David made a note.

"Understood."

"And I want to know whether these practices were discussed with other locations."

Patricia leaned forward.

"Are you suggesting that this is happening across the company?"

"I'm suggesting that we should never assume a problem is isolated simply because we haven't looked for it elsewhere."

Amara stood.

"Until the investigation is complete, nobody is authorized to delete, alter, or remove any relevant customer-service record."

David nodded.

"Compliance will issue the preservation notice immediately."

She turned toward Victor.

"You will continue your normal duties only where they do not involve customer complaints, employee discipline, or access to the investigation records. Your access to those systems will be temporarily restricted."

Victor looked startled.

"You're suspending me?"

"I'm placing you on administrative review."

"That's unnecessary."

"Then the evidence will establish that."

He leaned forward.

"Ms. Jackson, I've worked in this industry for seventeen years. I've built this store into one of the highest-performing locations in the company."

Amara looked at him.

"And how many customers did you lose along the way?"

Victor had no answer.

The meeting ended shortly after noon.

But as Amara walked toward the elevator, Rachel caught up with her.

"Ms. Jackson?"

Amara turned.

Rachel looked uncomfortable.

"There's something else."

"What is it?"

"I found an internal message attached to one of the complaint records."

"From whom?"

"Victor."

Amara waited.

Rachel opened the message on her tablet.

"It was sent to several senior employees about four months ago."

She handed the tablet to Amara.

The message contained only a few lines.

We need to protect the flagship's premium positioning. Employees should prioritize customers who demonstrate serious purchasing intent. Avoid spending excessive time on visitors who appear unlikely to convert. Keep the floor experience exclusive.

Amara read it twice.

Then she looked at Rachel.

"Who received this?"

"Victor, Lauren, Sophia, and three department supervisors."

"Was anyone from regional management copied?"

Rachel hesitated.

"Yes."

"Who?"

She pointed toward the bottom of the message.

The name was familiar.

Patricia Reynolds.

Amara slowly raised her eyes.

Patricia had been sitting in the conference room that morning.

She had said almost nothing.

Now Amara understood why.

The investigation was no longer simply about a store manager.

It was about the people who had allowed him to operate.

And perhaps the most important question was no longer who had created the problem.

It was who had known about it.

THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH

The conference room on the twenty-third floor of Ebony Elegance's Manhattan headquarters had been designed to make people feel important.

Its walls were made of smoked glass. A long walnut table stretched beneath a chandelier imported from Italy. Along one side, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the crowded streets of Midtown, where yellow taxis moved between buses and delivery trucks like pieces on a board that never stopped shifting.

The room was usually reserved for quarterly strategy meetings, investor presentations, and conversations about expansion.

That morning, Amara Jackson had reserved it for something considerably less comfortable.

The truth.

She stood beside the window with a thin folder in her hands. Inside were copies of customer complaints, internal emails, employee schedules, and reports that had been altered or closed without proper verification.

The folder was not especially thick.

That was what disturbed her most.

Six months of customer experiences had been reduced to a few dozen pages, yet those pages contained enough evidence to explain why the Manhattan flagship had begun losing the trust of people who once loved the brand.

Amara looked down at the street.

A woman in a navy coat was helping an elderly man cross between two parked cars. A delivery cyclist stopped to let them pass. Nobody appeared to know that, several floors above them, the founder of a luxury company was preparing to confront people who had allowed her grandmother's principles to become little more than decoration.

She thought of Evelyn Jackson.

Her grandmother had never owned a chandelier.

She had never sat at a walnut conference table or looked down at Manhattan from a glass tower.

She had worked at a small shoe-repair shop in the Bronx, where the ceiling leaked whenever it rained and the front door stuck in winter. She had kept a jar of peppermint candies beside the register for children who came in with their parents.

But she had understood something that people with far more expensive offices sometimes forgot.

A business did not become successful because people were impressed by its walls.

It became successful because people trusted the person standing behind the counter.

Amara placed the folder on the table.

The door opened.

Rachel Moore entered first, carrying her laptop and a legal pad. As director of customer experience, Rachel had been responsible for the systems through which complaints were received, reviewed, and resolved.

She looked tired.

Behind her came David Chen from compliance, a quiet man in his early forties whose reputation had been built on noticing inconsistencies other people overlooked.

Malik Johnson entered last.