"What they're not counting on," Cole said, his voice carrying calm authority, "is that you've got us."
The plan was straightforward. Malakai would keep digging for legal angles, while Cole unearthed the illegal variety. The Lucky Break team and their partners would flood social media with positive reviews, drowning out the vague health concerns. We'd document everything.
Malakai and Chase would install security cameras at my commercial kitchen. Late that same night, after I'd gone home, they handled it. By Monday morning, I had four cameras covering every angle of my workspace.
"Warehouse surplus," Malakai said when I tried to pay him. "Consider it an investment in good food."
Monday and Tuesday were wall-to-wall prep work and watching the social media campaign unfold. Amelia from the Donovan Warehouse posted about her friend's wedding shower, catered by me. Tyler's wife raved about my pasta. Even Sofia got in on it, posting a photo of us working together with a caption about "teaching the next generation of Italian cooking."
The Facebook post with the health concerns got buried under an avalanche of genuine praise.
By Wednesday morning, I was feeling almost optimistic. I knew Elevate's moves now. I knew their timeline, their tactics, the pressure points they liked to hit. Knowing the playbook didn't make me immune to it, but it meant I could see what was coming.
What I hadn't seen coming was Maryanne Law.
She'd been my first client.
Not my first inquiry, not my first almost. My actual first. She'd called three weeks after I opened Coogan's Catering, when I had one van, two staff members I was paying out of my savings, and enough self-doubt to fill the small kitchen space I'd leased.
She'd wanted finger food for an open home on Pelican Street. Nothing fancy, she'd said. Something that made the place feel welcoming. I'd shown up with three platters and enough nervous energy to power the entire block, and afterward she'd pressed my card into the hands of every one of her clients.
That was four years ago. Since then, Law's Real Estate had grown from open home platters to full catering for their clifftop auction events, the type where the properties sold for more than I'd earn in a lifetime and the champagne budget alone covered my staff for a week.
When Maryanne called on Tuesday afternoon, I assumed it was about the Henderson property. A six-bedroom clifftop home with an infinity pool, scheduled for auction in three weeks. We'd been in preliminary discussions about the menu for a month.
"Can you come in tomorrow morning?" she asked. "Ten o'clock if you can manage it."
"Of course. Is everything okay with the Henderson booking?"
She didn't respond immediately, and that spoke volumes. "Let's talk tomorrow."
I drove to Law's Real Estate the next morning, telling myself it was nothing. A menu change, maybe. A date shift. Maryanne was thorough, and she liked to do things face to face. It didn't have to mean anything.
I turned into the parking lot and saw the Tesla.
Black, long, parked in the visitor bay closest to the entrance. A dark silver logo on the door. The stylized E. Elevate.
I sat in my van, both hands on the wheel, my mind elsewhere.
Then I got out, because that's what you did. You got out, and you walked in, and you handled it.
Maryanne's office was at the back of the building, past the open plan desks where her agents worked. She stood when she saw me coming, and the look on her face told me everything before she said a word.
Not guilty exactly. Pained. She'd been sitting with the news long enough to know there was no way back.
"Nadia." She came around her desk and hugged me, which she'd never done before. That told me more than the Tesla had.
"Tell me," I said.
She did. Carefully, thoroughly, as though she'd been rehearsing it. Law's Real Estate had expanded significantly over the past two years. Three new offices, a partnership with a national property group, events across four counties. The scale of what they needed had outgrown what a single local caterer could provide.
Elevate Events had approached them six weeks ago. The contract they'd offered covered all Law's Real Estate events across their entire network. The pricing was structured in a way that Law's couldn't match on a piecemeal basis with individual vendors.
"The new partners decided," Maryanne said. "Not me. I want you to know that."
"I know." I knew. I could see it in every line of her face.
"I fought for you. I told them what you'd built, what you'd done for us from the beginning. But the numbers—" She stopped. "I'm sorry. I am genuinely sorry."
