Chapter 3 - The Ultimatum
My mother gasped, clutching her pearls as if I had struck her. "Aaron! How dare you use that tone with us after we extended an olive branch?"
"An olive branch?" I stepped forward, closing the distance between us until my height matched my father's. The intimidation tactics that used to paralyze me when I was twelve years old now felt hollow, like actors reciting lines from a play they didn't understand. "You didn't bring an olive branch. You brought a lease agreement. You saw something I built with my own bleeding hands, something that didn't bear your stamp of approval, and your immediate instinct was to devour it so nobody else could claim it."
Richard’s eyes flashed with genuine anger. The mask of the benevolent patriarch shattered completely, revealing the cold tyrant underneath.
"You arrogant little ingrate," Richard hissed, his voice dropping into that terrifying register that used to send Evan and me scrambling for cover when we were boys. "You think you're a businessman because you sell overpriced tables to hipsters? Without this family name, without the network I built, you are nothing. You are a dropout who spent his twenties living above a laundromat."
"And yet," I replied, smiling coldly, "I am standing in my own debt-free, highly profitable workshop while you are standing in it uninvited, begging for a piece of my success."
"Begging?" Evan stepped in, his face flushing a mottled red. He jabbed a finger toward my chest. "Nobody is begging you for anything, Aaron. We're offering you a lifeline before you crash and burn. Dad is right—you don't know the first thing about corporate scaling. You're one bad review away from bankruptcy."
"Try me," I said, swatting Evan's finger away from my chest with a sharp, dismissive flick of my wrist.
Evan stumbled back half a step, pure shock registering on his face. In our family, nobody touched Evan. Nobody challenged Evan.
"You hit me," Evan whispered, his eyes wide.
"I knocked your hand away from my personal space," I corrected him smoothly. "And now, I am telling all three of you to walk out those double doors before I call security and have you escorted off the property for trespassing."
Mother let out a dramatic sob, dabbing at her dry eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. "Richard, do something! Look at what they've done to him. He's insane. He's unhinged. He's keeping our grandson hostage in this dreadful place!"
"We're not leaving," Richard said coldly, straightening his lapels and regaining his composure with frightening speed. He crossed his arms, leaning back slightly against a workbench. "Because you don't understand the legal reality of your situation, Aaron. Let me educate you."
I didn't answer. I just watched him.
"The trademark for Leo's Landing," Richard continued smoothly, a predatory smile touching the corners of his mouth. "Have you checked the registry lately?"
A cold knot formed in my stomach, though I forced my face to remain completely neutral.
Richard saw the flicker of doubt in my eyes and seized upon it. "That's right. When you registered the LLC two years ago while you were still financially unstable, who do you think processed the state filing fee? Who do you think used their corporate legal team to expedite the trademark protection before you even knew how to spell intellectual property rights?"
My heart skipped a beat. Samuel.
When I first started, Samuel had introduced me to a brilliant pro-bono corporate attorney who specialized in helping artisans protect their work. Her name was Clara. She had handled everything.
Or had she?
"Clara," I said aloud.
"Clara Chen," Richard supplied, nodding with a smug sense of satisfaction. "Brilliant lawyer. Sharp mind. But loyalty, my dear boy, is a commodity just like any other. And my corporate firm retains her parent company on a retainer worth seven figures annually. It took a single phone call from my office to ensure that the primary holding rights for the Leo's Landing trademark belong to a shell corporation wholly owned by Richard Sterling Holdings."
The workshop seemed to spin slightly. All those late nights, sanding until my fingers bled, cutting dovetails until my eyes burned, building a future for Leo out of sawdust and hope—had I handed it over to the very monster I ran away from without even realizing it?
"You're lying," I whispered.
"Am I?" Richard reached into his tailored breast pocket, pulled out a crisp, folded document, and tossed it onto the workbench in front of me. It landed with a soft flutter against a pile of sandpaper. "Read it yourself. Section four, paragraph two. You own the operating rights as an independent contractor, but the brand, the design patents, and the global distribution rights belong entirely to the family estate."
May you like
Mother smiled, the tears completely gone from her face as if they had never existed. "See, Aaron? We told you we were here to help. We've already secured your future. All you have to do is sign the management agreement, hand over the primary operational keys to Evan, and come home for Sunday dinner like a good son."
Evan picked up the document, tapping it against his palm with a victorious grin. "Welcome back to the family business, little brother. Looks like you're working for us after all."
