Page 56 of Orc'd & Loaded
Not anger. Past anger. Through anger and out the other side into the bright, clean, arctic territory where everything becomes extremely simple and extremely clear.
I raise my uninjured hand. Push my finger directly into the knot of Gerard's silk tie. Push. Not hard. Just enough to walk him backward one step. Two. Three. His Italian loafers squeak on the wet tile.
"You own forty percent of a commercial lease and a liquor license."
"Solene."
"You own equity in an LLC. You do not own my recipes. You do not own my menu. You do not own the way I source my ingredients or who I cook beside or what I do with my hands at ten o'clock on a Thursday night."
"I am trying to protect your career."
"You are standing in my prep space."
Gerard's jaw works. The purple in his face deepens toward eggplant. His phone buzzes in his hand. He ignores it.
"If you walk away from my funding, you lose the walk-in. You lose the convection ovens. You lose the imported stone countertops. You lose the custom ventilation system I paid thirty-eight thousand dollars to install after your first one failed inspection. You will be cooking on a hot plate in a storage closet."
Every word lands. I feel them hit. The walk-in. The ovens. The countertops I picked out myself in a warehouse in Brooklyn, running my palms across forty different slabs of marble before finding the exact blue-gray Carrara that matched the color I'd been dreaming about since culinary school.
He's right. Without his money, I'm gutted.
My bandaged hand throbs. The salve pulses warm. I curl my free fingers into a fist at my side.
"Get out."
Gerard blinks.
"Excuse me?"
"You are fired. Your equity is dissolved. I will have my lawyer draft the buyout terms by Monday morning, and you will accept whatever number she puts in front of you because if you don't, I will call Reginald Vance myself and tell him exactly how you pressured me to use non-organic high-fructose sweeteners in my dessert course to cut costs last November."
The purple drains from his face. White now. Eggshell white. A man recalculating.
"You wouldn't."
"Gerard. I am a woman who just grabbed a four-hundred-degree cast iron handle with her bare hand to protect someone she cares about. What exactly do you think I won't do?"
Silence.
His phone buzzes again. This time he looks at it. Looks at me. Looks past my shoulder at Boris, who has not moved, hasnot spoken, has stood behind me like a mountain that simply declines to participate in weather.
Gerard snaps his briefcase shut. The click is very loud.
"You'll regret this."
"Noted. The door is behind you."
He leaves. The swing door flaps twice. His loafers click across the dining room floor, then the front entrance slams hard, rattling the windows.
I stand completely still. My hurt hand hangs at my side. My right hand, the one I pointed at the door, trembles. Not from fear. From the chemical aftermath of burning every financial safety net I own in under ninety seconds.
Boris growls from above and behind me, low and careful.
"Solene."
"Don't talk. I need a minute."
He gives me two.
