Chapter 4

Nora sent me the campaign through an encrypted link. The video opened on my studio before the storm. Sienna stood at my worktable, sunlight falling across her hands. Behind her hung the indigo pattern I had designed from my grandmother's kitchen curtains.

"Our first collection began with a woman who believed handmade things could hold a family together," Sienna said.

Not her grandmother. Mine. She lifted a finished product card toward the camera. In its lower corner was a digital copy of my brass maker's mark:

MARA B. - MADE BY HAND

My hand went to the clear pouch beside my bed. I held the real seal while Sienna used its image to tell my life. The campaign file contained an old approval chain. Six months earlier, someone from marketing had asked whether the founder story should be narrated by me.

Daniel had replied: Mara doesn't need the pressure. Sienna tells the story better. Move forward with her. Six months.

Long before the pregnancy was exposed. Long before the flood. I called Nora.

"File for divorce."

She paused. "Are you certain?"

"He left me on a roof with no life jacket."

"I am not questioning the reason. I'm asking whether you want me to file now, before we finish reviewing the company documents."

"Now."

Saying it hurt. It also made the room feel more solid around me.

"I'll prepare the petition," Nora said. "But you need to understand what happens next."

She reminded me of numbers I already knew. Bennett & Bay was an LLC with three members. I owned forty percent. Daniel owned forty. Sienna owned twenty, granted five years earlier when I had insisted she deserved recognition for helping us expand. As long as Daniel and I voted together, my position had been secure.

If we no longer did, Daniel and Sienna controlled sixty percent of the member vote. I had always thought of my marriage and my company as separate things. The math said otherwise.

"Can they remove me?" I asked.

"Not as an owner. But they may be able to remove you from management, appoint officers, and control ordinary operations. Your personal intellectual property is a separate issue."

A familiar instinct rose inside me: wait, calm down, let Daniel explain. That instinct had nearly killed me.

"File it," I repeated.

Then I logged into the company account and wrote one message to Daniel, Sienna, senior staff, and outside counsel. I am alive. I am of sound mind. No one is authorized to speak on my behalf or approve the use of my personal name, history, or work without my written consent. I read it twice.

Then I pressed send. Replies began appearing almost immediately. Shock. Relief. Questions.

Daniel called the hospital less than three minutes later. I watched his name light up the borrowed phone and let it ring. A new email arrived before the call stopped.

NOTICE OF EMERGENCY MEMBERS' MEETING

The meeting had been scheduled for nine the next morning. There was only one item on the agenda:

Appointment of Sienna Cole as Acting Chief Executive Officer.