Yeah, the boss made us wash off the rotten fruit and use it in the tarts. She said customers wouldn't taste the difference once it was baked..."
I stared at that bright red inspection report. The room spun. That wasn't my report. It was a fake. Every blueberry, every tub of butter—I'd personally selected them from organic farms. I'd never used spoiled ingredients. Not once.
I braced myself against the cold counter, fighting the wave of nausea.
Suddenly, sharp bursts of camera light exploded outside the storefront. I jerked my head up. Through the glass, paparazzi with telephoto lenses and influencers livestreaming on their phones swarmed like sharks who'd smelled blood.
"That's the place from the news!"
"As the owner, do you have any comment on the evidence?"
"I knew it! She's a fraud. Look at her—total con artist preying on regular people!"
My face drained of color as I rushed forward and yanked down the security shutter with a deafening clang.
The noise cut off instantly. I sagged against the cold metal door and slid to the floor, arms wrapped protectively around my cramping abdomen, fingers trembling violently.
Calm down, Ivy. The truth will come out. There has to be a way.
"Ivy! Ivy, are you in there?"
The back door burst open. Lucas ran in, drenched in sweat. I'd never seen him this unhinged.
"Don't look at that stuff! Ivy, whatever you do, don't look!" He reached for my phone, then stopped when he saw my screen. He took a deep breath, standing frozen, voice shaking with rage. "It's all fabricated. I posted a statement from the shop's official account, but..."
"But no one believes it. Right?"
"Right. And—" Lucas bit down hard, fury blazing in his eyes, voice dropping. "The investors who signed long-term deals with us for gift box partnerships? They all just called. They're pulling out. Worried about their brand image."
My stomach lurched. I clutched the wall and dry-heaved.
Lucas immediately poured me water. "It's okay, Ivy. Probably a competitor. We'll gather evidence. We didn't do it, so we just need to show the full truth."
"If only it were that easy!" The door flew open again. Penny rushed in on her heels.
Her face was flushed with anger, but she gently rubbed my back first, letting me lean into her.
"Someone's deliberately targeting us! That lowlife who quit yesterday was asking me for money, and now today he's the 'whistleblower'?
Whoever's behind this planned every detail.
" She bit her lip and slammed her phone on the table.
"The second this hit, I tried reaching him.
His phone's disconnected. His apartment—cleared out overnight.
Damn it, they sealed every exit. This was premeditated. "
Panic clawed through my body. Everything I'd poured myself into—destroyed? No. Pull yourself together, Ivy. Seeing Penny's red-rimmed eyes and Lucas's frantic expression, I forced myself to breathe. My chaotic mind snapped into strange, cold clarity.
"I'm fine, Penny. Lucas." I pulled my hand back from Lucas. "If the report's fake, we prove it. We throw the real evidence in their faces."
I walked to the sink and splashed ice-cold water on my face, forcing my racing heart to slow.
"Panicking won't help. The reports are fake.
I have originals of the quarterly health permits.
Every flour bag, every nut shipment—we have traceable supplier receipts.
Lucas, pull every purchase order, customs form, and kitchen surveillance footage from this year.
We'll photograph everything and post it for clarification. And get a PR crisis team in here now."
"On it!" Lucas nodded hard and dove for his laptop.
"As for the whistleblower—if we can't find him, we dig into what he did while he was here." I opened the surveillance system. "Maybe we'll find something interesting."
Penny leaned in. "Good. I'll check that. You find the invoices?"
I strode to the desk and yanked open every drawer, pulling out six weeks of organic farm receipts, cold-chain shipping slips, and last week's passing health inspection certificates.
Lucas and I divided the work, photographing every invoice and ingredient with anti-counterfeit codes, preparing to upload them to the official audit site.
Watching the flood of vicious comments on the screen, my nails dug crescents into my palms. This level of professional, ruthless, scorched-earth character assassination—no ordinary person could pull this off.
In New York, someone with this kind of power who hated me this much...
Who could it be?
The next hours blurred into suffocating busyness. Noise swelled outside the window in waves, but we ignored it all.
My finger hovered over Damian's number countless times.
I sent him a brief SOS text. I even called his private line—something I rarely did. Nothing but a cold automated voice.
No reply. Like he'd evaporated from Brooklyn entirely.
But I couldn't spare the mental energy to wonder why he'd stood me up and then vanished. Right now, I had to save my shop.
I collapsed onto a stool, drained. The constant tension in my abdomen sent dull, pulling aches through my body.
Lucas and Penny went to contact suppliers. I wiped cold sweat from my forehead and reached for my phone to check the PR team's progress when—
A notification shrieked.
Not a social media alert. A private email sent directly to my bakery's business account. IP hidden.
I opened it, confused.
The first line hit me in bold, blood-red letters—vicious, mocking words designed to humiliate.
"Ivy Sinclair, you really thought you won? How's it feel to have everyone turn on you? Go to hell!"
My fingers froze.
I scrolled down. Four high-resolution photos attached.
Hotel background. The timestamp in the lower left corner, crisp and clear from a digital camera: Today. 9:34 AM.
First photo: Cecilia in a revealing red silk robe, eyes closed, melting into Damian's arms.
Second photo: close-up. Damian's head tilted down, lips nearly brushing Cecilia's pale neck. His right hand resting intimately on her slender arm.
Thunder split my skull.
Every sound—the protesters outside, the machines humming—fell away into hollow ringing silence.