Chapter 3 - The Name on the Box
Camila ran.
The prep hallway smelled like coffee, hot bread, and something sweet smashed into cardboard.
On the stainless-steel counter sat the backup cutting cake she had baked for the kitchen staff to portion after the ceremonial slice. Or what was left of it.
Someone had driven a serving knife straight through the center.
Across the frosting, in jagged red gel, were four words.
STAY IN YOUR PLACE.
Nolan swore under his breath.
Victoria went pale.
Elena pressed a hand to her chest. "Who would do that?"
Camila didn't answer.
Because she knew exactly what those words were meant to do.
They were supposed to humiliate her.
Scare her.
Make her leave before someone discovered something bigger.
Rafael stepped beside her. "Camila, tell me what you need."
Victoria looked between them. "Why does Grandpa know her name?"
Elena ignored the question. "Are you all right, mija?"
That word hit harder than the threat.
Mija.
My girl.
Camila's mother used to say it when flour was in her hair and the rent was late and they were trying to make one more wedding cake in a kitchen barely big enough for two people.
"I'm fine," Camila said.
She wasn't.
Bianca appeared in the doorway. "Security should remove all outside staff until we know what happened."
Rafael turned. "Outside staff?"
Bianca's confidence flickered.
"Yes. The bakery team."
Victoria pointed at Camila. "She's a server."
Elena looked at her granddaughter with genuine confusion. "No, sweetheart. She's not."
Camila closed her eyes for half a second.
So much for keeping tonight quiet.
Elena touched Camila's arm. "This is Camila Reyes."
Nothing.
Victoria shrugged.
Elena smiled sadly. "Luna & Sugar?"
A waiter near the doorway whispered, "No way."
Another employee turned around.
Victoria's expression changed.
Luna & Sugar was not a little neighborhood bakery anymore. In four years, Camila had turned it into one of the most sought-after custom dessert studios in Texas. Wedding magazines photographed her cakes. Chefs knew her name. Celebrities sent assistants to place orders months in advance.
And Victoria had posted one of Camila's cakes to Instagram six weeks earlier with the caption: DREAM BAKER.
Victoria stared at Camila's stained service shirt.
"You own Luna & Sugar?"
Camila met her eyes. "I do."
Elena squeezed Camila's hand. "And she created the cake you nearly had her thrown out for touching."
Silence.
Pure, sharp silence.
Victoria's cheeks went red.
Bianca moved first. "Wonderful. Mystery solved. Now that everyone knows who everyone is, we should get back to the party."
Camila turned to her.
"No."
Bianca smiled. "Excuse me?"
"The locking pin was removed. My backup cake was destroyed. Someone wrote a threat in frosting. That is not a scheduling problem."
Rafael nodded. "She's right."
Bianca's smile tightened. "Then security can investigate quietly."
Camila looked at the ruined cake box.
Something was sticking out from underneath it.
A corner of thick cream paper.
She pulled it free.
It was an invoice.
Her invoice.
But the total at the bottom was wrong.
Camila had billed the Salazar family twenty-eight thousand dollars.
This copy said forty-six thousand.
And at the top, beneath her company logo, was a signature that looked almost exactly like hers.
Almost.
Camila looked up at Bianca.
Bianca stopped smiling.
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