Chapter 2 — The Secret Inside Holloway Select Markets
Chapter 2 — The Secret Inside Holloway Select Markets
The next morning, I woke up before the sun.
I always had.
Twenty-three years of running a diner had trained my body to rise before the rest of the world.
But this morning was different.
Usually, I woke up thinking about coffee orders, delivery schedules, and whether I had enough fresh eggs for breakfast customers.
This morning, I woke up thinking about revenge.
Not the reckless kind.
Not the kind fueled by anger alone.
The kind that required patience.
The kind that required proof.
Because I had learned something during my years behind the counter at Carter’s Table.
People could lie with their mouths.
But eventually, their actions told the truth.
I walked into the kitchen and started making coffee.
A few minutes later, Hannah appeared in the doorway.
She looked exhausted.
She had barely slept.
The bruises on her face were still visible, even though she had tried to cover them.
For a moment, I saw the little girl who used to run into my kitchen after school.
The little girl who would climb onto a chair and steal pieces of apple pie before dinner.
Then I saw the woman standing in front of me.
My daughter.
A woman who had been broken down by people who never deserved her.
“Did you sleep?” I asked.
She gave a small smile.
“Not really.”
I poured her a cup of coffee.
“Neither did I.”
She sat at the counter.
“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you angry?”
I stopped.
It was an honest question.
“I’m furious.”
Her eyes dropped.
“But I’m more disappointed.”
“In me?”
The question came out so quietly that it almost broke my heart.
I walked around the counter and sat beside her.
“Never.”
“Then why disappointed?”
I took her hand.
“Because I taught you to be strong. I taught you that nobody had the right to hurt you.”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“And I stayed.”
“You survived.”
She looked at me.
“There’s a difference.”
“Yes,” I said. “There is.”
I squeezed her hand.
“But surviving is sometimes the strongest thing a person can do.”
Before she could answer, headlights appeared outside.
Daniel Brooks had arrived.
He stepped into the diner carrying two large folders and a laptop.
“You two ready?”
I nodded.
Hannah looked nervous.
“What did you find?”
Daniel placed the folders on the table.
“Something interesting.”
He opened the first one.
“For years, Holloway Select Markets has been buying smaller family-owned businesses.”
“That’s not illegal,” Hannah said.
“No,” Daniel replied. “The purchases themselves aren’t.”
He turned the laptop around.
“But the pattern is.”
On the screen were names of small businesses.
Restaurants.
Family farms.
Local suppliers.
I recognized some of them.
“They all disappeared.”
Daniel nodded.
“Exactly.”
Hannah looked confused.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“After Holloway acquired them, they were either forced into bankruptcy or absorbed into the company.”
I frowned.
“Why would they buy a business just to destroy it?”
Daniel leaned back.
“Because sometimes the goal isn’t profit.”
“What is the goal?”
“Control.”
The word hung in the air.
Daniel clicked through more documents.
“Three years ago, Holloway Select Markets started pressuring independent food suppliers around Illinois.”
I looked up.
“Food suppliers?”
He nodded.
“Small farms. Bakeries. Family-owned distributors.”
My stomach tightened.
“Like the people who supply my diner?”
“Yes.”
Hannah looked at me.
“Grant threatened your diner because he knew exactly where to hurt you.”
Daniel nodded.
“He wasn’t making an empty threat.”
For a moment, nobody spoke.
The man who had smiled at me during the wedding.
The man who had promised to love my daughter.
He had been studying our weaknesses the entire time.
Then Daniel opened another file.
“But there’s more.”
Inside was a copy of an email.
The sender was Margaret Holloway.
I read the first line.
Subject: Removing Problematic Connections
My eyes narrowed.
“What is this?”
Daniel answered quietly.
“A message sent six months ago.”
“To who?”
“A business associate.”
I read further.
The email discussed replacing certain suppliers, influencing local contracts, and making sure “small competitors understood their place.”
My hands tightened around the paper.
“She wrote this?”
“Yes.”
Hannah looked sick.
“My mother-in-law?”
Daniel nodded.
“She presents herself as a charity leader. A community supporter.”
He closed the folder.
“But behind closed doors, she runs the family business like a battlefield.”
A cold feeling moved through me.
Then my phone buzzed.
A text message.
Unknown number.
I opened it.
My heart stopped.
It was a photograph.
A picture of me entering Carter’s Table that morning.
Taken from across the street.
Below it was one sentence:
WE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING.
Hannah saw my expression.
“What is it?”
I handed her the phone.
Her face went pale.
“He’s watching us.”
Daniel immediately stood.
“Don’t respond.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what he wants.”
I stared at the message.
Grant wanted me scared.
He wanted me to remember his money.
His power.
His reach.
But he had made another mistake.
He underestimated what fear could become.
Because fear had kept my daughter trapped.
Fear had kept her silent.
Fear had protected him.
But now?
Fear was gone.
I typed a response.
Daniel stopped me.
“Evelyn—”
I looked at him.
“He needs to know something.”
I pressed send.
The message was simple.
You should be worried about what we already know.
Three seconds later, the phone rang.
Grant.
I answered.
His voice was no longer amused.
“What did you find?”
I smiled.
Interesting.
The powerful man was asking questions.
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Silence.
Then his voice hardened.
“You don’t understand the world you’re entering.”
“No, Grant.”
I looked at Hannah.
“I understand it perfectly.”
“You think some documents will destroy me?”
“No.”
I paused.
“Your own choices will.”
He laughed, but there was no confidence behind it anymore.
“You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
I looked around my diner.
The place my husband and I built.
The place where I raised my daughter.
The place that survived every storm life threw at me.
“You’re right about one thing.”
“What?”
“I don’t know everything you’re capable of.”
I lowered my voice.
“But I know exactly what I’m capable of.”
I hung up.
Daniel watched me carefully.
“You realize this just became a war.”
I looked at the clock.
Sixty-one hours remained.
“No.”
I placed the documents back on the table.
“It became a war the moment he hurt my daughter.”
Outside, the city began waking up.
Cars moved through the streets.
People rushed to work.
The world continued as normal.
But inside Carter’s Table, something had changed.
May you like
The woman who had spent twenty-three years serving everyone else was finally fighting for herself.
And Grant Holloway had no idea what was coming.
