Chapter 5

"Clara, Richard wanted me to let you know that we have a meeting at 3:00 PM today to discuss the supply chain. He expects you to bring your backup proposal."

The three-day deadline had arrived. Chloe was the one who called me.

"Since when do you deliver messages for the CEO?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm just trying to help," she said, her voice dripping with fake sweet concern.

"Do you actually have a proposal? Because if you don't, Frank sent over a new contract with excellent terms. Richard thinks we should just sign it and move on."

"Who handed Richard that contract?"

"I did. It’s nothing personal, Clara. We just need seafood."

At 3:00 PM, I walked into Richard’s office.

Chloe was already there, sitting with a printed spreadsheet of Frank’s new rates. As a store manager, she had no business being in a procurement meeting, yet there she was.

Richard looked at me. "Where is your proposal?"

"I'm still negotiating," I said.

"It’s been three days and you have nothing?"

"It's peak season. No major supplier is willing to take on eight high-volume restaurants on short notice."

Richard glanced at Chloe.

Chloe immediately spoke up, her tone perfectly measured. "Richard, if I may, I've been working with Frank on a new proposal. His terms are incredibly generous.

He’s offering us market rate, extending our payment window to forty-five days, and giving us three hundred pounds of free shrimp every month. It’s a fantastic deal."

She slid the spreadsheet across the desk.

"Frank is reliable, and he has the inventory. We shouldn't let a personal grudge hurt our business. As managers, we have to look at the bigger picture."

I stared at the spreadsheet.

Frank’s new prices were indeed lower. But as I looked closer, I noticed the details. The size of the shrimp had been downgraded from jumbo to medium. The quality grade of the sea bass had been lowered from Grade A to Grade B+.

He was lowering the price, but quietly swapping out the quality.

"Richard," I said, pointing at the sheet. "This isn't the same quality as our original contract. The shrimp are smaller, and the fish is lower grade. He's cutting corners to make the price look good."

Chloe frowned. "Clara, are you sure you're not misreading this? It clearly says premium—"

"He can write whatever he wants on the invoice, but what actually arrives at the kitchen will be cheap stock. Frank has done this to other clients before."

Richard tapped his fingers on his desk.

"Here's the deal, Clara. You have until the end of the day to find a new supplier. If you can't, we go back to Frank tomorrow."

He looked at me coldly. "And going forward, you will coordinate all purchasing decisions with Chloe."

"Coordinate."

A tiny, triumphant smile tugged at the corner of Chloe's lips.

She wasn't just trying to undermine me. She wanted my job.

Frank was squeezing me from the outside, and she was stabbing me from the inside. They were working together perfectly.

When the meeting ended, I walked out of the corporate building and stood in the sweltering July heat of the parking lot.

I pulled out my phone and scrolled to the very bottom of my contacts.

There was a number I had saved two years ago but had never called. The contact name read: "Arthur Sterling."

Last winter, a deep-sea trawler captain had come ashore with a massive catch but couldn't find a buyer.

Several local warehouses turned him away. I had helped him connect with a few of my contacts and cleared his entire shipment.

Later, I found out he wasn't just some random boat captain. He was the CEO of Sterling Ocean Harvest—the largest deep-sea fishing fleet in the region, operating over thirty industrial vessels.

He had handed me his card back then and said, "Clara, if you ever need a favor, call me."

I had never called him because the volume his company handled was far too large for our eight small bistros.

But right now, I didn't need his entire inventory.

I just needed to show Frank that the road he thought he had blocked actually led to an ocean.

I pressed call. It rang three times before a booming voice answered.

"Clara! It's been a long time. How are you?"

"Hi, Arthur. I'm doing well. Actually, I need a huge favor. Do you have any spare capacity this season to supply a restaurant group?"

"How much volume are we talking about?"

"About eight hundred to a thousand pounds of mixed seafood daily, spread across eight locations. I can send you the exact manifest."

"A thousand pounds?" Arthur laughed. "Clara, one of my boats brings in fifty times that amount on a slow day. But you're the girl who saved my catch last winter, right?"

"That's me."

The line went quiet for a moment.

"Send me the manifest," Arthur said warmly. "I'll have my trucks deliver the fresh catch directly to your restaurants tomorrow morning. Don't worry about the price. I'll take care of you."