Chapter 6 - The Arrival of the File
The Corporate Representative stopped directly beside Booth 17, completely stepping in front of Vanessa. She bowed her head slightly toward Daniel in a gesture of profound, unspoken respect.
Without uttering a single word to Vanessa or the security officers, the woman rested the heavy, closed black audit file gently onto the white linen tablecloth right in front of Daniel.
The front cover of the black file was completely blank, devoid of any logo, text, or identification. The contents inside remained totally hidden from the audience.
Daniel laid his fork down once more. He reached out with his steady hand and opened the black file just enough to look down at a single, top-level page. His hazel eyes scanned the document for three brief seconds.
Satisfied, Daniel closed the file with a soft, decisive snap.
He calmly raised his head, his cold, observant eyes fixing onto Vanessa Cole's face.
Vanessa glanced down at the black file resting on the table, then looked up at the corporate woman standing rigidly beside Daniel. Her sharp, arrogant composure began to shatter. She recognized the specific gold-embossed seal on the corner of the internal document—a seal belonging exclusively to the primary holding group that owned L’Auberge Dorée and forty other luxury properties nationwide.
Vanessa’s face drained of color, turning a ghostly, ash-white. Her hands began to tremble at her sides.
She looked from the file to Daniel’s worn work boots, then up into Daniel’s eyes—realizing with a violent, sickening shock that the man in faded jeans sitting before her was not a poor laborer who had wandered into her restaurant by mistake.
Vanessa took half a step backward, her knees wobbling, her voice barely audible as her throat went bone-dry:
“Why...?”
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Daniel did not answer her. He offered no explanation, no grand speech, and no anger. He simply took a sip from his glass of water.
Beside him, eight-year-old Sophie picked up her yellow glass of lemonade, taking a quiet sip through her straw, completely unaware of the corporate catastrophe that had just unfolded right in front of her.
