Chapter 1

Our summer sale cracked a hundred million in revenue, so I handed the whole company three months of year-end bonuses.

The next morning, my exclusive fabric supplier, Mr. Lambert, tagged me straight out in the business owners' group chat.

"Mr. Dickerson, I hear the boss cleared a hundred million? Awful generous with those bonuses."

"If Mr. Rivera's eating meat, I figure I should get a little broth too. Tripling your purchase price next quarter isn't too much to ask, is it?"

"Don't gripe about the cost. Those five truckloads I just sent your factory? I already had them turned around on the road."

"When you can't cover the penalty fee and you're going bankrupt, bring your whole factory over to kneel and beg me, and we'll talk it through nice and slow."

The competitors in the chat who envied me piled on with reaction stickers, waiting to watch my cash flow snap.

The workshop was forced to shut down. My executives were frantic, eyes rimmed red.

Then Mr. Lambert's assistant kicked my office door open.

He slammed the tripled-price contract in my face and jabbed a finger at me.

"Sign it, now! Boss Lambert says if you don't sign today, tomorrow he shuts this dump of a factory down!"

I didn't offer him a cigarette and a smile the way I used to. I had security throw the assistant out, and locked the office door behind him.

I opened my computer and pulled up the files on Tyler Textiles Group, the acquisition I'd finished just last week.

Tyler Textiles was the one and only upstream raw-material plant that held Mr. Lambert's whole company by the throat.

I picked up the desk phone and dialed Tyler Textiles' new plant manager.

"Cut off every bit of his raw material. Then send someone to paste the supply-stop notice and the payment demand right on the doors of his workshop."

1

The second I hung up, there was a crash outside.

Rupert Whitney had found a fire axe and hacked a big hole through the door panel.

His face shoved in through the gap.

"Silas Rivera! You'd rather take a beating than take the drink offered nice, huh?"

"Boss Lambert says you sign today or I finish you off!"

Face cold, I pressed the internal alarm under my desk and turned to the security guards rushing in.

"Take whatever he's holding off him and drag him out!"

Three guards moved in, pinned him flat to the floor, and hauled him away.

Before I could catch my breath, my workshop supervisor, Egbert Finch, came scrambling up the stairs half-crawling, one shoe already gone.

"Mr. Dickerson, we've got big trouble! Laurence Lambert brought over thirty street thugs himself and blocked our whole front gate!"

Egbert was white as a sheet, pointing downstairs, shaking all over.

"They've got iron bars, and they forced two twelve-wheelers in and backed them right into our loading bay!"

I pushed past Egbert and strode down.

The loading bay was chaos, thick with smoke.

Thirty-odd punks were shoving our own dock workers aside.

They were throwing five thousand finished summer garments onto the trucks, the batch we'd worked through the night to make, the order that had to ship to our overseas client first thing in the morning.

Laurence Lambert stood there in a loud floral shirt, one foot planted on a freshly sealed woven sack, a cigarette hanging from his lips.

"Laurence Lambert, tell your men to stop!" I barked, striding straight at him.

He cut me a sideways look and spat a thick wad on the ground.

"Silas Rivera, you can't cover the tripled price, so I'm hauling this batch off as your penalty fee."

"You and me, we're settling this account today, properly."

"The contract says it in black and white. You're the one in breach. You've got no right to touch my goods!"

I lunged forward to grab the woven sack out from under his foot.

Laurence let out a cold laugh, and with all his people at his back, drove a kick into my chest.

I couldn't get out of the way and went down.

A few of the punks closed in at once, tapping their iron bars against the ground.

All several hundred workers in the factory had stopped what they were doing, watching in terror.

Laurence stood over me, pointing down, his eyes full of contempt.

"Silas Rivera, you're a nobody who only survived because I threw you a bone back in the day, and now you think you're fit to hand out year-end bonuses?"

"These goods are mine today. Anybody tries to stop me, I break their legs!"

I kept my eyes locked hard on him.

Laurence suddenly turned around and took a megaphone from one of his men.

He cleared his throat.

"Everybody hold up a second and listen while I drop some big dirt on you!"

The few older workers who'd been about to step in and help me up stopped dead, the color draining from their faces.