Petra's Exit Offer Failed Beside The Receipts She Had Dismissed

I read Petra's proposed statement at my kitchen table.

It was only one page.

That made the lie easy to find.

I acknowledge that the collection became company property upon delivery to the workshop.

Below that, she offered to sell me her half of the business for $1.

I called Vanessa.

“If I signed this, what would happen to the blocks?”

“You would damage your ownership claim and hand the lender a document supporting its collateral claim.”

“And the personal loan?”

“It would still be Petra's debt. Your tools could become part of the fight over paying it.”

“Then no.”

Vanessa sent the answer in two sentences.

We did not make a counteroffer that night.

Three weeks later, we returned to court. By then, the rental had shipped on schedule. Our company had received the deposit and the $26,400 payment due at shipment. Naomi kept those funds in the business account for wages, rent, and contract costs.

I had paid my lawyer from savings.

At the hearing, Alder Quay's lawyer examined the original purchase receipt and bank record. Vanessa showed the full C-017 agreement, including the schedule Petra had copied into her loan packet.

The lender's copy began with BX-001.

My original began with a heading: Schedule A To C-017, Property Of Simone Ellis.

The heading had been cropped away.

“Did you prepare the list sent to the lender?” Vanessa asked Petra when it was her turn to testify.

“I assembled the application.”

“Did you have this original schedule?”

“Yes.”

“Did Simone sign a later transfer?”

“She acted as if they belonged to the shop.”

“Was there a signed transfer?”

“No.”

Her voice had become small enough that the judge asked her to repeat the answer.

She did.

No.

When I testified, her lawyer asked whether washing had been among my duties.

“Yes. Clean hair takes a better set.”

“So that part of her description was accurate?”

“I washed hair. I also made the wigs, shaped the fittings, trained the apprentices, and owned the blocks.”

He moved to his next question.

I kept my hands open on the table. There was dried setting lotion beside my thumbnail. I had come straight from checking the shipment, and I had missed it when I washed.

I had imagined that moment in ugly ways during nights when I could not sleep. In the room, I mostly wanted water.

The lender's lawyer said his client was prepared to release all claims against the collection and correct its filings. Its claim for repayment would remain against Petra.

The judge gave the lawyers time to discuss terms before further testimony.

In a conference room, Petra sat across from me without her white jacket.

“You could have taken the dollar deal,” she said.

“You could have left my name on the schedule.”

Her lawyer asked us to let him speak.

So we did.

Naomi had prepared a business valuation, and both sides had accepted $18,400 as the price of Petra's half before settling the separate claims.

The final math took most of an hour.

Of that purchase price, $4,800 would go back into the company to replace the false supply payment. Another $4,860 would reimburse legal costs I had paid, and $1,440 would cover documented transport and temporary storage costs I had advanced.

That left $7,300, which Petra directed me to pay straight to her lender.

I would fund the company payment and the lender payment from my own savings. The $6,300 owed back to me would be credited against the purchase price.

No rental wages would fund her exit.

Petra would resign every company role, surrender her keys and passwords, and sell me her full interest. She would also sign a correction for the apprentices and the costume contacts who had received her ownership claims.

“I won't write an apology for you,” I told her. “I want the facts corrected.”

The correction said I had been an equal founding member and remained sole owner of the eighty-four loaned blocks. It withdrew the claim that I had merely been a maintenance contractor.

Petra read it twice.

Then she signed.

The lender agreed in writing that neither I nor the company owed Petra's personal loan. Its release covered every block number and the company collateral claim.

The settlement would resolve our civil claims once the payments and transfers were complete. The court entered the agreed ownership declaration and kept a deadline for proof that the remaining steps had been done.

Outside, Petra held out the old workshop keys.

“You will need a new lock anyway,” she said.

“Yes.”

She waited, perhaps for one last argument.

I took the keys.

Before I reached the parking lot, Franklin called.

“The first performance report just arrived,” he said. “You should read what they wrote about the hairlines.”