Alberto’s Alfresco owned three warehouses in the SoDo district, close to the stadiums. Alberto had bought two of them back in the early 1970s when prices had been cheap. The company’s growth had forced a third warehouse to be added around 2005 and that had cost more than double the other two combined, but had been worth it. The following year, there had been a major overhaul of production, moving departments into different buildings so that all the frozen foods were shipped from a single warehouse rather than all three. The dry goods were put together, as were the supplies for the gift baskets.
When Santiago joined the company, he’d gone over the production schedule and had suggested several changes—most of which involved modernizing equipment. He and Malcolm had come up with a five-year plan, then had self-funded the project. In this warehouse, the gift basket section was finished and the update of the dry goods division would start in a couple of months.
One day, Santiago thought as he walked into the warehouse. One day they would be bigger than Amazon. He laughed out loud. Okay, maybe not that big, but close.
He signed in with security, showed his badge, then went into the oldest of the three warehouses.
Alberto’s Alfresco sold everything from cheese plates to pasta to decadent handmade chocolates. There was a line of house-branded cookware and celebrity cookbooks, along with spices, rubs and salts. In addition to prepared soups, there were packages of dry soup mixes and seasonal drink mixes, including a proprietary hot chocolate mix that was only available at the holidays.
Huge vats with giant mixers blended the company’s various recipes to create the perfect seasoning for minestrone soup or spicy sangria. The mixed ingredients were placed in bins that were later poured into a funnel where they were measured out and put into small plastic bags, then sealed—all by hand.
With the soup mixes, the flavor packet was only one element of the whole package. Some contained dried beans, pasta or rice, along with dehydrated vegetables. All those individual pieces had to be collected into one upscale package.
This part of production was the oldest and most in need of refurbishing. Soon, Santiago thought as he walked the line and greeted the employees he knew. Automation would replace aging manual processes. Employees would be shifted to other divisions—the company was growing so fast, even with new computer-assisted robotics, no one would be laid off.
He and Malcolm made it a point to visit each of the warehouses every quarter, visiting at least two of the departments. That way they got to each division at least twice a year. Everything that mattered happened on the factory floor, he thought. Alberto had taught them both that.
He grabbed an inventory sheet, then went to spot-check the storage area. Keeping track of what was in the process of being created versus what was finished and waiting to be sold was an ongoing nightmare. Cost accounting had been one of his least favorite classes in college and now he had to deal with it every day. Irony, he thought with a grin. Life had a sense of humor.
As he headed for the storage area, he saw one of the first-level supervisors talking to a couple of employees and slowed his step. No big deal, he told himself, only it felt like a big deal mostly because the supervisor in question was his brother Paulo and the previous weekend when Santiago had brought his niece and nephew back home after their day together, he’d overheard Hanna and Paulo fighting.
Santiago had made a lot of noise as he’d ushered the kids in the house so Hanna and Paulo would know they weren’t alone anymore. The fight had stopped and Paulo had ducked out the back before Santiago could talk to him. From the little he’d heard, the fight was a familiar one—Hanna wanted more for her family and was working toward it. Paulo was happy right where he was and didn’t see the need to try any harder. It was a hurdle they couldn’t seem to get over.
Santiago had to admit, he was Team Hanna for this one. When Paulo had first been hired at Alberto’s Alfresco, he’d been a go-getter. He’d worked hard to get promoted, but once he made supervisor, it was as if he was done trying. Hanna, on the other hand, was about ready to graduate and become an RN. She already had a job at Overlake Hospital. Santiago couldn’t be more proud of her.
Paulo spotted him. For a half second, his brother seemed just as reluctant to have a conversation, then Paulo smiled and sauntered toward him.
“Checking on the little people to make sure we stay in our place?” Paulo asked. He smiled as he spoke, but Santiago felt the sting in the words.
“Making my usual rounds,” he said easily, refusing to engage. “Everything going okay?”
“This place runs like clockwork.”
All three brothers had dark hair and eyes. Paulo was four years younger than Santiago and about three inches shorter. Both he and Luis had their mother’s slighter build, while Santiago took after their more athletic father. Growing up, he’d been the biggest, the strongest and the fastest by far. He’d also been the oldest, giving him an unfair advantage on every level. He wondered if those were all things Paulo couldn’t ever forgive.
Paulo slapped his clipboard against his thigh. “Targets are being met, bro. You’ll get your executive bonus and be able to buy another fancy car.”
Santiago was aware of the bustle of work all around them. This was not the time to get into a family argument, but he couldn’t let his brother’s words slide.
“In here,” he said firmly, pointing to the storeroom.
For a second he thought Paulo would refuse but after muttering something under his breath, he followed Santiago into the relatively private area.
“What is your problem?” Santiago demanded. “These days you are nothing but attitude.”
“I do my job.”
“And?”
“And nothing.” Paulo’s gaze shifted. “Anything else?”
He was all bristle and bravado, Santiago thought. Just like he’d been as a kid. Paulo had wanted to be the brother good at sports, but he had neither the physical talent nor the mental toughness. He’d tried out for everything and when he hadn’t made varsity in any sport, he’d walked away and proclaimed it all a waste of time. Santiago had the feeling that was happening again.
“What is up with you?” he asked, trying to sound more interested than annoyed.
Paulo stared at him, his chin raised. Santiago half expected him to take a swing, although he had no idea why. Then his brother relaxed.
“Nothing. Nothing,” he repeated. “It’s all good here. Things are tough at home. There are bills to pay and Hanna’s on me all the time.”
“About?”
“Just stuff.” His brother’s gaze slipped to the side.
“Do you need money?”
Paulo glared at him. “No. I don’t want your money. Stop with the money. You’re rich, we all get it. Don’t you think it’s enough that you paid for my house and put my wife through college? Why don’t you just cut off my dick? Then you can be the only man.”
The venom in his brother’s voice stunned him. “What are you talking about? I’m trying to help.”
“I don’t want your help. I never asked for your help.”
“You’re being unreasonable. This is a family thing. We take care of each other.”
“No.” Paulo’s jaw tightened. “You take care of everyone else. You don’t care what we want, it’s all about you.”
“That’s not fair. Hanna wanted to go to college once the kids were in school. She always talked about it. Why is it wrong that I helped out?” He leaned close. “Don’t point the finger at me, Paulo. You had plenty of opportunities. What about your job here? You could be moving up but you won’t do the work. If you think you’re stuck, you only have yourself to blame.”
“Right.” His voice was bitter. “Let me guess. You’ll pay for me to go to college, too. Always the damn hero. That’s all you care about. As for me, I don’t give a crap.”
Paulo walked out of the storeroom. Santiago let him go. When his brother got in a mood like this, there was no arguing with him. As for being the hero, Santiago was willing to admit to that. He took care of his family, he made sure they were all looked after and he knew exactly when that had first started.
His dad had died when Santiago had been eight. At first the family had done okay, but after a couple of years, money had gotten tight. The spring Santiago turned twelve, he’d hurt himself cutting asparagus for a local farmer. The ER visit had cost a few thousand dollars and the family didn’t have insurance. He remembered hearing his mother crying when she thought everyone was asleep. There was no way to raise the money.
A week later, he’d seen a receipt for the bill—it had been marked Paid. A week after that, the same farmer had stopped by to talk to his mother.
There had been something in his mother’s voice—a controlled loathing and resentment that only Santiago had spotted. When the man had left, Santiago had tried to talk to his mother about the farmer. Why had he been there and what did he want?
Something he can’t have again.
Her words hadn’t made sense for a long time, but eventually Santiago had put the pieces together. His mother had slept with the much older man to pay the medical bill. She’d been forced to do that to take care of her son. It was all his fault.
At that moment, shame had brought him to his knees. He’d vowed he would do everything he could to take care of his own. He’d gotten serious about football and despite a minor learning disability, he’d done his best in school. He was his family’s ticket out. It wasn’t so much being a hero as making sure he never hurt his mother that way again.
These days everyone was taken care of. There was a family trust and good medical coverage and plenty of insurance. He’d been blessed and he was generous with those he loved. As for Paulo, he could see it however he wanted. Santiago knew the truth.
* * *
Callie couldn’t believe how long the days had become. She was used to working two jobs and having almost no time to herself. But since arriving in Seattle, she’d done exactly nothing. Saturday and Sunday hadn’t been so bad. She’d hung out with Keira, explored the house and figured out how to use her new electronics, had lunch with her grandfather. Then it had gotten hard. Monday had been a nightmare of nothing to do. Yes, she could text anyone, but it wasn’t as if she had a bunch of friends. She had nothing to look up online, nothing to do, which left her restless, confused and more than a little anxious. By Wednesday morning, she knew she had to figure out a game plan.
She’d explored the neighborhood as much as she could and had figured out the bus schedule. She’d caught a ride to Target with Carmen and had bought a decent jacket and boots, although the cost had nearly made her weep. Even so, she’d indulged in a pair of faux Uggs that had made her heart beat faster just to look at them. Her poor savings account, she thought grimly. It was gasping for air. She knew she would need more clothes, things like sweaters and jeans, but she couldn’t think about that. Not when she had more pressing matters. She needed to get a job.
She went down to breakfast early enough to see Keira before she left for school. Unfortunately that meant dealing with Malcolm, but since their, ah, discussion Monday morning about her needing a car, things had been quiet between them.
She walked into the large dining room and smiled at Keira. Her sister grinned back.
“There are macadamia pancakes,” Keira said happily, still in her bathrobe. “Have you had them before? They’re delicious. Carmen is amazing.”
Callie eyed the plate of pancakes in front of her sister. “They do look good.” She helped herself to coffee and juice and sat down.
Carmen came in from the kitchen. “Pancakes, Callie?”
“Thank you. That would be very nice.”
Carmen smiled and returned to the kitchen. Callie stared after her, still not comfortable ordering food from the family housekeeper. She kept wanting to say she could fix it herself.
But that wasn’t how things were done here, she reminded herself. The rich really were different.
“Where’s Malcolm?” Callie asked, trying to sound casual.
“He already ate. He’s in his study, on a conference call.” Keira rolled her eyes. “It’s international. He’s very busy.”
Callie grinned. “Is he?”
“Uh-huh. He’s expanded the company to a lot of Europe. I don’t know all the countries. Sometimes he travels there.” She thought for a second. “I’d like to go to London, I think. They still have a royal family and that would be fun.”
“Because you’d meet them?”
“No, but I could see a palace. And maybe Paris.” Her expression was wistful. “Angelina talked about Paris a lot.”
Paris. To Callie it was like talking about the moon. Did regular people really get to go places like that? She couldn’t imagine.
Of course a month ago, she would never have imagined that she would be living in this huge house in Seattle. Thinking about it made her head spin. She had family—a concept she couldn’t wrap her mind around. Keira was great and Grandfather Alberto couldn’t be nicer. When they had lunch, he’d told her the history of the family and had mentioned maybe five times how happy he was to have her here. Yesterday he’d talked about the company and how he started it right after the Second World War. But Malcolm was another story.
It wasn’t that he was mean, it was just that... She thought for a second—to be honest, the man scared her. She couldn’t say why, but he did. He was so stern and serious about everything. Keira had confessed she referred to him as her asshole brother. While Callie couldn’t claim he’d behaved that way with her, she got the sentiment.
She didn’t want to think about Malcolm, so asked Keira about her English project. From there the topic shifted to the reality dancing competition they’d watched the previous night.
“You’re wrong,” Keira told her. “Madison was totally the better dancer.”
“You just think she’s prettier. Anastasia knew the routine.”
Carmen came in with Callie’s breakfast. There were pancakes, bacon and a lovely little fruit garnish. “When you’re done, Malcolm would like to see you in his study,” Carmen said with a smile.
“Uh-oh,” Keira whispered.
Callie wanted to say she wasn’t worried, but she found she suddenly had a knot in her stomach.
“I’ll be fine,” she lied.
“Better you than me.”
Fifteen minutes later, Callie gave up pretending she could eat and went up to talk to Malcolm. At the top of the stairs, she turned away from her room and toward his. She told herself that if she didn’t like what he had to say, she would leave. She could find a room to rent and a job and just get on with her life, only the words sounded a lot like whistling in the dark.
She knocked once on his open door and walked into his study. She realized immediately that his floor plan was the reverse of Keira’s, only he used the front room as his home office and the back one as his bedroom.
He sat at a large desk. He was already dressed in a suit and tie, his jacket hanging by the door. He looked up when she knocked and motioned for her to enter and take a seat.
“Thanks for coming to see me,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you about how you’re settling in. Is your room comfortable?”
Was he kidding? Her room was amazing—of course it was comfortable. What else could it be? Was this a trick? She didn’t know him well enough to guess so only said, “It’s very nice, thank you.”
Emotions chased across his face, but she couldn’t read them. She supposed that a disinterested bystander would say that her brother was handsome and he obviously looked successful, but none of that mattered to her.
“I want to make sure you’re happy,” he began, then stopped. “I’m saying this all wrong.”
“Then let me talk,” she said, perched on the edge of her chair. “I need a job.”
“What?”
“I need to work. I have to be doing something with my day. I can’t just sit around here. Carmen keeps the house spotless and while Grandfather Alberto is a fascinating guy, I can’t expect him to entertain me.”
“Okay.” He drew out the word. “What would you like to do?”
Go back to college, she thought wistfully. No, she would like to be eighteen again, on the day of her birthday, and not screw up her whole life. That’s what she would like.
“You know I’m a convicted felon, right?” she asked bluntly.
Malcolm stiffened slightly. “Yes, but I—”
“Don’t,” she told him. “Don’t say it doesn’t matter. Of course it matters. It’s something I have to carry with me every second of every day. It will never be out of my life.” She drew in a breath to get control. “I was in high school. I had fallen in with some bad kids who skipped school and did drugs. My boyfriend convinced me it would be fun to rob a liquor store. I was young and stupid and...” She paused. “That’s all I have. I was young and stupid. I wasn’t bad or evil, just foolish. I was scared, but I thought I had to do it to keep him, so I went along. What I didn’t know was he would use a gun and when we got caught, because he was a selfish jerk, that he would tell the police it was all me. I didn’t ask for a lawyer, I told them I did it and before I knew what was happening, I was convicted.”
She met his gaze. “I was wrong. I’m not blaming anyone else. I take responsibility for what happened, just so you know. I served five years and I’ve been out for three. I lived in a halfway house and I did what I was supposed to do. In theory, I have paid my debt to society, only it’s never over. While I was in prison, I learned to cook. I worked in the kitchen and it was interesting and I got good at it, but I can’t get a job in a restaurant. I can’t get much of a job anywhere because they all have that box you have to check—the one about being a convicted felon.”
She inhaled. “I worked nights cleaning offices and during the day I worked under the table for a caterer. I’m a good worker. I show up, I do my job. I just want to be like everyone else.”
She realized she’d said too much—certainly more than he would want to know, so she pressed her lips together and waited.
He studied her. “You do realize your grandfather started a business based on food. It must be in the blood.”
“Like little tiny pie slices floating around?”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “I wouldn’t have put it that way, but why not? You’re welcome to come work at the company. Just say the word.”
“You’d give me a job there? Knowing what you know?”
He hesitated just long enough for her to figure out he didn’t trust her. “Of course. For what it’s worth, Grandfather Alberto knows about your past, but we haven’t told Carmen or Keira.”
Something she could be grateful for, she thought. “Thank you. And I would like a job at the company.” It would give her a local reference. If she had to take off, at least she would have that.
“You can start tomorrow if you’d like.”
“I would. Thank you.” She prepared to stand, but before she could duck out of the room, he spoke.
“We should talk about money.”
“You mean what you’re going to pay me?”
He frowned. “No. The family money. I was waiting for you to get settled, but I probably should have told you sooner.” He opened a desk drawer and pulled out several envelopes. Two were legal size.
“There’s a family trust,” he began. “Each of us—you, me and Keira—inherit a third of that. In addition, you own a part of the business and part of this house. There are restrictions—you can’t sell any part of the business. If you choose to walk away, then you lose your share of the company. The trust is different. That is fully yours regardless. You can’t touch the principle until you’re thirty-five, but you will receive a quarterly stipend.”
He opened one of the envelopes and pulled out a checkbook. “This quarter’s payment has been made. I took the liberty of opening a checking account in your name. You need to go to the bank and sign some paperwork to activate it, but the money is already in the account.” He held out the checkbook.
Her stomach turned over as unease settled over her. She didn’t want this, she thought. Despite what the lawyer in Houston had said, she wasn’t comfortable just being handed something for nothing. She didn’t know Malcolm or Grandfather Alberto. Why were they doing this? So what if Jerry was her father—she was a stranger.
“Callie?”
She took the checkbook and opened it. The neat printing blurred, cleared, then made her gasp. The opening balance was ten thousand dollars.
“Are you kidding?” she asked before she could stop herself. “That’s what I get every quarter?”
He nodded. “As I said, you can’t touch the principle until you’re thirty-five.”
“H-how much is that?”
“Five million.”
“Dollars?” No. It wasn’t possible.
“You’re allowed two additional withdrawals between now and your thirty-fifth birthday,” he said. “Of a hundred thousand each. If you wanted to buy a car or a house or something.” He passed over one of the large envelopes. “All the paperwork is in here, along with the name of our family lawyer. She can explain everything to you. Just call and say who you are, then make an appointment.”
Right, because she always met with family lawyers. Yawn.
Callie didn’t touch the envelope and she carefully put the checkbook back. “This is too much.”
“I know it’s a lot to take in, but give it time. You’ll get used to it.” He put a small envelope on top of the larger one. “As part of locating you and determining if you were part of the family, we ran a credit check on you.” One eyebrow rose. “You don’t seem to exist in the credit world.”
“I pay cash for everything.”
His tone gentled. “You don’t have to, Callie. Not anymore. You’re going to need a credit history.” He tapped the envelope. “There are a couple of credit cards in there. Start using them. Pay them off every month. If you’re not sure how to build credit, we can talk about it or you can find some articles online.”
Her head hurt and she felt sick to her stomach. If she’d eaten more than a single bite of the pancakes, she was pretty sure she would have thrown them up by now. No wonder he’d been so casual about buying her a car. He could afford to buy her three or three hundred.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked.
“You’re family.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“That doesn’t matter. You’re Jerry’s daughter.” He hesitated. “And my sister.”
She stood. “I don’t want it. Any of it. I just want a job.”
“Be ready at seven fifteen tomorrow.”
“I will. Thank you.”
She put the checkbook back on his desk and walked out. As she got to her room, she had a bad feeling that not taking the paperwork didn’t mean it wasn’t hers. No doubt she would find it in her room later. Malcolm might not be warm and fuzzy but he was thorough. According to him, she was now part of the family. Escaping seemed very unlikely.