Chasing His Kickass Luna Back novel Chapter 9

Abby

I stand with my hands on my hips, watching a group of law enforcement officers pour into my restaurant.

One of them approaches me, a stern expression on her face. “Mam, you need to shut down this restaurant immediately and straighten out your practice.”

“Pardon?” I say, looking around with wide eyes. I can’t believe my ears.

“The restaurant needs to be closed for the month.”

I lower my hands. “Please, I can’t do that,” I say. “I have customers with reservations, and regulars that are expecting to be seated. I can’t just close for a month.”

Just the thought of doing so makes me feel a little sick. The last thing I want is to let my customers down, and who knows what negative effects it could have on my business long term.

“Please, officer–” I start, but she waves me off. She looks completely unmoved by my pleas.

“You have a food safety problem here.”

“No.” I shake my head. “That can’t be right. We’ve gotten an S+ in sanitation every time.”

The officer rises to her full height, that stern expression unwavering. “If you disobey the order again, the police department will detain you.”

I stare down at the cease-and-desist notice, desperately trying to wrap my head around what it means, but even holding it in my hand doesn’t make it seem real. How can this be happening? I’ve never failed a health inspection. Now my restaurant is closed for a month and there’s nothing I can do about it.

“I can’t think of anything that would warrant this,” Olivia says. She’s the only one I didn’t send home after the police raided the place.

“Can you think of any recent hygiene problems?”

She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head.

“Did we offend any regulators?”

She frowns. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Any customer complaints?”

“Not that I can recall.”

I sigh and rub my forehead. “Great, so there’s nothing. We haven’t done anything, and yet here we are, out of business for a full month.”

I’m trying hard not to freak out, especially not in front of Olivia, but it does sort of feel like the end of the world. I worked so hard to build relationships with my customers. Now I’m going to have to call them up and explain why they can’t come in for the reservations some of them made months in advance. And in the meantime, what if they find somewhere else to go? Somewhere they like better?

“Well…” Olivia starts, a pinched look on her face.

“What?”

“That man and woman who were here the other night didn’t look too pleased when they couldn’t get a table.”

It takes me a minute to register who she’s talking about, then my hands curl into fists. Karl. I offended him by not letting him make a reservation, and now he’s taking it out on me.

I should have known. He’s never gone easy on the people who’ve offended him. His pride won’t allow it. The fact that I turned him away, in full view of the packed restaurant and in front of his lady companion, likely made him furious. I’ve seen him get his revenge on people before. Shutting down my restaurant was just the sort of thing he’d do.

And as Alpha, he certainly has the power to make something like this happen.

“You’re probably right,” I say. “Excuse me.”