Chapter 73: The Floodgates Open
The tires of Amber’s car crunched over the gravel driveway of the Myers Park estate, a sound that usually signified arrival, sanctuary. Tonight, it felt like the grinding of gears in a machine she was no longer sure she controlled. The black folder sat inert on the passenger seat, but its presence was animate, a malevolent ghost riding shotgun.She let herself into the quiet house.No music played. The only sound was the distant, rhythmic tick of the grandfathered clock in the study. The air smelled of lemon wood polish and the faint, clean scent of Kash’s cologne lingering from the morning. She climbed the stairs, each step an effort, her body heavy with a fatigue that had nothing to do with physical weight.
In the master bedroom, the last of the day’s sun poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows, setting the honey-colored bedsheets ablaze and glinting off the foil lettering of her vintage nail art magazines on the shelves. The city skyline beyond was a postcard of peaceful ambition, twinkling lights beginning to pierce the deep blue dusk.
Amber didn’t turn on the lights. She placed the folder on the bed, then simply stood, staring at it as if it might sprout teeth.The controlled conductor from the salon was gone. Here, in the private glow, she was just a woman staring at a pile of paper that threatened to unmake her.She sank onto the edge of the mattress, the velvet bedspread soft beneath her palms. She opened the folder, not to read—the words were already burned into her mind—but to confirm the reality of it.The thick, formal paper.The raised seal of the court. Her name.The door opened softly behind her.She didn’t turn. Footsteps, familiar and steady, crossed the room. The bed dipped as Kash sat beside her, his weight a comfort even before he touched her. He was still in his site clothes—dark jeans, a grey henley with a fine dusting of concrete powder on the shoulder. He smelled of fresh air, hard work, and dry earth.For a long moment, he said nothing. He looked at the papers, then at her profile, silhouetted against the window. He reached over and gently pried one of her hands from where it gripped her own thigh.Her fingers were ice-cold. He enveloped them in both of his, his skin warm and rough.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice low, stripped of all its usual boardroom cadence.It was just a request, simple and deep.
“I’m fine,” she said automatically, the words brittle as old glass.
“Amber.” He squeezed her hand. “How are you really holding up?”
It was the really that did it. That one word, offered with such quiet, undemanding knowing, was a chisel tap against the dam.A sharp, dry sob escaped her throat, startling her.Then another. She tried to clamp a hand over her mouth, to force it back down, but it was too late.The fracture spread, fast and unstoppable.Her composure shattered. A visceral, guttural cry tore from her chest, followed by a flood of heaving sobs. She collapsed into him, her face burying against the concrete-dusted cotton of his shirt. She cried for the salons, for the weight of the legal language, for the viciousness of being personally targeted. She cried for the exhaustion of performing strength, for the fear that had become a constant low hum in her bones, for the terrifying, wonderful pressure of the two lives swimming inside her.Kash said nothing. He gathered her in, one arm wrapping firmly around her back, the other hand cradling her head against his shoulder.He held her as she unraveled, his chin resting on her crown. His breath was steady against her hair.He didn’t offer platitudes or try to fix it. He just anchored her.
She cried until her throat was raw, until her eyes were swollen slits, until the shaking subsided into occasional, ragged hiccups. The room grew darker, the city lights brightening, casting their silhouettes in soft relief against the glass.
When her tears finally slowed, spent, he shifted. Reaching to the nightstand, he pulled a tissue from the box and gently wiped her cheeks, her nose, his touch infinitely tender. He tossed the tissue away and then just looked at her, his dark eyes searching hers in the dim light.
“I’m scared,” she whispered, the admission hollowing her out further.“I’m so scared, Kash. They want to take my shops.My shops. The things I built with my own hands before I ever knew you.” A fresh hot tear tracked through the dried salt on her skin. “And this house… the nursery… it all feels like a beautiful dream they’re trying to wake us up from.I look at those papers and I see… nothing. An empty field.”
He listened, his thumb tracing circles on her back. “It’s not a dream,” he said, his voice quiet but absolute.“It’s the most real thing we’ve ever done. This?” He gestured vaguely at the room, the view, the bed.“This is just the container. They can’t touch what’s inside it.They can’t touch us. They can’t touch how I feel about you. They can’t touch the life in this room right now.”
He placed a hand, broad and warm, on the curve of her belly. As if on cue, a firm kick answered his palm.Amber gasped, a wet, broken sound that was almost a laugh.
“See?” Kash said, a small smile touching his lips for the first time. “Even they’re telling you to chill out.”
She leaned her forehead against his, breathing him in. The panic had receded, leaving behind a raw, aching calm.“What do we do?” she asked.
He took a deep breath, his chest expanding against hers.“We have a choice. We fight, which is long, ugly, expensive.It means this stress continues, maybe gets worse. It means depositions, digging, them trying to find any crack in our foundation to pour poison into.” He paused, choosing his next words with care.“Or I settle.”
Amber went very still.
“It wouldn’t be an admission of guilt,” he continued quickly.“It’s a business calculation. I pay them to go away.It clears the field. It gets this cloud out from over your head, over the salons, over the babies.” His eyes held hers, unwavering. “The money is just money.We can make it back. I can’t…” His voice caught, surprising them both.He cleared his throat.“I can’t make back your peace. I can’t let this steal your joy. Not now.”
The question hung in the air between them, immense and loaded.Do you want me to settle?
Amber looked past him, out at the glittering skyline. She thought of the Luxe Nail Bar, empty and quiet now, the chairs awaiting tomorrow’s clients. She thought of the event flyers, the community sign-ups, Meisha’s fierce loyalty. She thought of the Southern Living scout, Eleanor Vance, and the opportunity to tell a story of their own making. She thought of the mobile, its feathers perpetually turning in an unseen current.Settling felt like surrender. It felt like letting them win by throwing money at a lie. But fighting felt like offering up the next year of their lives—her first year as a mother, their first year as a family—to a bottomless pit of stress and scrutiny.
“If you settle,” she said slowly, her voice hoarse, “they’ll say it’s because they were right.That you had something to hide. That you bought your way out of trouble.”
“I know,” he said.
“And if we fight, and we win, it’s a cleaner victory.But it’s a war of attrition. They have less to lose than we do.”
“I know that, too.”
She turned back to him, studying the lines of worry around his eyes, the set of his jaw.This was eating him, too. He’d just been better at hiding it, channeling it into the physicality of his work.The concrete pour. Building something solid while their abstract world threatened to crumble.
“I need to think,” she said, finally.“I can’t answer that right now. My head is… scrambled eggs.”
He nodded, accepting. “Alright.”
“But I need you to promise me something,” she said, taking his hand again, lacing her fingers with his.“Whatever we decide, we decide together. Not you protecting me, not me being stubborn. A real, united front.”
“A united front,” he agreed, raising their joined hands and kissing her knuckles. “Always.”
From downstairs, the timpani of the front door knocker echoed through the house—two sharp, solid raps. They both tensed.It was too late for a casual visitor.
Kash stood, his body shifting into a guarded posture.“Stay here.”
“No,” Amber said, pushing herself up. “Whoever it is, they’re here for both of us now.”
Together, they descended the stairs.Kash opened the heavy oak door.
A woman stood on their porch, backlit by the porch light.It wasn’t Eleanor Vance. It was an older Black woman, maybe in her late sixties, her hair a stunning silver cap of natural curls. She wore a simple but elegant sheath dress and carried a small, structured leather handbag. Her eyes, sharp and intelligent, moved from Kash to Amber, lingering on Amber’s rounded belly with an unreadable expression.“Mr. and Mrs. King,” she said, her voice clear and melodious, carrying a hint of a tone that suggested she was accustomed to being listened to.“My name is Geneva Atwood. I’m the majority stakeholder and CEO of Cypress Geotechnical.”
The air on the porch seemed to thin. Amber felt Kash’s hand tighten on the small of her back.
“It’s rather late for a business call,” Kash said, his voice carefully neutral.
“I’m aware,” Geneva Atwood replied, her gaze steady.“This isn’t a business call. I’d like to come in, if I may. I believe we have something to discuss that your lawyers would only complicate.” Her eyes drifted to Amber again, and for a fleeting second, Amber saw something there that wasn’t hostility.It looked, impossibly, like regret. “I’ve just seen the plans for your community event at the Luxe Nail Bar. ‘King Hands, Community Heart.’ Lovely sentiment.”
She stood there, waiting, a solitary figure holding a potential key or a deeper lock. The night insects chirped in the magnolia tree beside the porch.
Kash glanced at Amber, a silent question in his eyes.Amber felt the twins stir, a slow, rolling turn. She met Geneva Atwood’s gaze and gave a single, slight nod.
“Please,” Kash said, stepping back to open the door wider. “Come in.”
The foyer felt suddenly smaller, its high ceiling pressing down under the weight of this unexpected visitor. Geneva Atwood’s heels clicked a precise rhythm on the marble as she stepped inside, her assessing gaze sweeping over the art, the staircase, landing finally on the couple. “You have a beautiful home,” she said, and it didn’t sound like flattery.It sounded like an inventory.
“Can I take your coat?” Kash asked, the host’s automatic politeness wrestling with deep suspicion.
“I won’t be staying that long.” She declined but followed Amber’s gesture into the living room, settling into an armchair with a straight-backed elegance that made the space feel like her boardroom. Amber lowered herself onto the sofa, Kash standing behind her, a sentinel with his hand on her shoulder. The legal folder sat conspicuously on the coffee table between them, a silent third party to the conversation.
Geneva’s eyes fell on it. “You received the supplemental complaint.” It wasn’t a question.“Delivered personally,” Amber said, finding her voice. It was steadier than she felt.“I apologize for the manner of service. The litigious machinery, once engaged, operates with a certain… blunt force.” Geneva folded her hands in her lap. “I am not here in my capacity as your adversary. I am here as a woman who has built something, and who understands what it is to see it threatened from within.”
Kash’s fingers tightened slightly on Amber’s shoulder.“Within?”
A faint, tired smile touched Geneva’s lips. “My son, Desmond, is our COO.He is… aggressive.Ambitious. He saw the soil report discrepancy as a tactical opportunity, not a professional error.The lawsuit, the press leaks, adding Mrs. King personally—these are his strategies. He believes pressure forces favorable settlements.” She paused, letting the confession hang in the scented air. “I believe it creates unnecessary chaos.”
Amber’s mind raced, navigating the trapdoor this revelation might be. “You’re saying you don’t agree with suing us?”
“I’m saying the legal approach has escalated beyond my original intent.” Geneva’s sharp eyes were on Kash. “You should have brought the report to me directly, Mr.King. Not to a junior project manager who panicked and tried to bury it.”
“And risk you burying it deeper?” Kash’s voice was low, challenging.“Perhaps. Hindsight is a flawless architect.” She sighed, a genuine sound of weariness.“Now we are here. My company’s reputation is being painted as negligent.Yours as fraudulent. My son is rattling sabers for a maximum payout. And you,” she said, turning to Amber, “are carrying more than just this legal burden. I could see it the moment you opened the door.”
The compassion in her tone was the most disarming thing yet. Amber felt a treacherous welling in her eyes, which she fiercely blinked back.“Why are you really here, Ms. Atwood?” Amber asked.“To propose a detour. The lawsuit will proceed; Desmond has the board’s momentum for now.But I can control its… temperature. And I can offer you something the courts cannot.” She leaned forward slightly.“Cypress has old, deep roots in this city. Those roots are not all friendly.I know who has been feeding information to the columnist, Sandra Blake. I know why she’s so invested in your narrative.”
A cold ripple passed through Amber. “Who?”
“That’s not the currency here. My currency is a question.” Geneva’s gaze was unwavering.“Your event.‘King Hands, Community Heart.’ Is it genuine? Or is it just a photo opportunity to blunt the bad press?”
The question, so bluntly asked, ignited a flare of anger in Amber’s chest. “You think I’d use first responders as a prop?”
“I think desperate people do many things. I need to know what kind of people you are.” Geneva’s voice softened, just a fraction.“My late husband was a battalion chief. He died in a warehouse fire in ‘ninety-eight. So you’ll understand I’m particularly invested in the answer.”
The room went very still. The tick of the clock in the study was suddenly loud. Amber looked from Geneva’s poised, waiting face to Kash’s hardened one, then down at her own hands—the long, perfect, blinged-out nails that were her trademark and her tool.“It’s genuine,” Amber said, the words quiet but absolute. “We booked the coffee cart this afternoon. We’re using strengthener polish so it lasts for their shifts. Jade is designing thank-you cards with her niece’s crayons.” She looked up, meeting Geneva’s eyes.“It’s the only part of all this that still feels purely good. We’re not canceling it, no matter what you or your son do.”
Geneva Atwood studied her for a long, silent moment.Then she gave a single, slow nod. “Alright.” She opened her leather handbag, withdrawing not a document, but a simple, embossed business card.She placed it on the coffee table next to the cursed folder. “My personal cell is on the back. When the deposition notices come—and they will come—you call me first.Not your lawyer. Me.”
“Why?” Kash demanded, the protective edge raw in his voice.“Because I can tell you what not to say.Where the traps are. What Desmond is specifically digging for.” She stood up, smoothing her dress.“This does not make us friends. It makes us… temporary allies with a shared interest in mitigating my son’s nuclear tendencies. I do not wish to see your businesses destroyed, Mrs.King. It’s bad for Charlotte, and it is, despite everything, bad for my soul.”
She walked herself to the foyer, pausing at the door. “The source feeding Sandra Blake is a disgruntled former project manager from your husband’s old firm.A man named Peter Vishniac. He was passed over for promotion just before the merger.He believes Kash’s success is built on his stolen ideas. He is vindictive, connected, and has nothing left to lose.”
The name landed like a stone in water, sending familiar, sickening rings through Kash.His face tightened. Amber remembered the vague, past tensions he’d mentioned, never giving names.
“Thank you,” Amber heard herself say, though the words felt alien.Geneva nodded once more, a gesture of grim understanding. Then she was gone, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving a vacuum filled only with the echo of a name and the faint, floral trace of her perfume.
Kash slumped into the armchair she had vacated, running his hands over his face.“Peter.God, it tracks. It all tracks.”
Amber picked up the business card.It was cool, heavy stock. The offer felt like a lifeline and a leash all at once. “Do we trust her?”
“No.” Kash’s answer was immediate.He looked up, his eyes haunted.“But we use her. Carefully.” He stood, paced to the window.“Peter… he had access to everything. Early financials, vendor lists, my personal notes. If he’s talking to Blake, it’s not just about the foundation. It’s about me.”
The scope of the threat widened, deepening into a personal history Amber had only glimpsed.The fear mutated, gaining a sharper, more familiar face. She placed the card on the table, next to the folder that had started it all. Two different kinds of poison, two different kinds of antidote.
“We call the lawyer tomorrow,” Kash said, his voice regrouping into strategy.“We tell him about Vishniac. We don’t mention Geneva Atwood’s visit.Not yet.”
Amber nodded, the fatigue now a tidal pull on her bones. But beneath it, a new, thorny resolve was taking root.They had a name. They had, however dangerous, an inside thread to pull. The fight was no longer a faceless monster in the dark.It was a bitter man named Peter and an ambitious son named Desmond. It was a battlefield she could finally map.
She stood, wincing at the ache in her back, and walked to Kash at the window. She leaned into him, her forehead against his arm, looking out at the same city lights that had seemed so peaceful an hour ago. They now glinted like a thousand watching eyes.
“We fight,” she said softly, the decision solidifying as the words left her lips.“But we fight smart.We use every tool. Even the ones left by the enemy.”
He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. The silence between them was no longer fearful, but focused, charged with a new and perilous clarity. Down the hall, in the unfinished nursery, the mobile would be still in the windless dark, waiting.
The silence after the door clicked shut was a physical thing, thick and humming. Kash didn’t move from the window. Amber watched the tension cord the muscles along his jaw, a tiny pulse ticking beneath his skin. “Peter,” he finally said, the name a curse exhaled into the glass. “I fired him three years ago for inflating supplier invoices. He said it was a standard industry kickback. I said it was theft.”
Amber leaned her hip against the sofa back, the weight in her abdomen a constant anchor to the present. “And he thinks this is his revenge.”
“It’s textbook.” Kash turned, his eyes shadowed. “He knows where the bodies are buried because he helped dig some of the graves. Old projects, aggressive cost-cutting, zoning variances that pushed the limit. Nothing outright illegal, but…” He shook his head. “Enough to paint a picture of a guy who cuts corners. Which is all Sandra Blake needs.”
The cold feeling in Amber’s stomach intensified. “He’s trying to redefine you. To make you the villain in his story.”
“And he’s using you to do it.” Kash’s voice was gravel. “Hitting you is the easiest way to destroy me. He knows that.” He walked to the coffee table, staring down at Geneva Atwood’s card as if it were a live wire. “Her son wants money. Peter wants blood. We’re stuck in the middle.”
Amber picked up the card. It was simple, elegant. No title. Just a name and a number. “She didn’t have to come here. She could have let her son’s machine grind us down.”
“She has her own calculus.” Kash sat heavily on the arm of the sofa. “Controlling the narrative, protecting her company’s long-term reputation, maybe reining in a son who’s a liability. We’re just pieces on her board, too.”
“But she gave us a piece.” Amber held up the card. “An actual name. That’s more than our lawyers have in a month of billing hours.” She slipped the card into the pocket of her leggings. “We use it. We call her before the depositions, like she said. We find out what Desmond is specifically after. Knowledge is the only weapon we’ve got right now.”
Her phone buzzed on the table, a harsh vibration against the wood. Meisha’s name flashed. Amber answered, putting it on speaker. “Hey. You okay?”
“Are you okay?” Meisha’s voice was uncharacteristically subdued. “I just got off a two-hour call with my cousin Layla in legal. I made her walk me through what ‘personal liability’ could actually look like. Am… it’s bad. They could lien the salons. Freeze business accounts.”
Amber closed her eyes. “I know.”
“Do you? Because I’m sitting here in my damn living room feeling sick about it.” A rustle, like Meisha was pulling a blanket around herself. “What’s the play? What did Kash say?”
Kash leaned toward the phone. “We fight, Meisha. But we fight informed.”
“Informed by what? The sad faces of your bank managers?”
“By the CEO of the company suing us,” Amber said flatly.
The line went so silent Amber thought the call dropped. “Explain. Right now.”
Amber did, in clipped sentences. Geneva Atwood’s late-night visit. Her son’s rogue aggression. The name Peter Vishniac. Meisha listened without a single interruption, a record-breaking feat.
“Holy scheming family drama,” Meisha breathed when Amber finished. “So the wicked witch might actually have a conscience? Or she’s just the lesser of two evils?”
“Don’t know yet.” Amber rubbed her temple. “But she’s a thread we can pull.”
“And this Peter creep… he’s the one who’s been whispering in Sandra Blake’s ear.” Meisha’s tone shifted, gears turning. “That’s a different kind of problem. Lawyers can’t fix a smear campaign. That’s a PR war.”
“We’re already fighting it,” Amber said, thinking of the event flyers, the Southern Living possibility. “We just need to be louder.”
“Louder is good. Smarter is better.” Meisha paused. “I have Layla on retainer now. For us. For the salons. She’s sharp, she’s mean, and she’s not on Kash’s company dime. She’ll look at those papers first thing. Separate counsel, Am. You need that firewall.”
The rightness of it settled over Amber. It was a move of independence, a declaration that her empire would be defended on its own terms. “Yes. Do it. Send her the documents.”
“Already forwarded.” Meisha let out a long breath. “You sure you’re not gonna crack? This is a lot for one human, let alone a human brewing two more.”
Amber looked at Kash, at the weary determination in his posture. She felt the hard, round curve of her belly. “I’m already cracked,” she said softly. “We all are. That’s how the light gets in, right? Or whatever. Right now, I’ll take any light I can get.”
After the call, the exhaustion hit her like a wave, turning her bones to liquid. Kash steered her upstairs, his hand firm on her lower back. In the bathroom, she washed her face, the cool water a shock. She avoided her own eyes in the mirror. When she emerged, he had turned down the bed. The legal folder was gone, filed away in his office downstairs. A small, tactical mercy.
She slid between the cool sheets. Kash climbed in beside her, not speaking, just folding his body around hers from behind, his palm settling over the place where a foot was now prodding insistently. His warmth seeped into her. The city lights cast faint, moving patterns on the ceiling from passing cars.
“I keep thinking about the mobile,” she whispered into the dark.
“What about it?”
“It moves with any little current. It doesn’t fight the air. It just… uses it to turn.” She placed her hand over his. “That’s what we have to be. Not a wall. A mobile. We have to turn this, Kash. Use their own currents.”
He kissed her shoulder, a silent promise. His breathing evened out into sleep long before hers did. She lay awake, feeling the lives inside her roll and settle, her mind tracing the fragile, newly drawn map of their battlefield: Desmond’s greed, Peter’s bitterness, Geneva’s calculated alliance, Sandra Blake’s hungry pen. And in the center, her salons. Her chairs. Her community day.
That was her ground. She would hold it.
The morning sun felt accusatory, too bright for the fog in her head. Amber was at the flagship salon by seven, needing the sanctuary of routine before the team arrived. She was polishing the already-spotless reception desk when the bell chimed.
Eleanor Vance stood in the doorway, dressed in another impeccable neutral outfit, a leather satchel slung over her shoulder. “Mrs. King. I was in the neighborhood. I hoped we might talk, without the formality of an office.”
Amber set down her spray bottle. “The neighborhood for Southern Living features is Myers Park and South End. This is Plaza Midwood.”
A faint smile. “I’m expanding my horizons. May I?” She gestured to the seating area.
They sat across from each other in the plush client chairs. Eleanor didn’t waste time. “I’ve done some digging since we met. The lawsuit is… substantive. The negative press is escalating. My editor is getting skittish.”
Amber’s heart sank, but she kept her face still. “I see.”
“I, however, am not.” Eleanor leaned forward, her gaze intent. “Conflict is a part of every good story. The question is the character of the people within it. Your response to this pressure—this community event—it’s compelling. It suggests a narrative of resilience, not fraud.”
“It’s not a narrative. It’s just what we’re doing.”
“Exactly.” Eleanor’s eyes gleamed. “That authenticity is the only thing that interests me. I want to propose something. We move fast. My photographer and I start shadowing you now. Through the event planning, through this legal turmoil. We capture the real-time pressure and your response to it. It’s a riskier piece, more raw. But it could be powerful.”
Amber stared at her. “You want to document the fight.”
“I want to document the foundation being tested. And what, or who, holds.” Eleanor’s voice was low, serious. “It would require unprecedented access. And trust.”
The door to the back room opened and Meisha walked out, tying her apron. She froze, taking in the scene. “We open in thirty,” she said, her voice a clear warning bell.
Eleanor stood smoothly. “I don’t need an answer now. But I need one soon. The story is happening whether I’m here to record it or not.” She placed a fresh card on the table next to Amber’s hand. “The offer is for the real story, Mrs. King. Not the polished one.”
She left. Meisha swooped over, snatching up the card. “She wants to make a documentary now? In our damn salon while we’re under siege?”
“She’s offering a megaphone,” Amber said, her mind racing. “We could tell our side, in real time, to millions.”
“Or we could give them a front-row seat to our collapse!” Meisha hissed. “You think Sandra Blake won’t salivate over that? ‘Troubled business owner performs charity for cameras while lawsuit looms.’ It’s a gift for her!”
“Or it’s the thing that makes her lies irrelevant.” Amber stood, her body aching. “It’s the same choice, Meish. Hide or shine. I’m done hiding.”
Her phone rang. An unknown number with a Charlotte area code. She answered, a new wariness in her gut. “Amber King.”
“Mrs. King, this is Martin Frye, process server for Mecklenburg County.” The voice was flat, professional. “I have a subpoena for your appearance for a deposition in the case of Cypress Geotechnical versus King Holdings, et al. I am outside your residence. Your husband has accepted service. I need to know where you’ll be for the next two hours to effect personal service.”
The world narrowed to the man’s monotone. They were moving fast. Desmond’s machinery, grinding forward. “I’m at my business. The Luxe Nail Bar on Central Avenue.”
“I’ll be there within the hour.” The line went dead.
Amber lowered the phone. Meisha was watching her, all anger replaced by dread. “They’re coming here?”
“They’re coming everywhere.” Amber’s voice was strangely calm. She pulled Geneva Atwood’s personal cell from her pocket. She didn’t hesitate. She typed a text.
Deposition subpoena just issued. They’re serving me at my salon within the hour. What is your son looking for?
The three dots appeared immediately. Then a reply.
He wants the soil report you saw. The original, with your handwritten notes. He wants to prove you altered it or misinterpreted it to force a contract breach. He will ask about your qualifications to read such a report. He will imply you fabricated a crisis to benefit your husband’s project timeline. Do not bring the original. Bring nothing. Say nothing beyond confirming your identity. Let your lawyer object to every question. This is a fishing expedition. Do not hand him the rod.
Amber showed the text to Meisha, who read it, her lips moving silently. “She’s telling you how to swim with sharks,” Meisha whispered.
Amber typed back. Thank you.
The response was swift. Do not thank me. This is containment.
Amber put the phone down. She looked at the sleek, peaceful salon—her creation. In an hour, a man with a subpoena would walk in and make it part of the record. She could already feel the eyes, real and imagined, pressing in.
“Meisha,” she said, her voice clear in the quiet room. “Call the team. Tell them to come in. We’re opening early. And when that man gets here, I’ll be at my station, with a client in my chair. We don’t stop. Not for a second.”
She walked to her station, sat in her own chair, and powered on her LED lamp. The warm light glinted off her gold nails, sharp and ready. She was a mobile, turning into the current. She would not break. She would bend, and in bending, she would find a way to slice the very air that pushed her.