Richest Man: It All Started With My Rebate System-Chapter 35: Due Diligence Team Contact

By the time Steven got home, it was already mid afternoon. He stepped into the apartment and walked straight to the bedroom with the bags in his hands.

He took out the dirty training gear and dropped it in the laundry basket, then arranged the clean pieces carefully in the wardrobe. A week ago he hadn’t owned enough clothes to require one.

He looked at the wardrobe and noted how sparse it still was. Then he remembered the deliveries and smiled. The Burberry, the John Lobb, the Cartier — all of it arriving tomorrow. The wardrobe would look considerably different by the end of the day.

The suits were the exception. Made-to-measure took time, and Tom Ford wasn’t going to rush for anyone. He accepted that without impatience.

The Superleggera was also coming tomorrow, assuming Marcus’s team called in the morning with the delivery window as promised. Steven hadn’t heard from them today, which meant tomorrow was the working assumption.

He was looking forward to seeing it in person again, in a space that belonged to him rather than a showroom floor. Though seeing it would only sharpen the problem he hadn’t fully resolved yet — he still didn’t have the licence to ride it. He would need to carve out time for the test, and the sooner the better. Tomorrow was a possibility, depending on how the morning went with Raymond and whether anything else pulled at his schedule.

He filed it away and left the bedroom.

In the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it for a moment, deciding. The oatmeal from breakfast had been long since burned off, and the training session had taken more out of him than he had expected for an assessment day. His body was asking for something real.

He settled on a proper lunch. Something filling, meant to replace what the morning had taken. He had the groceries for it and the time, and there was no reason to shortchange himself on either.

He cooked without rushing, moving through the kitchen with the ease that had come from years of doing this in spaces far less suited for it. The new kitchen made it feel different — the equipment responsive, the space generous, everything where it should be. He still wasn’t entirely used to it.

Almost an hour later, he sat down at the dining table and started eating.

He took his time with it, enjoying every single bite.

When he was done, he cleared everything, washed up, and moved to the living area.

He dropped onto the sofa, picked up the controller, and settled into the cushions.

The game loaded and he picked up where he had left off.

Three minutes in, the phone buzzed on the cushion beside him.

He caught a dangerous attack on instinct, barely. He exhaled, glanced at the screen, and saw an unknown number.

He paused the game.

He thought about who it could be. The number wasn’t saved, which meant it wasn’t anyone already in his life. Adrian’s contact wouldn’t come from an unknown number at this stage. The Superleggera team would call from the dealership. Raymond had taken his number at the gym but wouldn’t have a reason to call the same afternoon.

Then he remembered what Adrian had said that morning. The due diligence firm would be in touch.

He picked up the call.

He picked the call and a voice came from the other end, introducing himself as Daniel Reeves, senior analyst at Meridian Commercial Advisory.

"Mr. Craig," Daniel said. "We were referred to you earlier today through Chase Private Banking. I understand you’re looking to acquire a restaurant and need a full commercial due diligence review before any offer goes to the owner."

"That’s right," Steven said, pausing the game and setting the controller down.

"Good. I’d like to get the details from you directly so we can move on this quickly. Do you have a few minutes now?"

"I do," Steven said.

"Perfect. Let’s start with the basics. Name and location of the establishment."

"Caldwell’s on Westheimer Road, in Montrose," Steven said, without hesitation, giving the name of the restaurant.

Daniel typed briefly on the other end. "And the owner’s name?"

"Gerald Holt," Steven said. "He has several businesses. The restaurant is one of his smaller operations. From what I observed, he treats it as a secondary concern. He’s rarely on site."

"How do you know the business?" Daniel asked. The question was direct but not aggressive. It was standard professional due diligence.

"I worked there for just over two years," Steven said. "I left recently."

There was a brief pause on Daniel’s end, as he noted that down.

"That’s actually useful context," Daniel said. "Firsthand operational knowledge tells us where to look before we even walk through the door. Can you walk me through what you observed during that time?"

Steven leaned back into the sofa cushions.

"The main issue is inventory," he said. "Stock was going missing on a regular basis. Not the kind of variance you’d attribute to waste or spillage. It was consistent and it followed a pattern, like certain items, certain days of the week, always when specific staff weren’t around to notice. The manager was the one facilitating it."

"The manager," Daniel said. "Not the owner."

"The owner wasn’t there enough to know what was happening. The manager had effectively been running the place without oversight for long enough that he got comfortable. He had been doing it since before I started, from what I could tell."

"Did you ever see documentation of this? Inventory records, delivery logs, anything on paper?"

"I saw the records being adjusted," Steven said. "I didn’t have direct access to the books, but I saw enough to understand what the adjustments were covering. The pattern was consistent."

"That’s helpful," Daniel said, typing again. "We’ll go in through the financials first — purchase records, supplier invoices, inventory logs against reported waste. If the adjustments are there, they’ll show up in the numbers. They always do."

"They’ll show up," Steven said.

There was a quiet confidence in his voice that Daniel noted without commenting on.

"For the approach to the owner," Daniel continued, "we’ll reach out as an advisory firm conducting preliminary market research on behalf of an interested buyer. No connection to you will be mentioned at any stage. The offer framing will come later, once we have a full picture of what the business is actually worth versus what’s being asked."

"The offer is three million," Steven said. "That’s already decided."

There was another brief pause.

"That’s a significant premium for a single-location restaurant," Daniel said, in the measured tone of a professional who had been asked to work with numbers that didn’t follow standard logic before.

"I know," Steven said. "Make sure it reaches the owner clearly. I want the deal closed efficiently, not negotiated over several weeks."

"Understood," Daniel said. "At that number, the conversation with the owner will be short."

"That’s the idea."

"We’ll begin the process tomorrow morning," Daniel said. "Initial contact with the owner’s office, simultaneous request for financial documentation through the standard acquisition inquiry channel. Depending on how quickly the owner responds and how cooperative the records are, you should have preliminary findings within seven to ten business days."

"That works," Steven said.

"Is there anything else you can tell me about the operation that would help us know where to look?"

Steven thought for a moment.

"The cash flow on busy nights didn’t match the reported covers," he said. "Tables were being turned at a rate the end-of-night numbers didn’t reflect. I noticed it because I was on the floor and I could count. Whoever was reconciling at the end of the night was working with different numbers than what actually happened."

Daniel was quiet for a moment.

"That’s a second thread," he said. "We’ll pull both."

"Good," Steven said.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Craig. We’ll be in touch as the review progresses. You’ll receive updates at each significant stage."

"I appreciate it," Steven said.

"Of course. Good evening."

The call ended.

Steven set the phone down and looked at the paused screen for a moment.

It had taken less than fifteen minutes. Everything he had carried quietly for two years — the things he had seen and chosen not to act on because he had no position from which to act — had just been handed to people whose entire job was to find exactly what he had described and document it in a way that couldn’t be argued with.

He picked up the controller and unpaused the game.

The boss character was still there, waiting.

"Your turn," he said quietly, and it wasn’t entirely clear which one he meant.