Ella Morgan stared at the spreadsheet until the numbers blurred. Red. Everywhere. The final column screamed what she’d been dreading for months: Bankruptcy proceedings recommended.
She sat alone in her father’s old office, the one with the faded leather chair that still smelled faintly of his pipe tobacco. Morgan’s Hardware had been in the family for three generations. Now it was slipping through her fingers like dry sand.
“Ms. Morgan?” The accountant’s voice crackled through the speakerphone, gentle but final. “I’m sorry. Without a major cash injection in the next thirty days, we can’t stop the creditors. Your father’s loans… they were never restructured properly.”
“I understand,” Ella whispered, even though she didn’t. Not really. She’d poured everything into this place—late nights, s
