After graduation, I found out my parents had handed our family business to my sister. Mom smiled and said, “You’re good with your hands, not your brain.”

As operations manager.”

I looked around my own shop. Luis was laughing with Marco near the cutting table. Denise was labeling Hawthorne’s next shipment. My company name was painted on the wall, plain and clean.

“No,” I said.

Dad flinched. “Brooke—”

“You didn’t offer me ownership when I earned it,” I said. “You offered me work when you lost control.”

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