Chapter 7 - The Termination of an Empire
The color that had briefly trickled back into Mr. Whitman’s face vanished permanently, leaving his lips parted in a silent, permanent gasp of utter shock and catastrophic realization.
"You... you own the group?" Whitman whispered, his knees buckling slightly as the reality of his career, his reputation, and his financial stability evaporated into thin air.
"Past tense, Mr. Whitman," Vincent corrected calmly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his tailored trousers. "You are currently trespassing on private property. And as my first executive decision as majority owner, your employment is terminated with immediate effect, effective right this second."
Whitman opened his mouth to protest, to beg, to offer some pathetic excuse about corporate protocol, but the two bodyguards stepped forward, each placing a heavy, unyielding hand on his shoulders.
"Don't make a scene, man. Just walk," the larger of the two guards rumbled in a low, flat voice that brooked no argument whatsoever.
Without another word, they guided the trembling, broken manager backward toward the service exit near the kitchens, his polished shoes dragging pathetically across the floor as the entire dining room watched his swift and absolute destruction.
As the kitchen doors swung shut behind Whitman, sealing his fate in the dark underbelly of the restaurant's back-of-house operations, a strange, breathless quiet settled back over the room.
Vincent turned his attention back to Table 1, his terrifying demeanor melting away in an instant as he looked down at his mother, kneeling back down on the hardwood floor with a tenderness that defied every dark rumor ever printed about his business dealings.
"Are you all right, Ma?" Vincent asked, gently taking her other hand—the one that wasn't still securely locked around mine—and pressing it to his cheek. "Do you want to go home, or would you like me to have the kitchen prepare whatever you'd actually like to eat?"
Eleanor let out a soft, shaky sigh, her shoulders relaxing as the tension of the evening finally drained out of her frail body.
"I'm fine now, my boy," she whispered, patting his cheek with her wrinkled fingers. "I was just waiting for you. And... and I was keeping my new friend company."
Vincent blinked, turning his dark, piercing gaze back toward me for the first time since he had ordered me not to go anywhere.
I stood frozen beside the chair, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, acutely aware that I was an unemployed twenty-eight-year-old nursing dropout standing face-to-face with Brooklyn's most feared financial kingpin.
"Ah," Vincent said softly, rising back to his full height and studying me with an analytical intensity that felt like being examined under a powerful microscope. "Lucy."
"Yes, sir," I repeated, my voice steadying only by a sheer act of stubborn will. "I... I should probably go clean out my locker now that Mr. Whitman is gone."
Vincent raised a single, dark eyebrow, a faint, ghost of a smile touching the corners of his carved lips. "Go where, exactly? You were fired by a manager who no longer works here."
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I blinked, my mind struggling to process the rapid-fire logic of his corporate coup. "Wh—what?"
"Mr. Whitman had the authority to hire, but as of three minutes ago, he no longer had the authority to fire anyone," Vincent said, pulling a sleek gold business card from his interior breast pocket and holding it out toward me across the white linen tablecloth. "Especially not the only person in this entire establishment who showed basic human decency to my mother."
