The door to the back office didn’t simply swing open. It gave way. The hinges groaned as if they understood resistance was pointless. The sound carried through the cramped corridor, past the humming freezer units and the clatter of dishes, into a space where authority was usually assumed rather than challenged. Daniel Whitmore stepped inside. He didn’t enter the way executives usually did—with noise, with an entourage, with rehearsed confidence meant to announce power. He walked in the way gravity moves: quietly, inevitably, without apology. The room seemed to recalibrate itself around him. Bryce Carter, the location manager, sat behind...
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