My father’s lips pressed into a line. Rey’s voice dropped colder.
“You’re not protecting her,” he said. “You’re trying to steal from her.”
I didn’t react. I let Rey say the sentence because it sounded stronger coming from someone my father had expected to control. Rey turned his tone back toward me.
“Mara,” he said, “do you want me to come down there?”
“No,” I replied calmly. “I want a record.”
“You got it,” he said. “I’m texting you right now that your lease is secure and that I do not recognize any calls or claims from them. Save it.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Rey went quiet for a beat, then added,
“And Mara, if they’re threatening you, call the police, not me.”
My father snapped, unable to hold the mask anymore.
“This is ridiculous,” he hissed into the phone. “You’re overreacting. It’s a family matter.”
Rey’s voice didn’t move.
“Family matters don’t include extortion,” he said. “Goodbye.”
The call ended. The speaker went silent. For half a second, the only sound in my shop was the soft hiss of the espresso machine and the faint clink of a spoon in a cup, someone pretending nothing had happened. My father stared at his phone like it had betrayed him personally. Then he looked up at me, and his face shifted into something uglier than anger. Calculation.
“Cute,” he said softly. “You think you’re safe because your landlord likes you?”
My mother’s smirk returned, thinner now.
“You always find a man to hide behind,” she murmured.
I didn’t respond to that. I didn’t defend myself. I didn’t explain Rey was not a man I hid behind. He was a contract, a permit file, a business rider, a paper trail. My father tapped the contract packet again.
“Sign,” he said, louder now. “Or we’ll do it another way.”
I kept my voice calm.
“What other way?” I asked.
He leaned in, eyes bright with spite.
“You’re running your little shop under an LLC,” he said. “I know your registered agent. I know what you filed when you formed it. You think I can’t touch you because you learned to make lattes?”
My stomach tightened, but I stayed still.
“You haven’t even been in my life for four years,” I said evenly. “How do you know anything about my filings?”
My mother’s eyes flicked to my sister again. Laya’s filming hand trembled slightly, then steadied. My father’s smile sharpened.
“You posted your grand opening,” he said. “You tagged the business page. You’re not as invisible as you think.”
Then he lowered his voice, viciously casual.
“I can file things too,” he whispered. “I can make your business look non-compliant. I can trigger an audit. I can make your merchant account freeze. I can make your suppliers nervous.”
He was describing institutional harassment the way some people describe the weather. I stared at him, calm.
“So you came here to extort me and threaten fraud,” I said.
My father shrugged.
“I came to claim what’s owed,” he said. “Fifteen percent, or you lose everything.”
I didn’t look at the contract again. I looked past him at my customers. They were watching. Not all of them, but enough. And that meant my father was already making the mistake he always makes. He thinks witnesses belong to him. Witnesses belong to whoever has proof. I picked up my phone, unlocked it, and opened my POS dashboard, the backend admin view. I didn’t do it dramatically. I did it like I was checking inventory. Then I tapped one tab: ownership and compliance. My father’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m checking something,” I said.
My mother scoffed.
“Your little app won’t help you.”
I didn’t answer her. I walked to the end of the counter where our small office door was, opened it, and pulled a thin binder from my lockbox shelf. Not a dramatic evidence folder. A real one. Leases, permits, vendor contracts, LLC documents. I returned to the counter, set the binder down, and opened it to one page I’d printed months ago and never thought I’d need. My father stared at it, confused.
“What is that?” he asked.
“It’s my landlord’s ownership statement,” I said calmly. “And the property manager’s authorization letter.”
