Chapter 2 - The Ringing Phone
The kitchen of Harbor House was chaos wrapped in stainless steel.
Orders clattered from the ticket rail. The head chef was screaming at a line cook over a medium-rare filet. When Grace walked through the swinging doors with soda dripping from her apron, the noise seemed to dim for a fraction of a second.
“Grace, what happened?” whispered Mia, a fellow waitress who had been wiping down a service station.
“A customer had an accident with a beverage,” Grace said evenly, untying her wet apron and tossing it into the laundry bin.
“Sloane Mercer?” Mia hissed, her eyes wide. “I saw her table. She streams everything. Half the college crowd in the city follows her. If she posted a video of you—”
“She did,” Grace said, unpinning her name tag.
“Grace, you need to go out there and apologize before she ruins you online! Her father owns half the commercial real estate downtown! They can blacklist you from every restaurant from here to Annapolis!”
Grace reached into the pocket of her uniform trousers, pulled out her phone, and tapped the screen.
“I don’t think she’ll have time to worry about my reviews tomorrow,” Grace murmured.
She dialed a private ten-digit number memorized long ago.
It rang once. Twice.
On the third ring, a deep, calm voice answered.
“Grace?”
Hearing him felt like stepping out of a storm into a warm room. The frantic shouting of the kitchen faded away.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Is everything alright? You aren't scheduled to finish your shift for another two hours.”
Grace looked down at her stained blouse. The sweet smell of artificial cola was making her stomach turn.
“I had an incident at work,” she said.
On the other end of the line, the temperature in Dominic Rainer’s voice dropped so sharply that it seemed to freeze the air around him. Wherever he was—likely his private study overlooking the harbor or a conference room surrounded by executives—the background noise instantly vanished.
“Define incident,” Dominic said.
“A customer spilled a soda on me. Ice, dark soda, ruined my blouse. Then she recorded it on a live stream, laughed at me, and encouraged her followers to mock my weight and appearance.”
A pause followed. It was a terrifying, heavy silence that made anyone who knew Dominic tremble.
“Her name?” he asked quietly.
“Sloane Mercer. She’s with a group of friends, including an Evan Caldwell.”
Across the line, Dominic didn't raise his voice. He didn't curse. He simply turned his head slightly. Grace could hear the muffled click of a speakerphone being activated or a subordinate being signaled.
“Marcus,” Dominic said, addressing someone in his office.
“Boss?” a man’s voice answered instantly.
“Pull the corporate dossiers on Mercer Holdings and Caldwell Industries. I want every commercial lease, every municipal contract, every outstanding loan, and every supply chain partnership they operate in the tri-state area on my desk in twenty minutes.”
“Yes, sir,” Marcus replied without a single second of hesitation.
“Dominic,” Grace interrupted, her voice firm. “Remember our agreement. No destroying quarters of the city.”
“I am merely conducting a routine audit of our business partners, darling,” Dominic replied smoothly, though the steel beneath his words was unmistakable. “Where are you now?”
“In the back office. I’m clocking out.”
“Don’t drive home. I’m sending a car. Wait by the service entrance.”
“Dominic, I can drive my SUV—”
“Grace.”
May you like
She sighed, a small smile touching her lips. “Alright. See you soon.”
She hung up the phone, grabbed her jacket, and walked out the back door into the cool Baltimore night, leaving Harbor House behind forever.
