Page 46 of Tough Luck

Driving back to my small, quiet apartment in the dark, a profound sense of discouragement settled deep into my bones. The perfect weekend on the mountain felt like a lifetime ago, and as I stared at the empty walls of my living room, I couldn’t shake the terrifying realization that, in winning the company, Rick might have already decided to let me go.

Chapter 19

Rick

For the next month, I lived in a hell of my own making.

The board of directors and the family’s legal team had sat me down in a windowless conference room and laid it out for me in cold, clinical terms. As the new CEO of Mylonas Marketing, my every move was under a microscope. Dating a direct subordinate—especially one I had just handed a major promotion, a significant raise, and the crown jewel of our active accounts—was a massive liability. They warned me that the remaining shareholders could frame it as nepotism, or worse, use it to challenge my father’s will and fracture the transition of power.

So I did what I thought I had to do to protect her career and my family’s legacy. I backed off.

I kept my distance in the office, treating Sofia with a rigid, professional detachment that tore me apart every single day. I saw the confusion and the quiet hurt in her eyes whenever our paths crossed, but I forced myself to look away. I threw myself into the brutal logistics of running the firm, trying to figure out a way to restructure the corporate charter without burning my own life’s work in California to the ground. I’d talked to Joe briefly about him buying me out, and we were looking over legal possibilities. Nothing was set in stone yet, but Joe was not only open to the idea, he was actively pursuing the possibility of taking over.

By the time the early autumn air sharpened into a biting, bitter cold, the space between me and Sofia felt like an ocean.

According to the local weather reports, we were scheduled to get our first major snowfall of the season, weeks earlier than usual. A massive mountain system was rolling fast over the foothills, threatening to dump several inches of heavy, wet snow on Golden before nightfall.

Right around two in the afternoon, the sky turned a bruised slate gray, and the first thick flakes began to swirl aggressively outside my office window. I knew Sofia had a mid-day progress meeting scheduled down at Clear Creek Brewery to finalize the user interface layout for the app. I watched from the hallway as she gathered her tablet and her coat. She didn’t look back as she headed for the elevators.

By four o’clock, the storm had escalated into a full-blown whiteout.

The wind was howling against the glass, and the roads down below the building were covered in a treacherous, icy slush.

Sofia had grown up in Colorado. She knew how to handle the roads in conditions like this. But that didn’t stop me from worrying. Seeing how bad it was outside, I decided to send everyone home an hour early.

My chest felt tight, a relentless, gnawing worry clawing at my gut. Sofia should have been back by now. The brewery was only a ten-minute drive under normal conditions.

I pulled out my personal phone and dialed her number. It rang until it went to voicemail.

“Come on, Sofia. Pick up,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck as I called again, then sent an urgent text message.

I waited ten minutes and tried again. Still nothing. The fourth consecutive call went straight to her greeting. I didn’t care about the corporate look any longer. I didn’t care about what the board members were telling me.

I grabbed my heavy winter coat, bypassed Elizabeth’s empty desk, and took the elevator down to the garage.

The drive through Golden was slow. The Audi’s all-wheel drive fought for traction against the accumulating snow as I navigated the blinding, white sheets of the storm. My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs the entire way to the brewery.

When I finally pulled into the parking lot of Clear Creek Brewery, my breath hitched.

There, sitting under a thick, undisturbed blanket of fresh snow near the edge of the property, sat her car.

I threw the Audi into park, killed the engine, and sprinted through the freezing wind toward the heavy timber entrance of the brewery. The warmth of the taproom hit me, but the relaxed atmosphere inside did nothing to calm the panic surging through my veins.

I strode straight to the main desk, where Marcus was chatting with a woman holding a cup of coffee.

“Where’s Sofia?” I demanded, my voice cutting through the ambient noise of the room, sharp and breathless.

Marcus looked up, startled by the intensity in my eyes. “Rick? Hey. Sofia left quite a while ago.”

“What do you mean she left?” I asked, my hands gripping the edge of the bar. “Her car is still sitting out in the parking lot.”

He checked his watch, his brow furrowing with sudden concern. “She left shortly after our meeting ended. That was almost an hour ago.”

Sheer panic overcame me.

Marcus grabbed his phone and punched the screen, his voice clipping with authority. “Hey, George, can you pull up the cameras for the north parking lot? We’re heading your way.” He motioned for me to follow him.

Marcus led the way down the back hallway toward the brewery’s administrative offices. My boots slammed against the concrete floor as we rushed. My heart was pounding so hard that I could hear the pulse roaring in my ears.