Chapter 66: Your market?
The mahogany doors stayed open.
The air in the office went dead.
Tiffany stood on the imported carpet with her mouth open, trying to make last night’s delivery boy fit the chair he was sitting in. Rick did not help her. He kept his boots on the desk and looked at her like she was a late order.
Zhou’s handkerchief was already out. He looked from Tiffany’s red dress to Rick’s boots and seemed to age a year in a second.
"Miss," he whispered, "please do not—"
Tiffany still did not hear him.
"You?" The shock burned off fast and the arrogance came back. She pointed an acrylic at his chest. "What the hell are you doing in here, you filthy street rat?"
Zhou made a noise that was not words.
Tiffany did not hear it.
"You are a delivery boy. Did you follow me here to beg? Did you sneak in to steal something?"
Zhou opened his mouth.
Pei Hao shoved past him first.
The deputy puffed up in the tacky suit, decided Rick was a thug who had broken in to harass his girl, and ignored the fact that the General Manager was sweating like the building was on fire.
"You beggar." He marched to the desk and slammed a greasy fist on the wood. "You stalk my woman and sneak into my market? I am the law in this building. I promised her I would shatter your knees. You walked right into it."
Rick spun a gold pen between his fingers. He did not take his boots down. He did not raise his voice.
"Your market?"
The question was light. That made it worse.
"That’s right. Mine." Pei Hao grabbed the walkie on his belt. "I’m calling the guards. Loading bay. Every bone. Then the grinder. You picked the wrong building, boy. I eat delivery rats like you for breakfast."
Zhou made a strangled sound.
Pei Hao still did not look at him.
Tiffany cackled and crossed her arms under the red dress.
"I told you my man would ruin you. Kneel. Lick my shoes. Or you leave in a bag."
"Shut up."
The scream was Zhou’s.
The nervous GM finally snapped. He lunged, grabbed Pei Hao by the lapels, and shook him hard enough to make the tacky suit complain.
"Are you out of your mind?" Zhou’s voice cracked. Spit hit Pei Hao’s cheek. "Open your eyes. Do you have any idea who you are talking to?"
Pei Hao’s hand slipped off the walkie.
"Boss Zhou... this is the delivery boy who assaulted Tiffany. I am throwing him out."
"He is not a delivery boy!" Zhou pointed a shaking finger at the desk. "This is Mr. Rick Smith. He owns one hundred percent of Neptune Platinum Market. He bought this place in cash two days ago. The registry. The deeds. The vault. The trucks. All of it. He is the boss. Our boss. If you put a hand on him I will not be able to save you, and I will not try."
Pei Hao looked at Zhou like the man had grown a second head.
Zhou did not blink. For the first time since Rick had walked into the market, the GM looked more terrified of the desk than of the deputy.
Silence.
Pei Hao’s face went from grease to paper. His eyes did the math on the black t-shirt, the jeans, the boots on the wood, and came up bankrupt.
Tiffany’s knees knocked. The gold-digger maths was worse.
"Owner...?" Pei Hao whispered.
Rick let the pen stop spinning. His boots hit the floor. He leaned forward, still pleasant.
"You were saying something about breaking my bones."
Pei Hao made a sound that did not belong in an executive office.
Then he spun on Tiffany.
"You blind—"
His hand came up. The slap cracked across her powdered face and knocked her off the red stilettos. She hit the floor in a tangle of dress and smeared makeup. Blood on the fake lip. One stiletto skidded under the desk.
"Pei Hao! Why—"
"Because you almost got me killed!" He was already dropping, forehead to the carpet, crawling toward the desk. "She told me he was a delivery boy! I have nothing to do with this! Boss Smith, I had eyes and I did not see. Spare me. I will be your dog. I will fire every supplier I brought in. I will work the docks. I will never touch hiring again. Just do not send the guards."
Rick watched him crawl.
"You were going to put me in a grinder," he said. "Now you want a second interview."
Tiffany pushed up onto her hands and knees. The dress did the rest. She crawled too, voice gone sweet and ruined.
"Young Master Rick... I was wrong. I am sorry. If you let me stay I will do anything you want. I can work. I can be useful. Last night was a mistake. I did not know."
Rick’s mouth ticked.
"You knew enough to ask for knees."
Rick looked at both of them the way he looked at spoiled fish.
"Zhou. Security. Now."
Zhou snatched the desk phone and barked the order like he had been waiting months to do it.
"You’re both fired," Rick said, leaning back. "If I see either of you near my property again, you will be drinking dinner through a straw."
Pei Hao’s forehead hit the carpet again.
"Boss, the suppliers I brought in— I can fix the books— I can—"
"You can leave," Rick said. "The books are Zhou’s problem now."
Thirty seconds. Six guards filled the doorway. Pei Hao went out by the collar, still apologising to anyone who would listen. Tiffany went out by the arms, still yelling about her shoes as if the shoes were the tragedy. The screaming faded down the corridor toward the service elevators and, if Zhou had anything to say about it, the dumpsters.
One guard paused at the door.
"Boss. Charges? Trespass?"
"Just out," Rick said. "If they come back, then we talk about charges."
The guard nodded and left.
Rick adjusted his shirt.
"Bring the other five. Tell them to leave the paper in the waiting room. I want a palate, not a folder."
Zhou bowed and fled.
A minute later the five real candidates stood in a line in front of the desk, trying not to look at the scuff marks Pei Hao had left on the carpet. None of them asked what had happened to the sixth. They had heard the screaming. That was enough. Rick did not ask about jobs. He did not ask about schools. A sealed glass container appeared on the wood. He opened it.
Five small Alba white truffles. The room filled with that deep, expensive earth smell.
Two of the candidates actually leaned forward. The oldest one went still, the way a man does when he realises the test is not the one he studied for.
Rick tapped the rim of the glass.
"Not a guess. Not a grade. Numbers."
"You want Head of Acquisitions," Rick said. "That means you are the last door before anything enters my hotel. Look at those. Tell me the pH of the soil they came out of, the humidity while they grew, and how many days they have been out of the ground."
The oldest candidate stared.
The woman next to him actually lifted one truffle, turned it, sniffed, and set it down again with a helpless little shake of her head.
"Piedmont," she tried. "Alba. Recent. That’s all I can swear to."
"Sir," the oldest said. "That is not... we can grade them. Authenticate them. Nobody can pull soil acidity off a truffle by looking."
Rick waited a beat, in case anyone wanted to be a miracle.
Nobody was.
Rick sighed, disappointed more than angry.
"If you cannot smell the dirt, you cannot guard my docks," he said. "pH 7.4. Humidity around eighty-two percent. Harvested four days and six hours ago." Absolute Taste had fed him the numbers the second the lid came off. "You’re all short. Zhou, five hundred each for the time. Show them out. We search nationwide tomorrow."
Zhou herded them out. One of them tried to bow on the way through the door. Zhou did not let him linger.
The office went quiet.
Rick rubbed the bridge of his nose, almost smiling. Market cleaned. Deputy gone. Gold-digger gone. Still no acquisitions chief, but the docks would live until morning. He could taste product himself for a day. Absolute Taste did not get tired.
"Nationwide tomorrow," he said to the empty chairs. "Someone in this country can smell dirt."
His phone buzzed.
Elena.
[I am in my office at the hospital. I locked the door. I need you right now. Please.]
Rick read it twice.
The Ice Queen did not send messages like that. She sent appointment times. She sent thank-you texts that sounded like case notes. She did not lock doors and write please.
He thumbed the screen once, just to make sure it was real, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Locked the door," he said to the empty office. "That’s new."
Hospital. Office. Locked. The woman who stitched people together for a living had decided she could not wait until tonight.
Rick liked that more than he should have. Please was the part that got him moving. He did not text back. He showed up fast, before she could take the please back.
He stood, pocketed the phone, and left the mahogany desk empty.
Zhou appeared in the doorway again, saw the look on his face, and stepped aside without asking. He had learned, in two days, when not to speak.
Corporate work could wait.
The surgeon had locked a hospital door and sent please.
Rick took the private elevator down, already smiling that small cheeky smile, and did not look back at the market he had just cleaned. Zhou could handle the docks until morning.
The Ice Queen did not say please twice.
He was already moving. The Ducati would make the hospital in eight minutes if the lights were friendly. Rick did not plan to ask the lights.