Chapter 4 - The House of CardsThe following morning, the headquarters of Silver Pine Foods was in chaos. Beatrice Kessler had arrived at 8:00 AM, not as the frail woman from the café, but as the iron-willed matriarch who had built an empire from a single farm.
Julian Kessler, a man who wore his greed like an expensive cologne, sat in the executive suite, already counting the millions he planned to siphon during the next quarter. He didn't hear Beatrice enter until she was standing at his desk.
“Aunt Beatrice?” he stammered, pulling his feet off the desk. “I thought you were in Europe!”
“I was,” she said, her voice like cracking ice. “But I found a café that served better food than our corporate kitchen, and a man who understands logistics better than my own blood.”
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She tossed a file onto his desk. It contained every record of his embezzlement, his forging of Owen’s signatures, and the blackmail threats he’d leveled against the café managers.
“You’re finished, Julian,” she said. “And you’re going to prison.”
