I am about to shove it into the lost and found, which is really just a milk crate labeled MISC in Sharpie, when I feel something heavy in the inside pocket.
I freeze.
Every instinct in my body lights up at once. The kind you get right before you touch something hot.
I slide my hand into the pocket and pull out Leo’s tablet. Slim. Leather-bound. Minimalist in that aggressively expensive way that pretends it doesn’t matter how much it costs. The screen is on. No password.
I stare at it for a long second.
“Rich people,” I mutter to the empty bakery. “Just raw-dogging the concept of consequences.”
I pick it up to turn it off because I am a good person and because I absolutely do not want to know what lives inside a billionaire’s brain. But the screen is still bright. White. Text-heavy.
It’s open to his email inbox.
My stomach drops so hard I feel it in my knees.
At the very top, flagged in red and marked HIGH IMPORTANCE, is an email he’s clearly just opened.
FROM:Rex Chen
TO:Leo Ashford
SUBJECT:SIGNED: Sunrise & Soul LOI - Contingent
The world goes quiet.
Not bakery-quiet. Not end-of-day quiet where you can still hear the hum of the fridges and the city breathing outside.
The kind of quiet that comes right before something explodes.
My blood runs cold. Then hot. Then cold again, like my body can’t decide which panic response it wants.
I tap the email before I can talk myself out of it.
I scan.
And then I read.
Pleased to have this locked in…
Moving to Phase 2…
Franchising agreements…
Exclusivity…
Licensing…
My knees wobble. I grab the edge of the stainless counter to steady myself, fingers digging in as the words rearrange themselves into meaning.
Franchising.
Licensing.
Exclusivity.
Rex.
