It was almost funny.
After everything, he needed to believe I had become like him.
Secretive.
Calculating.
Cruel.
“No,” I said.
“You planned to take everything.”
“No.”
“You think you can run my restaurants?”
There it was.
My restaurants.
Even now.
I stood.
“No, Victor.”
He laughed wildly.
“You don’t know anything about running them.”
I thought of mornings before sunrise.
Burned hands.
Vendor contracts.
Payroll books.
Broken equipment.
Menus.
Staff schedules.
Liquor audits.
Health inspections.
Catering orders.
Recipes written on index cards stained with stock.
I thought of twenty years carrying the weight while Victor accepted applause.
Then I answered.
“I already did.”
The courtroom went silent.
Victor stared at me.
And something collapsed behind his eyes.
Not anger.
Identity.
Because a man can survive losing money.
He can survive embarrassment.
He can survive divorce.
But Victor had built his entire existence on being the creator.
The founder.
