Chapter One: The Funeral and the Fizz

Rain wasn’t scheduled that Thursday. In fact, Butera Perez Diaz had checked five different weather apps just to be sure—each forecasted “sunny with a chance of California smug.” But here she stood, soaked in a black dress two sizes too large, while her parents’ $40,000 titanium-and-silver coffins were lowered into the Perez Diaz family plot beside a solid marble statue of a squirrel holding a protein bar.

She sniffled. Not just from grief—but also because the rain had caused her nose to leak like a faulty soda tap.

“Would you like a tissue, Miss Perez Diaz?” asked a man in a tight black suit. He looked like he ate interns for breakfast and smiled only for LinkedIn headshots. His name was Barrister Lawrence Blackwood, her family’s legal adviser, and he had the emotional range of a printer manual.

Butera didn’t answer. She nodded. Quietly. Like she always did.

The ceremony was private. That is, only 113 people showed up. Most of them were strangers to Butera. Some of them were probably only there for the free mini-muffins and to say things like “I always knew Alejandro was a visionary,” even if they once tried to sue him over a soggy cheese puff incident.

Aunt Imelda sobbed theatrically into her third tissue, while Cousin Riccardo (whom Butera had only met on Zoom once) checked his crypto wallet behind a tombstone.

By the time the priest said the final “Amen,” Butera was already mentally spiraling.

Her parents were gone. Her life was now an empty luxury mansion filled with uncomfortable furniture and automatic sliding doors that made a loud whooshing sound every time her cat walked by. And as if that weren’t enough......

“Miss Perez Diaz,” Barrister Lawrence Blackwood said, snapping his briefcase open with all the ceremony of a guillotine, “as per the will, you are now the sole inheritor of TasteWaves Enterprises. Effective immediately.”

She blinked.

“Effective...immediately?” she asked, her voice barely louder than the rain.

“Yes. You are now Chief Executive Officer of a multibillion-dollar beverage and snack manufacturing empire. Congratulations. You’re also in charge of supervising over 12,000 employees globally and dealing with our hostile rival corporation, CrunchCorp, whose CEO has already requested a ‘friendly merger meeting.’ She left a gift basket. With a skull inside.”

Butera took a shaky breath. Her hair stuck to her cheeks. She had just turned 19 last month. Her biggest accomplishment this year had been figuring out how to reset the Wi-Fi in her room. Now she was being handed an empire built on juice boxes, plantain chips, and carbonated candy.

She turned to Barrister Lawrence Blackwood whom she had always partially known since childhood.

“Do I...get an office?”

He hesitated. “You get the entire top floor. With a koi pond, an espresso bar, and, I regret to inform you... a board of executives who want your head on a charcuterie board.”

“Oh,” Butera whispered.

She sneezed.

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