Chapter 1

I took over a bankrupt Western restaurant, turned it into a Chinese place, and cleared 2.8 million a year.

To celebrate, I handed every employee in the shop a $50,000 bonus.

I never expected a few of the cooks to band together and hand me a bag of feces in return.

The head chef even slammed his hand on the table and shouted at me.

"Fifty grand a head? What are we, beggars you're brushing off?"

"Every restaurant on this whole street has gone under. Yours is the only one packed to the doors every single day, and that's all down to our cooking. Without the few of us, this place is a pile of shit."

"Since you don't know what's good for you, we quit!"

He walked out with the cooks under him, took out a loan together, and opened a restaurant right across the street. Then he threw his threat in my face.

"Denise Simmons, we've got the skills. We're not worried about losing business or losing money. That sad little place of yours, without us, can just sit there and wait to go bankrupt."

I smiled.

Turns out they still hadn't figured it out. The steady stream of customers coming through my doors every day were all employees from my father's company.

1

The day I handed out year-end bonuses, every employee in the restaurant stood there grinning, the heavy stack of fifty grand in their hands.

A few of the servers cheered, long live the boss.

The cashier kept marveling that in fifteen years in the restaurant business she'd never once had a boss this generous.

Aunt Erica Lambert, who washed dishes, went so far as to call her husband, eyes red.

"Our boss just gave me a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus, more than half a year's pay. Now we've got our son's medical bills covered."

Watching the smiles light up every face, something warm settled in my chest too.

That was when the head chef, Clark Finch, walked up to me with four other cooks behind him.

"This place clears 2.8 million a year, and you give us fifty grand a head? What are we, beggars you're brushing off?"

"Since you're so 'generous,' let me give you a big gift too."

With that, he dropped a black bag at my feet.

In an instant, the noisy restaurant went quiet.

I looked down at the thing inside the black bag.

Yellow. It stank.

Feces.

The smile left my face, and I asked him, "Chef Finch, what's the meaning of this?"

Clark frowned, his face full of resentment.

"You don't know the meaning of it? A dozen-odd restaurants on this street have all shut down, and ours is the only Southern-style place packed to the doors."

"Why?"

"All because the few of us cook that well!"

"Without us, your place is exactly like the gift I just gave you. A pile of shit!"

Clark looked down at me from on high, that gaze like a savior passing judgment on an ungrateful mortal.

But to my eyes, it just looked ridiculous.

I watched Clark the way you'd watch a clown, and said nothing.

Seeing me stay silent, Clark took it as guilt, and his momentum swelled.

"The few of us cooks are in that back kitchen from dawn till late, working ourselves to death, and that's the only reason this place cleared two hundred and eighty grand. And in the end you split just fifty thousand each to us? How can your heart be so black?"

The cooks behind him nodded along, seething.

"Exactly. You can only make that kind of money because of us. Two hundred and eighty grand, and you give us fifty thousand a head? That's just cheap."

"Same location, same restaurant business, so why can everyone else not stay open while you strike it rich? All because we cook that well, isn't it?"

Seeing them go further and further, Aunt Erica couldn't stand it and stepped up.

"Chefs, the boss already pays us double the industry average, and giving everyone an extra fifty thousand this time is already a lot. Running a shop is risky, after all, and we're just ordinary hired hands here..."

Before she could finish, Clark shot her a vicious glare.

"What's a dishwasher doing butting in?"

"You think a place like this is held up by a dishwasher like you?"

Aunt Erica flushed, choked into silence, and lowered her head.

I frowned and looked at Clark. "So how much do you think would be fair?"

Clark held up five fingers.

"Fifty percent of the profits, at the very least. That's 1.4 million."

Some nerve, asking for that.

A handful of cooks, and they dared demand fifty percent of a restaurant's profits. Did they really think the place belonged to them?

I gave a cold laugh. "And if I say no?"

Clark snorted, arrogant. "Then we quit."

The four cooks behind him stepped forward in unison, striking a pose of united front.

"That's right! You don't split 1.4 million among the four of us, we all resign!"

"And it's not just this year's 1.4 million. Every year from now on, we want fifty percent of the net profit."

"Otherwise, your restaurant can sit there and wait to go under."

Listening to their threats, laid out with no cover at all, I smiled.

They thought this place drew all those customers because of their cooking.

What they didn't know was that those customers had come for me all along.

Wherever I opened my shop, that's where the customers went.

As for what they ate, they didn't care in the slightest.