Chapter 6 - What Brett Was Really Trying to Steal

The first thing I heard was Micah shouting.

“Mom!”

I ran.

Not gracefully.

Not carefully.

I ran like every terrible possibility had learned my son’s name.

He stood near the front office with Celia.

Safe.

Angry.

Pointing toward the kitchen corridor.

“A man came through there.”

“Did he touch you?”

“No.”

“Did you see his face?”

“He had a cap.”

Sierra was already calling security.

Celia locked the front door.

I pressed both hands against Micah’s shoulders.

“You’re okay?”

“Yes.”

“Say it again.”

“I’m okay.”

Only then did I breathe.

The ledger was gone.

But the thief had made a mistake.

He took the book.

He did not take the pages Celia had photographed.

Every one of them.

Including the partnership documents.

By midnight, we were in Celia’s office on LaSalle Street.

Micah slept on a leather sofa with my coat over him.

Sierra sat on the opposite side of the room, speaking to an investigator.

And my father was on his way.

I did not know whether I wanted to slap him or hug him.

Grief has poor manners.

It often wants both.

Celia spread copies across the conference table.

“This is what Brett was searching for.”

The partnership addendum was dated sixteen years earlier.

One month before our wedding.

It stated that any future hospitality company using Opal Finch recipes, trademarks, or family capital had to preserve Audrey Finch’s controlling interest unless I personally sold it in the presence of independent counsel.

I stared at the page.

“Brett knew about this?”

“His father did.”

Arthur Holloway.

Charming.

Loud.

Always calling me sweetheart.

He had invested after the first restaurant became profitable.

Then spent years telling people he rescued us.

“What did he do?”

Celia’s mouth tightened.

“He tried to buy Warren’s share in a small property company that owned the original restaurant building.”

“My father had a share?”

“Ten percent. Opal gave it to him before she died.”

I looked toward the window.

Chicago glowed thirty floors below.

Celia continued.

“Arthur wanted the building and the brand. Warren refused. Then tax records appeared showing Warren owed money he did not owe.”

“Forged?”

“We believe so.”

“And Dad ran.”

“He was scared.”

I laughed bitterly.

“So he abandoned me.”

Celia did not defend him.

Good.

At one in the morning, Warren Finch walked into the conference room.

He had aged in all the ways I had imagined.

Gray hair.

Bent shoulders.

Same hazel eyes.

He stopped when he saw me.

I stood.

Neither of us moved.

Then he noticed Micah asleep on the sofa.

His face collapsed.

“My grandson?”

I nodded.

He cried before I did.

That saved me from having to decide whether I hated him.

For now.

Warren told us the rest.

Arthur Holloway threatened to destroy him financially and implicate him in theft from the first restaurant.

Warren left Chicago.

Opal helped him.

Years later, after Arthur died, Warren planned to come home.

Then Brett found him.

Not with threats.

With money.

“He said you were happy,” Warren whispered. “He said if I came back, you’d lose the restaurants in a lawsuit. He showed me papers.”

“Fake papers?”

He nodded.

“I was a coward.”

“Yes.”

He accepted that.

No excuses.

That mattered.

Then he reached into his coat and placed a small brass key on the table.

“I kept one thing.”

Celia stared at it.

“The deposit box?”

Warren nodded.

My pulse jumped.

“What deposit box?”

“Opal put the original addendum somewhere Arthur could never reach it.”

“Where?”

“A bank in Evanston.”

I looked at the clock.

1:14 a.m.

Closed.

Of course.

Warren pushed the key toward me.

“Brett knows about it now.”

“How?”

“I told him.”

I stared at him.

He lowered his eyes.

“Last week.”

Rage came quietly.

“You told him.”

“He said he would let me see you.”

I stepped back.

All these men.

Trading pieces of my life for access to other pieces.

Celia’s phone vibrated.

She looked at the screen.

Her expression changed.

“What?”

She turned it toward me.

A company-wide email.

Sent by Brett.

SUBJECT: EMERGENCY LEADERSHIP TRANSITION

The first sentence read:

Effective immediately, Audrey Holloway has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation into financial misconduct.

I kept reading.

Then found the line that mattered.

The board would meet at eight in the morning.

To vote on removing me permanently.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

Brett had six hours.

So did I.