Chapter 6 - THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
The lawsuit arrived on a Tuesday morning in a cream-colored envelope thick enough to feel theatrical. Gisela was testing a pistachio cream when Daniela walked into the kitchen and placed the papers on the stainless-steel counter.
“Maison Valeria is suing Firma, Ferrer Capital, and you personally,” Daniela said.
Gisela wiped her hands on a towel. “For what?”
“Misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of confidentiality, unfair competition, defamation, and interference with commercial relationships.”
Tomás whistled from the other side of the room. “They forgot murder.”
Daniela did not smile. “They’re asking for an injunction to prevent Firma from selling several products, including the raspberry-almond pastry.”
Gisela stared at the papers. She had expected retaliation. She had not expected her stomach to drop as if the floor vanished beneath her. Legal language carried its own kind of intimidation. Allegations became paragraphs, paragraphs became exhibits, and suddenly a family recipe looked like something she had stolen from the company that stole it from her.
By noon, news outlets had the filing. Maison Valeria released a statement claiming Gisela had “weaponized confidential collaborative processes for personal enrichment.” Anonymous sources told business reporters she had copied production systems and taken proprietary ingredient ratios. A gossip account published a photo of Gisela entering Ferrer Capital and suggested that her relationship with Julián had begun before the engagement ended. The implication spread faster than any correction could.
Gisela threw her phone into a drawer.
“I knew they’d attack the work,” she told Daniela. “I didn’t think they’d make it about him.”
“They make it about whatever weakens you.”
Julián arrived twenty minutes later, furious. “My communications team wants to issue a denial.”
“No,” Gisela said.
He stopped. “No?”
“If we respond to every rumor, we spend our lives inside their story.”
“They’re calling you opportunistic.”
“They called me a servant last week. People who want to reduce me will choose a word no matter what I do.”
Julián studied her. “What do you want to do?”
“Open the workshop.”
The legal team objected. The financial team objected. Even Daniela advised a short delay until the injunction hearing. Gisela refused. Firma’s preview opening was scheduled in eleven days. Apprentices had already been selected for trial shifts. Suppliers had committed deliveries. More importantly, postponement would look like fear.
Then the suppliers began canceling.
First came the almond cooperative, citing “capacity limitations.” Then a packaging company canceled a custom box order despite a signed purchase agreement. A refrigeration technician stopped returning calls. By the end of the week, four vendors had withdrawn.
Tomás slammed a clipboard onto the prep table. “Helena.”
“We can’t prove it,” Gisela said.
“We don’t need proof to know.”
“We do if we’re going to accuse her.”
The distinction mattered. Gisela had spent too long being harmed by claims without evidence. She would not become careless now merely because she was angry.
They improvised. Julián’s procurement team found a smaller almond supplier outside the city. Gisela switched packaging to plain recycled paper tied with blue thread, the way Rosa had once sold market pastries. Customers online loved the photographs when the story leaked. What began as sabotage became part of Firma’s identity.
That victory lasted two days.
On Friday night, someone released internal-looking documents to the press. The files appeared to show Gisela signing away all recipe rights to Maison Valeria three years earlier. The signature looked like hers. The date aligned with a real promotion. Commentators who had praised her at the gala began asking whether the entire scandal had been staged.
Daniela arrived at Firma close to midnight with printed copies. “Did you sign this?”
Gisela read the page once, then again. Her name was there. Her employee number. Even the old address she had used at the time.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
The question hurt, though Daniela meant it professionally.
“I remember every contract they put in front of me because I was terrified of signing something exactly like this.”
Daniela pointed to the bottom. “The signature is convincing.”
Tomás leaned over. “The header is wrong.”
Everyone looked at him.
He tapped the logo. “Maison Valeria changed its document template two years ago. This logo didn’t exist on the date printed here.”
Daniela’s eyes narrowed. “That helps.”
Gisela looked closer. “The font on my employee number is different too.”
By dawn, a forensic document examiner had been hired. The conclusion came forty-eight hours later: the signature appeared copied from another document and digitally placed. Metadata from the leaked PDF showed it had been created only six days earlier.
“Can we prove who created it?” Gisela asked.
“Not yet,” Daniela said. “But we can prove it’s false.”
They released the forensic report publicly with no emotional statement, only evidence. The story reversed. Commentators who had questioned Gisela began criticizing Maison Valeria’s legal tactics, though the Armand family denied involvement with the leaked file.
Then came a more dangerous blow.
Three days before the preview opening, Firma’s main refrigeration system failed overnight.
Gisela arrived at five in the morning to find the kitchen warm and thousands of dollars of fruit purées, cream, butter, and prepared fillings outside safe temperature ranges. Tomás stood near the walk-in cooler with his face gray.
“The control unit was manually disabled,” he said.
Gisela stared at him. “Accident?”
He shook his head.
Security footage showed a hooded figure entering through the loading area at two seventeen in the morning using a temporary contractor code that should have been inactive. The face was hidden. Nothing was stolen. Only the refrigeration controls had been altered.
Julián wanted private security immediately.
Gisela agreed for the first time.
The preview opening could no longer proceed as planned. They had lost almost all prepped inventory, and health regulations required disposal. The staff stood around the long steel table as trash bins filled with ruined work.
One apprentice, a nineteen-year-old named Marisol, began to cry silently. “We worked all week.”
Gisela felt something inside her fracture.
For ten years she had swallowed anger because survival required it. Now she looked at the exhausted faces around her and understood that this was no longer only her fight. People had trusted her enough to leave jobs, accept training positions, and attach their names to Firma.
She climbed onto a low step stool so everyone could see her.
“We throw out everything unsafe,” she said. “No shortcuts. No excuses.”
Tomás nodded.
“We clean. We start again.”
“With what ingredients?” someone asked.
Gisela looked at the bare shelves.
Then she remembered Rosa during the flood year, when deliveries failed and the market still opened on Sunday.
“With what we can get locally,” she said. “Apples. Honey. Cornmeal. Fresh cheese. Citrus. Whatever is good.”
Tomás stared at her, then slowly smiled.
Gisela took a marker and turned to the development board.
At the top she wrote three words:
NEW MENU. TONIGHT.
May you like
Outside, thunder rolled over the city.
Inside, ovens began to heat.
