“So I tracked down your suppliers and paid a premium to become their exclusive distributor on this street. From now on, they won't sell to you. Even if you wanted to open another seafood buffet nearby to compete with me, you couldn't.”
“With steady foot traffic and zero competition, how could I possibly fail?”
Adela chimed in, brimming with the same smugness：
“Exactly. People around here love seafood. Now we've taken back the shop and locked up your supply chain. Everything your restaurant had, we'll have too, except our space is bigger and nicer.”
“If you could make the place a hit, why can't we?”
Credit where it was due: these two were ruthless.
Not only were they stealing my shop, they'd cut off my supply line too.
Any ordinary business owner might've been ruined for good.
Too bad for them, they'd picked the wrong guy to mess with.
They saw my seafood buffet packed to the walls every single day, but what they didn't know was that those customers had come for me specifically.
More importantly, just yesterday my dad had called to tell me his employees were sick of seafood after a solid year of all-you-can-eat buffets. They couldn't even look at shrimp without gagging. He'd asked if I could switch up the menu.
Since Brendan and Adela were so confident they could make their seafood buffet work, I saw no reason to burst that bubble.
“Fine. The shop's all yours. I'm done here.”
“Best of luck with the business.”
My easy agreement caught them off guard. Brendan and Adela exchanged a glance, suspicion flickering in both their eyes.
Brendan's brows pinched together, like he was afraid I was pulling something：
“You're really just going to pack up and leave?”
I didn't answer. Instead, right in front of them, I called a moving company：“Hi, I need to move out of a commercial space today. Could you send a truck over as soon as possible?”
Once I'd worked out the details, I texted them the address, hung up, and turned back to Brendan and Adela：
“Satisfied?”
Brendan's brows relaxed. He let out a cold snort：
“Smart move.”
“Now hurry it up. Don't waste our time when we've got money to make.”
With that, he and Adela strutted out, victory plastered across their faces.
The moment they were gone, every employee in the restaurant crowded around me, voices overlapping in outrage：
“Boss, our lease isn't even up yet! Those two just kicked us out. That's straight-up bullying.”
“Right? Nobody wanted this dump before you came along. You built this place from nothing, and now they swoop in to take it? How is that fair?”
Rainey Abbott, the cashier, was the most fired up of all：
“Boss, let's sue them! I've got a friend who's a killer attorney. Let him make them pay!”
I waved her off：“No need.”
After all, I wanted a front-row seat to watch them try to run a seafood buffet.
If I sued them, I'd miss the show.
Rainey pressed on：“Then what's the plan, boss? Are we really just going to take this lying down and let them walk all over us?”
I smiled：“Of course not.”
I walked to the front entrance and pointed at the vacant three-story building across the street：
“See that building?”
Everyone followed my gaze：
“That old shopping center? The one that shut down? It's been sitting empty for years.”
I stared at it, a quiet edge creeping into my voice：
“Starting tomorrow, it won't be empty anymore.”
Every head in the room snapped toward me, eyes wide with shock.
