Chapter 6 - The Counter-Strategy
"Let me get this straight," I said, leaning back against the kitchen counter and crossing my arms. "Your brilliant, foolproof plan to defeat a multi-billion-dollar industrial titan is to... invite him to brunch?"
"Not just any brunch," Rebecca corrected, pacing back and forth across the narrow strip of linoleum with the focused intensity of a chess grandmaster mapping out a checkmate. "We invite him to your café. On Juniper Street. We let him see that you aren't some sinister kidnapper or a desperate gold-digger holding his daughter hostage. We show him that you're an independent, hardworking business owner who gave a drowning stranger shelter out of basic human decency."
"And you think Arthur Lawson—a man who apparently deploys private security and buys entire apartment buildings on a whim—is going to sit down over a stack of pancakes and listen to a lecture on basic human decency?"
"No," Rebecca said, stopping her pacing and turning to face me. "He's going to come because he thinks he's walking into a trap, and he wants to crush the person holding his daughter's leash. But when he gets there, he'll realize he can't buy you off with five-thousand-wire transfers or intimidate you with eviction notices. Because the one thing men like my father don't know how to handle is someone who genuinely doesn't give a damn about their money."
I stared at her for a long moment, listening to the rain tap against the windowpane. It sounded insane. It sounded like the kind of reckless, cinematic nonsense that usually ended with everyone in handcuffs or missing a kneecap.
And yet... the thought of sitting across a table from the man who had terrorized Rebecca’s entire life, looking him dead in the eye, and handing him back his blood-money wire transfer?
There was a strange, thrilling kind of justice in that.
"Okay," I said slowly. "Assuming I'm crazy enough to agree to this—how do we get him to actually show up? I doubt he checks his daughter's personal cell phone for casual lunch invites."
Rebecca reached into the pocket of her ruined designer coat, pulling out a small, sleek black smartphone that I hadn't noticed she'd salvaged from the bag she'd dropped the night before. The screen flickered to life, cracked across the corner, but functional.
"I have a direct line to his executive assistant," Rebecca said, her fingers dancing across the keypad with practiced speed. "She handles his personal schedule, his private flights, and his emergency protocols. If I send her a specific cryptographic ping from this exact device, she'll flag it for him immediately."
"And what will the ping say?"
Rebecca typed out a brief message, hit send, and tossed the phone onto the wooden table with a soft clatter.
"It says: 'I'm at Juniper Street Café, 19th and Juniper. Come alone, or the wedding is off permanently.'"
I blinked, looking from the phone to her face. "You think he'll drop everything over a wedding ultimatum?"
"It's not an ultimatum," Rebecca said, a steely glint in her amber eyes. "It's an absolute guarantee. Julian Vance is his golden ticket into the Seattle commercial real estate market. If I threaten to pull the plug on the merger entirely, Arthur Lawson will fly supersonic jets straight into a hurricane just to keep the deal alive."
Before I could process the sheer audacity of her plan, my phone buzzed on the counter. It wasn't a bank alert this time. It was an incoming call from Marcus at Juniper Street Café.
I glanced at Rebecca, took a deep breath, and hit accept.
"Logan! Where the hell are you?" Marcus’s voice practically shrieked through the speaker, accompanied by the chaotic background noise of clattering ceramic mugs and an espresso grinder screaming at full blast. "The morning rush is a disaster! The pastry delivery never showed up, the college kids are rioting for avocado toast, and some guy in a tailored suit just walked in, flashed a black card, and asked if we served 'artisanal drip' like he's inspecting a crime scene!"
I froze, exchanging a wide-eyed look with Rebecca.
"What did you say the guy looked like, Marcus?" I asked, my voice suddenly tight.
"Tall, silver hair, looks like he eats billionaires for breakfast and spits out the bones," Marcus snapped. "And he's sitting at corner table four right now, staring at the front door like he's waiting for an executioner. Get down here right now, Logan, or I am quitting this job and joining the circus!"
The line went dead with a sharp click.
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I lowered the phone slowly, looking at Rebecca, whose jaw had dropped slightly in genuine shock.
"Well," Rebecca whispered, the color draining from her face as the reality of her own plan finally caught up to her. "It looks like he didn't even wait for the invitation."
