NADIA
I'd been meticulous in my cleaning before they arrived. Everything in its place, surfaces sanitized, equipment stored correctly. It was how I always worked. My years in the military applied to commercial cooking just as naturally.
But now, looking at my workspace with fresh eyes, something was off.
I walked through the kitchen slowly. Checked every surface, every corner, every piece of equipment. Nothing obvious. Nothing that would...
There.
Behind the large prep counter, where the health inspector always checked. Where food safety violations would be most damaging.
A wadded-up napkin, stained with what looked like raw chicken juice. Shoved behind the industrial refrigerator, barely visible, was a piece of raw chicken.
Adrenaline shot through me, scorching everything in its path.
The cameras.
I pulled up the security footage on my tablet and rewound to when they'd arrived. I watched the visit through once, then a second time at half speed, waiting to catch the moment.
Samantha's hand was near the counter. Justin drifting toward the refrigerator. Anything. There was no moment. Their hands never left their sides.
Ten minutes in a working kitchen, and neither of them had touched so much as a door frame. Nobody does that naturally. You do it when you've rehearsed it. They hadn't come here to threaten me, or not only that. They'd visited to be recorded as having touched nothing. So I kept rewinding.
I found it at 7:42 that morning, during the produce delivery, while my crew was loading the van and the back door stood propped the way it stands propped every Wednesday.
A figure in generic kitchen whites came in behind the second dolly. No logo, head down, cap brim killing the camera angle. They went to the prep counter, then to the refrigerator. No searching, no hesitating. They knew my layout cold.
Forty-some seconds, entry to exit, and the delivery driver never turned around. I ran it five times. Lean frame, gloved hands, face never visible. It could have been anyone, which was the point.
Then the rest of the design came into focus, piece by piece, the way a briefing does when somebody finally pins the map flat. The trash scattered by my door before they'd ever knocked. A complaint already sitting in the system somewhere — I'd have bet one of my vans on it.
A ghost to do the touching. Two clean executives to stand in frame doing nothing. An inspector due on schedule to look in exactly two places. Nothing could be connected to anything. Whoever had built this had built it so that every piece could be held up to the light, one at a time, and come away spotless.
I photographed everything without touching it. The napkin. The chicken. The trash that had been deliberately spread outside my back door. Then I carefully bagged everything, sealed it, and labeled it. Only after double-checking that the timestamps were visible on the footage did I send a copy to Malakai, as he'd asked.
Evidence.
My hands were shaking with rage when I called Daemon.
He answered on the first ring. "Hey, I was just?—"
"They came here. Samantha Morrison and some guy named Justin. And while I was busy keeping them away from my prep tables, somebody else had been here earlier."
My voice was surprisingly steady. "There was raw chicken under the front of the fridge and a dirty napkin behind my counter, placed for an inspector to find. I've got a ghost on camera, Daemon. Forty seconds of somebody in whites who knows my kitchen better than my own staff does."
Silence. Then, low and dangerous: "I'm on my way."
"Daemon, I'm fine. I found it before?—"
"I'm already in the truck."
He hung up.
I stood in my kitchen, staring at the bagged evidence, and felt something settle inside me. They'd crossed a line. Not just aggressive business tactics or social media rumors. Actual sabotage. Actual criminal activity.
And I had proof.
By the time Daemon arrived, I'd secured the evidence in my office safe and found some calm. The shock had burned off, leaving only icy determination.
