Chapter 4 - “YOU CAN’T FIRE ME”Damian stared at the clause for several seconds.
Then he laughed.
It was louder than necessary.
“You think this is real?”
Chloe didn’t answer.
He looked at Nathan.
“You filled her head with this?”
Nathan remained calm.
“I’m counsel for Mrs. Prescott.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“You are now.”
Damian’s face tightened.
The private dining room felt suddenly much smaller.
Outside the glass doors, two servers pretended to polish tables while openly watching us.
Damian turned back to Chloe.
“Sweetheart, you don’t understand how any of this works.”
I watched her flinch at the word sweetheart.
But she didn’t lower her eyes.
“Then explain the $286,000 you paid your own consulting company.”
“That’s legitimate.”
“Where are the consulting agreements?”
“My attorney has them.”
Nathan said, “We requested them yesterday.”
Damian ignored him.
Chloe moved to Eric’s invoices.
“What renovations did your brother perform?”
Eric shifted.
“Plenty.”
“Name one.”
“Don’t interrogate him,” Damian snapped.
“Then you name one.”
Silence.
She pushed the invoices toward Eric.
“You billed my company $173,000.”
“Our company,” Damian said.
Chloe finally looked at him.
“No.”
The single word landed hard.
“Prescott Hospitality Group is fifty-one percent mine.”
Damian leaned over the table.
“And without me, it’s worth nothing.”
“Then why were you selling its assets to Sienna for seventy-five thousand dollars?”
Sienna spoke for the first time.
“That wasn’t final.”
Chloe turned to her.
“Why is your company the buyer?”
“I’m an investor.”
“With what money?”
Sienna folded her arms.
“That’s none of your business.”
Rachel slid a bank report toward Nathan.
He barely glanced at it.
“It may become our business.”
Sienna’s confidence slipped.
Damian slammed one palm on the table.
“This meeting is over.”
“No,” Chloe said.
He froze.
I don’t think she had interrupted him in years.
“You don’t decide that anymore.”
His eyes became frighteningly cold.
“You really want to humiliate me in front of my employees?”
Chloe stared at him.
I wondered if she was remembering the kitchen floor.
The dirty plates.
His smile.
“Yes,” she said.
That answer surprised everyone.
Including me.
Then she clarified.
“I want the truth recorded in front of witnesses.”
Nathan placed a small digital recorder on the table.
“Meeting minutes are also being prepared.”
Damian looked at his attorney, a silver-haired man named Vernon Hale.
Vernon had been quiet for most of the meeting.
Now he leaned toward Damian and whispered something.
Damian’s jaw clenched.
Chloe read from the resolution Nathan had prepared.
“As majority member of Prescott Hospitality Group, based upon evidence currently available and subject to further investigation, I move to remove Damian Prescott as managing director for cause.”
Damian laughed again.
“You move?”
Nathan explained, “The operating agreement permits majority action.”
“I own forty-nine percent.”
“Yes.”
“That makes me indispensable.”
“No,” Nathan said. “It makes you a minority member.”
Damian’s face reddened.
Chloe signed the resolution.
It took three seconds.
Eight months of humiliation ended with one signature.
Nathan slid copies across the table.
“Effective immediately, Mr. Prescott is removed from managerial authority pending the company investigation.”
“You can’t do this.”
Chloe looked down at her own handwriting.
Then back at him.
“I just did.”
Sienna moved closer to Damian.
“What happens to operations?”
Rachel replied, “An interim management company has already been retained.”
Damian whipped toward Chloe.
“You planned this?”
Nathan answered.
“We planned continuity.”
“This restaurant dies without me.”
“Then you should have treated it better.”
That came from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
A man in chef whites stood there.
Miguel Santos.
Damian’s sous-chef.
I recognized him from the day before.
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“Get back to work.”
Miguel didn’t move.
“Who are you talking to?” he asked.
“I’m still executive chef.”
Nathan checked the paperwork.
“Your culinary employment is a separate question. Your authority over staff as managing director is suspended.”
Damian looked as if someone had slapped him.
Miguel stepped into the room.
“If employees are allowed to speak, there are things Mrs. Prescott needs to know.”
Damian stood abruptly.
“You say one word and you’re fired.”
Chloe turned to Miguel.
“No, he isn’t.”
Miguel looked at her.
Damian’s threat hung uselessly in the air.
Then Miguel said, “He’s been making staff clock out before finishing shifts.”
Sienna’s head snapped around.
“Shut up.”
Miguel continued.
“Sometimes two hours early. Sometimes three.”
Elena immediately opened a notebook.
“How many employees?”
“Most kitchen staff.”
“For how long?”
“Months.”
Another server appeared behind him.
“Me too.”
Then another.
“My tips were short.”
A dishwasher spoke from the hallway.
“He charged us for broken plates.”
Damian stared at the gathering employees.
“You ungrateful little—”
Vernon grabbed his arm.
“Damian.”
That stopped him.
Barely.
Chloe looked around the room.
“What else?”
And the dam broke.
Employees told stories.
Unpaid overtime.
Illegal deductions.
Threats.
Managers changing clock-in records.
Missing tips.
Damian demanding “loyalty shifts” without pay.
A young hostess began crying when she explained she had worked three weeks after being told payroll was “delayed,” only to discover management records showed she had been paid.
Rachel wrote furiously.
Elena’s expression grew darker with every sentence.
Then Miguel said something that changed the room.
“Chloe wasn’t the only one he punished with food.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Miguel glanced at my daughter.
“If staff made mistakes, Damian made them eat ruined dishes or leftovers. He called it the lesson table.”
My daughter closed her eyes.
So it hadn’t been spontaneous.
It was a system.
A ritual of humiliation.
“How long?” I asked.
“Almost a year.”
Chloe whispered, “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Miguel’s face filled with shame.
“Because he told us you designed the policy.”
She went pale.
“What?”
“He said you were the owner. Said it came from you.”
I saw Chloe’s heart break in real time.
Damian had not only mistreated her.
He had used her name to mistreat other people.
“No,” she said quickly. “No. I never—”
“We know now,” Miguel said.
She wiped her face.
“I’m sorry.”
Damian laughed bitterly.
“Oh, please. Now everyone’s a victim?”
Chloe looked at him.
That was the moment something inside her changed permanently.
She stood.
“This restaurant closes tonight.”
Damian’s head jerked up.
“What?”
“Not permanently.”
She looked toward the employees.
“But nobody works another shift until payroll records are reviewed and everyone is paid correctly.”
“You’ll lose tens of thousands.”
“Then we lose it.”
“You’ll destroy the reputation.”
“Then we rebuild it.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“No,” Chloe said. “But I know what I’m not doing.”
She pointed toward the kitchen.
“I’m not making people suffer so customers can eat truffle pasta under pretty lights.”
Nobody spoke.
Then one employee clapped.
Just once.
Miguel.
Another joined him.
Then three more.
Chloe looked embarrassed.
Damian looked murderous.
Vernon whispered urgently in his ear.
Finally, Damian grabbed his coat.
As he passed Chloe, he leaned close.
“This is going to cost you everything.”
I heard him.
So did Nathan.
Chloe held his gaze.
“You’ve been saying that for months.”
He walked toward the exit.
At the door, he turned.
“And when the bank calls the loan?”
Chloe’s confidence flickered.
Damian noticed.
His smile returned.
“You didn’t find everything.”
Then he left.
The room went silent again.
Rachel immediately opened her laptop.
“What does that mean?”
Nathan looked at Chloe.
“Any other loans you remember signing?”
“No.”
“Any recent refinancing?”
“No.”
Rachel searched the accounting system.
Nothing.
Then Chloe suddenly whispered, “Wait.”
She opened her email.
“There was a DocuSign request.”
“When?”
“Maybe six weeks ago. Damian said it was for insurance.”
She searched.
Found it.
Opened the document.
Nathan stood behind her.
His expression changed.
It wasn’t insurance.
It was a commercial credit facility.
Maximum borrowing capacity:
$1.2 million.
Personal guarantor:
Chloe Prescott.
Outstanding balance shown on the attached statement:
$890,000.
My daughter stopped breathing.
“I never saw this.”
Nathan examined the signature.
Same suspicious version.
Same broken C.
Rachel whispered, “Where did the money go?”
That question took another six hours to answer.
The loan had been drawn in three installments.
$300,000.
$290,000.
$300,000.
Some went into Prescott Hospitality Group.
But most left within days.
To DGP Culinary.
Fairmont Renovations.
And another company we had never seen before.
Blue Heron Capital LLC.
Rachel opened the state registration.
Owner:
Not Damian.
Not Eric.
Not Sienna.
A woman named Victoria Prescott.
Chloe stared.
“That’s Damian’s mother.”
I remembered Victoria.
Elegant.
Controlled.
Always dripping in pearls.
The woman who had spent our children’s wedding telling anyone who would listen that the Prescotts had “built wealth through discipline.”
Rachel traced the payments.
$417,000.
Straight from the loan Chloe supposedly guaranteed.
Transferred to Victoria’s company.
Nathan sat back.
“This is bigger than Damian.”
Chloe’s phone rang.
Damian again.
She ignored it.
A voicemail appeared.
This one was only nine seconds.
She played it.
“You wanted a war, Chloe? Fine. But before you celebrate, ask your mother how much her house is worth.”
My blood went cold.
Chloe looked at me.
“Why would he say that?”
I didn’t know.
Then I remembered something.
Three years earlier, after my husband died, I had helped Chloe refinance her condo.
Damian had been there.
He had helped organize paperwork.
And at one point, he had asked for copies of my financial statements because I was temporarily listed as a backup guarantor during the application process.
Nathan saw my face.
“Margaret?”
I swallowed.
“He had access to my information.”
Nobody moved.
Rachel slowly closed the laptop.
May you like
Nathan’s voice became very quiet.
“Then tomorrow morning, we check your credit.”
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