Chapter 2 - The Audit of the DamnedWithin twenty minutes, the front doors of Sterling’s Bistro were locked from the inside.
The wealthy patrons dining on truffle risotto and sea bass were quietly escorted out through the kitchens by Marcus and his men, their bills miraculously paid for by Vincent Kane, though none of them dared stick around to finish their wine. The atmosphere shifted from a high-end eatery to a crime scene in a matter of seconds.
Mom—Clara Carter—came bursting out of the employee break room in the back, breathless, her face streaked with tears and ink stains from scrubbing counters.
"Rory!" she screamed, her voice cracking with pure terror as she spotted me standing beside Vincent Kane in the center of the dining room. She sprinted across the floor, dropping to her knees and sweeping me into her arms so hard my ribs ached against her chest. "Rory, what were you thinking? Are you insane? Why would you—oh God, Mr. Kane, please, I'm so sorry, she's just a child, she didn't mean to—"
Mom was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, her arms wrapping around me like a shield. She had worked at Sterling’s for two years, and she knew the rumors about Vincent Kane. Everyone in Chicago knew them: the loans, the silent partnerships, the ruthless enforcement of contracts. To see her baby girl standing next to the most dangerous man in the city was her absolute worst nightmare realized.
Vincent didn't move away. He watched her with an unreadable expression, his hands clasped behind his back.
"Clara Carter," Vincent read aloud from the name tag pinned crookedly to her faded apron. "Eleven years of food service experience. Former assistant manager at the Palmer House before they restructured. You accepted a sous-chef and floor manager position here six months ago at a fraction of your market value because your husband walked out and left you with mounting medical debt."
Mom froze, her breath catching in her throat. She slowly pulled back from me, staring up at Vincent with wide, terrified eyes. "How... how do you know that?"
"I know everything that happens in my city, Clara," Vincent said calmly. He gestured toward the bar, where David Sterling was currently being held down in a leather booth by two of Marcus’s massive enforcers, his face pressed against the mahogany. "Stand up."
Mom stood, keeping me tightly glued to her side, her hand clamped over my shoulder.
"Marcus," Vincent commanded without looking back. "Bring out the books. The real ones."
Marcus emerged from the back office carrying a heavy, leather-bound ledger and a portable laptop. He dropped them onto the table with a dull thud. "Found them in the floor safe behind the vintage wine rack, Boss. Sterling’s been skimming employee withholdings, dodging payroll taxes, and hiding offshore transfers in the Cayman Islands for three years."
David let out a muffled shriek from the booth. "You can't do that! That's illegal search—that's private property!"
Vincent slowly walked over to the booth. He leaned down, placing both palms on the table inches from David’s sweating nose.
"Private property?" Vincent whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "David, every brick, every glass, and every square foot of land this restaurant sits on was bought with a bridge loan I financed for your father ten years ago. When he died, you inherited the lease. Which means you are operating on my grace. And your grace just expired."
Vincent pulled a gold-plated fountain pen from his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and dropped it onto the table directly in front of David.
"You have two choices," Vincent said, his eyes glittering in the dim restaurant light. "Option one: I hand these financial records to the IRS and the FBI simultaneously, and you spend the next twenty years federal-pennrizona coloring outside the lines. Option two: You sign over 100% equity of Sterling’s Bistro to Clara Carter right now, effective immediately, as back-pay compensation and structural damages."
David stared at the pen as if it were a venomous snake. "Give it... give it to a dishwasher? Give my family's legacy to her?"
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"Your legacy," Vincent said, standing back up and straightening his tie, "is bankruptcy and prison. Choose."
David looked across the room at Mom, then down at the pen, his hands shaking uncontrollably. With a choked sob, he grabbed the gold pen and began frantically scrawling his signature across the transfer deed Marcus slid under his nose.
