Chapter 6 - What Grayson Donovan Gave Up
The arrests were only the beginning.
Mercer’s notebook opened investigations across Chicago.
Two officers resigned.
Three were suspended.
Several shell companies were frozen.
Victor Donovan faced conspiracy, kidnapping, bribery, and trafficking-related charges.
Mercer faced more.
Elias Reyes became a cooperating witness.
Dana became impossible to live with.
“I’m basically an investigative journalist now.”
“You bartend.”
“Journalism with cocktails.”
“You recorded one conversation.”
“A historic conversation.”
Three weeks later, Gray asked me to meet him at his riverfront office.
I entered expecting lawyers.
Instead, he was alone.
“What happened?”
“Sit.”
“You really love giving that order.”
“You really love ignoring it.”
I sat.
He slid documents toward me.
“What are these?”
“Changes.”
“To what?”
“My companies.”
I read.
Gray was closing several cash-heavy operations, selling properties connected to Victor, and opening his shipping companies to independent compliance audits.
I looked up.
“This will cost you millions.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe more.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother was right.”
“About soup?”
“About power.”
I kept reading.
One document transferred ownership of Ember Room.
I stopped.
“To Elias?”
“Forty percent.”
“Dana?”
“Ten.”
Then I saw another name.
Tessa Hart — fifty percent.
I stared at him.
“No.”
Gray leaned back.
“That reaction is becoming predictable.”
“I’m not taking a restaurant from you.”
“You aren’t.”
“Then who owns it?”
“You do.”
“Gray.”
“Mercer owned it through a shell company. The government seized his interest. My company acquired it through the court-supervised sale.”
“And now you’re giving it away?”
“Not giving.”
He slid another document toward me.
“A loan.”
I read the terms.
Almost no interest.
Twenty years.
“Gray, this is ridiculous.”
“I can make the interest higher.”
“That isn’t the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“Why me?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Because Evelyn once told me she dreamed of opening a place where nobody working in the kitchen went hungry.”
My throat tightened.
“She never told me.”
“She probably thought you’d call it sentimental.”
“I would.”
“Then I definitely knew your mother.”
I looked around his office.
“What happens to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“You handed investigators evidence involving your own organization.”
“Yes.”
“You admitted things.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to prison?”
Gray’s expression softened slightly.
“My lawyers believe no.”
“That sounded expensive.”
“Very.”
“And your empire?”
“Smaller.”
“Does that bother you?”
He thought about it.
“Less than I expected.”
I smiled.
Then Gray reached into his desk.
He removed the blue enamel pot.
My mother’s pot.
He placed it between us.
“This belongs to you.”
I touched the chipped handle.
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“She gave it to you.”
“Tessa—”
“She wanted you to have it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my mother never accidentally gave away cookware.”
He laughed quietly.
It was the first completely unguarded sound I had ever heard from him.
I stood.
“One condition.”
“Regarding?”
“The restaurant.”
He became suspicious.
“What?”
“We put her soup on the menu.”
Gray looked at the pot.
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“It was terrible.”
My mouth dropped open.
“You ate it for six weeks.”
“I was grieving.”
“You liar.”
“She used too much dill.”
“You take that back.”
“No.”
I pointed at him.
“You just lost your fifty-percent discount.”
“I don’t have a discount.”
“You definitely don’t now.”
I reached the door.
“Tessa.”
I turned.
Gray’s expression had changed.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For slipping that note under my plate.”
I smiled.
“You’re welcome.”
He looked toward the old pot.
“And for bringing Evelyn back into my life.”
This time, I didn’t joke.
May you like
“You kept part of her alive for me too.”
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