“The dining room is a disaster, Bryce. And the kitchen smells like a freezer burn,” Daniel said. His voice was quiet, the kind of quiet that makes a room feel like it’s losing oxygen.
Bryce froze. He recognized the tone before he recognized the face. He looked up, the color draining from his cheeks until he looked like unbaked dough. “Mr. Whitmore? I… we weren’t expecting a site visit until next quarter. I have the spreadsheets ready, the labor costs are down—”
“I don’t care about your spreadsheets if your staff is terrified of their own shadows,” Daniel interrupted. He pulled the folded note from his pocket and laid it on the scarred wooden desk. “Jenna. Talk to me about her.”
The Breaking Point
Before Bryce could stammer out a lie, the door creaked. Jenna stood there, her hands trembling but her chin held high. She had followed him. It was a career-ending move in any other world, but in this one, it was a rescue mission.
“He’s skimming, Mr. Whitmore,” she said, the words rushing out like a broken dam. “The ‘fair shifts’ you promised? He sells the Friday nights to the highest bidder. The tips? He takes a ‘management cut’ for ‘breakage.’ And the steak you just ate? That wasn’t Whitmore Gold Grade. He’s buying cheap cuts from a local wholesaler and pocketing the difference from the corporate budget.”
The silence that followed was heavy. Daniel looked at Bryce. The manager wasn’t just pale now; he was vibrating.
“Is this true?” Daniel asked.
“She’s a disgruntled waitress, Dan! She’s been late twice this week—”
“I asked you a question, Bryce. Is. This. True?”
Daniel didn’t wait for the answer. He walked past Bryce to the industrial freezer in the back. He ripped open a box of ribeyes. No corporate seal. No USDA Choice stamp. Just generic, graying meat in plastic wrap.
The Reckoning
Daniel turned back to the office. He didn’t yell. He didn’t throw things. He simply took his phone out and made one call to the regional director.
“Bring a locksmith and the police to the Fort Smith location. Now. We have a theft of services and corporate fraud issue.”
He turned to Bryce. “You have five minutes to clear your personal belongings. If I find one piece of company property in your pockets, you won’t just be unemployed; you’ll be a defendant.”
As Bryce scrambled, humiliated and frantic, Daniel turned to Jenna. She looked like she was finally breathing for the first time in months, but the fear of the unknown was still there.
“What happens to the rest of us?” she whispered. “If the store is ‘bleeding’… are you closing us down?”
Daniel looked around the grime-streaked kitchen. He saw the line cook, an older man with burned forearms, watching them with a sliver of hope. He saw the busboy holding a tray of dirty glasses like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
“I don’t close stores because of bad managers,” Daniel said, his eyes softening. “I fix them. But I can’t be here every day to watch the floor.”
A New Order
Daniel grabbed a permanent marker from the desk. He walked to the “Manager on Duty” sign hanging by the pass-through window. He crossed out Bryce Miller in thick, black ink.
Underneath it, he wrote: Jenna Vance (Interim).
“I’m sending a training team down from Tulsa tomorrow to help you reset the standards,” Daniel said. “But tonight? Tonight, you run the floor. Pay everyone double for the shift for the ‘inconvenience’ of working under a thief. I’ll settle the books.”
Jenna stared at the sign, then at the man in the worn denim. “Why me? You don’t even know me.”
“I know you saw a man you thought could help, and you took a risk to save your team instead of just quitting,” Daniel said, heading for the exit. “That’s the only resume I need to see.”
As the heavy humidity of the Arkansas evening hit him, Daniel felt the weight of the “Whitmore” name feel a little lighter. He climbed into his dusty truck, the neon sign of the steakhouse flickering above. For the first time in years, the light didn’t look like it was dying—it looked like it was just waking up.