Rialto (Unbreakable Bonds 8)

“So, you’ve made up your mind? Want to go find a dining table now?” Ian leaned over and ran his hand over the coffee table. “Are you going for just the couch, love seat, and chair—or are you going for the tables, too?”

“Let’s look for other tables. These have sharp corners, and I don’t want Daciana to get hurt when she starts pulling up on things.”

Ian nodded and stood, his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulled it out, read the text, and shook his head.

“Let me guess,” Andrei said. “Snow.”

“You know he decided to plan his own wedding, right?”

Andrei nodded.

“He should have just let me do it at this rate.” He held out the phone so Andrei could read the text.

Colors don’t really matter, do they?

Andrei chuckled as he slipped Daci into the stroller. “He was texting Lucas, too, until Lucas fired back that he didn’t give a shit about any of that stuff either—just marrying me. That’s why he’d left it all to you.”

“Wonder if he’s even tried hitting up Rowe.” Ian should have insisted he do the planning. It wasn’t like he hadn’t already started the moment they announced their plans.

“That would be like asking a bomb specialist to plan the wedding.”

Laughing, Ian started to put his phone into his pocket, but he noticed he had a new notification. He had alerts set for anything to do with Rialto because he’d worried so much about rumors after the ICE raid. When he saw it was just reviews, he nearly quit reading, but a one-star caught his eye. Then he saw there were several new ones and they were all one-stars. His gut clenched hard. Even knowing he shouldn’t read them, he couldn’t stop himself and his mouth dropped open with the second one.

“What’s wrong?” Andrei asked, looking over his shoulder.

“There’s a stream of bad reviews coming in for Rialto.” He thumbed down the screen.

“Everyone gets a bad review here and there.”

“Not seven in one day—not my place.” He pointed to the second review. “And this isn’t even real. We don’t serve shepherd’s pie. According to this review, the food took forever, the mashed potatoes were undercooked, and the service was terrible.”

Andrei frowned. “Maybe you shouldn’t read those.”

“This one says the wine was off. We serve only the best wines, and I make sure they’re all good.” Ian growled, his eyes widening on the next review. He didn’t say anything out loud because he hadn’t told the others about the raid, but this review brought up animals in the kitchen and rumors of drugs. His heart beat so hard, he could hear it pulsing in his ears, drowning out anything Andrei might have said. His hands started to sweat.

This could hurt him. Hurt him badly.

Even as he read, more one-star reviews poured in. And there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The walls narrowed around him as panic built in a tight, painful knot in his chest. He worked so hard to make that restaurant what it was, and yeah, low reviews had come in here and there, but never anything like this. His hands were shaking as he forced himself to shut down the phone and place it in his pocket.

Andrei rubbed his back. “I’m really sorry about this, Ian.”

“There must be something I can do. I’ll call James and see about reporting these reviews as fake,” Ian said, mentioning his business manager, James Dunkle. The man had been with him since the opening of Rialto and was brilliant at handling much of the day-to-day ordering and human resources stuff Ian didn’t even want to think about. “Or maybe hire a reputation management firm. It’s so much easier to handle disgruntled people when they actually happen to be at the restaurant. If I have someone displeased, I can comp meals or offer gift certificates, anything. This is all happening online, and some of these reviews are for food we don’t even serve. It’s not really fair.”

“It’s suspicious.”

It was. But Andrei didn’t know about the raid, and some of those reviews had to do with that. He could imagine dissatisfied patrons being upset at getting caught up in the mess. He swiped a hand through his hair and closed his eyes, counting to bring himself back under control. When he opened them, he had a better handle on his emotions, though they boiled inside him. He’d meet with James and come up with a plan since he wouldn’t just take this sitting down. “Let’s enjoy the shopping trip. I can hardly get anyone to shop with me these days, and I don’t want to ruin this. We’re going to find you the best tables to go with that furniture.”

Andrei’s dark eyes held concern. “Are you sure you still feel like it? There’s no hurry. We don’t move in for several weeks yet.”