All Chapters of "Free Lunch" Client Didn't Read the Fine Print: Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

"You're the one who said free meals were a perk for car owners!" Daniel Dawson snapped. "What, are you trying to go back on your word now?"I fixed him with a cold stare, struggling to keep my temper in check. "Coming in for a free meal once in a while as a perk for car owners is perfectly reasonable. Nobody has a problem with that. But you show up here almost every day with your entire family, eat our food, and take home whatever you can get your hands on. What do you think this place is, a damn soup kitchen?"Instead of showing the slightest bit of shame, Daniel slammed his hand on the table. "Cut the crap! Refusing to let me eat here is a breach of our original agreement! You're ripping off your own customers! Just you wait. I'll report this dump to the local consumer protection agency and have the whole place shut down!" As his voice grew louder and the situation spiraled out of control, my coworker Ethan Brooks went pale. He hurried over, tugged anxiously at the hem of my shir

"Effective immediately, you're suspended from your sales duties. I want you to scrub every toilet on the first and second floors, and don't even think about leaving until every last one is spotless!" I snapped my head up, clenching my jaw as anger surged through me. "Ms. Collins, this is blatant abuse of authority! I applied for a sales position, not a janitorial job. You're just using your position to get back at me." "So what if I am?" Lily shot back, rolling her eyes with a mocking sneer. "If you don't like it, then get lost! Nobody's forcing you to stay." She jabbed a finger into my shoulder and shoved me hard enough to make me stumble backward. "Who the hell do you think you are? You're nothing but a low-level grunt, and you think you have the right to negotiate with me? I make the rules around here. If I tell you to clean toilets, you damn well better do it. Honestly, you should be thanking me for even giving you a job!" She stepped closer, glaring down at me with undisgu

The air grew more stifling by the second as I stumbled through the darkness, struggling to breathe. My vision blurred, and waves of dizziness washed over me as my brain struggled to function without enough oxygen. The blast door was sealed so tightly that not even a sliver of light could penetrate it. Lily wasn't just trying to teach me a lesson. She was willing to kill me. But I wasn't about to die in this godforsaken room. Forcing my trembling legs to keep moving, I braced one hand against the wall and felt my way along it until I found the ventilation opening high above me. Someone had covered it with a metal sheet, completely blocking the airflow. Gripping an iron rod, I raised it with what little strength I had left and swung at the sheet again and again, each strike sending a jarring vibration through my arms. Finally, with a shrill screech of tearing metal, the sheet gave way, leaving a hole barely large enough for fresh air to rush in.I immediately pressed my face against

Several bodyguards immediately grabbed fire extinguishers and unleashed a barrage of foam on the burning cardboard and tires. Meanwhile, Victor rushed over and hauled me to my feet. The moment he saw how deathly pale I was, his entire body began to tremble, and his eyes filled with panic. "Call an ambulance!" he roared at the bodyguards behind him, his eyes bloodshot."Mr. Sterling, please hang on! Please forgive me. I shouldn't have taken this long to come." He quickly shrugged off his jacket and wrapped it tightly around me, as though afraid he might lose me if he let go for even a second.Meanwhile, Lily and Daniel stood frozen, staring blankly at the sudden arrival of so many people. Lily, however, had no idea who Victor was. As my family's butler and a member of the corporate headquarters staff, he was hardly someone she could afford to offend, but she had no way of knowing that. Instead, she strode toward the doorway, folded her arms across her chest, and glared at the in

The sound of shattering windshields echoed throughout the showroom as chaos spiraled out of control. As if things weren't bad enough already, Victor's phone suddenly rang. He answered, and his expression darkened almost immediately as the person on the other end delivered the bad news. "Mr. Sterling, we have a serious problem. The livestream has been maliciously edited and pushed to the top of the trending charts. The group's stock price is taking a massive hit. The market's been open for less than ten minutes, and our shares have already plunged eight percent!" Victor broke out in a cold sweat, his hand shaking so badly that he could barely hold his phone steady as he held it out to show me the charts."Mr. Sterling, if we don't shut down that livestream immediately, the losses could be catastrophic!" I merely sneered and calmly pushed his phone back down. "Why would we shut it down?" I asked, my tone almost amused. "Tell the operations team to pour money into promoting Dan