Page 23 of Tough Luck

A few minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot of the Clear Creek facility. It was an older building that had been refurbished sometime after I’d left Golden five years ago.

I didn’t let Sofia carry any of the heavy cases. Instead, I tucked the three presentation boards under my arms and tossed the laptop case over my shoulder, leaving her to carry only her briefcase. We walked through the front doors and were immediately escorted back to the main executive boardroom. It was a rugged, beautiful space featuring a massive conference table made from a single, reclaimed slab of Colorado pine and windows that looked directly down onto the gleaming stainless-steel fermentation tanks.

For the next few minutes, I helped her set everything up. We positioned the three covered easels in a commanding semi-circle at the front of the room, hooked up the laptop to the projector, and then laid the printed marketing briefs at each seat.

By the time the conference doors opened, Sofia was standing by the easels, her posture straight, a fierce, quiet focus settling over her features. The nervous woman from the passenger seat was officially gone.

Marcus walked in first, his booming laugh echoing off the glass walls. Right behind him were three other members of the brewery’s executive board—their chief financial officer, the head of regional distribution, and the lead quality director.

“Rick! Good to see you,” Marcus said, stepping forward to give me a firm, bone-crushing handshake before turning to Sofia with a warm smile. “And Sofia, great to see you again.” I watched him shake Sofia’s hand and hold it a little longer than I felt comfortable with. “You ready to show these corporate cynics what ‘Poured in Golden’ actually means?”

“More than ready,” Sofia said smoothly, shaking his hand without a hint of the tremor that I’d seen earlier.

Once everyone was seated, I stepped in, taking the lead on the professional formalities. “Everyone, thank you for having us. This is Sofia Ferreira, our lead creative strategist.”

We went around the table, doing a quick round of introductions with the rest of the board. The atmosphere was friendly, but the sharp, analytical looks told me they were expecting a highly polished, aggressive pitch after whatever Leonard had thrown at them the day before.

I took my seat at the corner of the table, crossed my arms, and looked up at Sofia. I gave her a slow, deliberate nod of approval and mouthed.

“Go get ’em.”

Sofia took a steady breath, her hazel eyes locking onto Marcus. With a smooth, practiced motion, she stepped forward and pulled the heavy cloth cover away from the primary easel, revealing the first sleek, high-res graphic mock-ups.

“Thank you all for having us,” Sofia began, her voice carrying a resonant, confident clarity that filled the room. “Clear Creek Brewery has spent years building a legendary reputation here in the foothills. But as you look toward regional expansion, our goal isn’t just to sell your beer to the wider market—it’s to export the authentic Golden lifestyle. I think we’ve designed a strategy that connects directly with the active consumer.”

She stepped closer to the board, gesturing to the vibrant layouts.

“Instead of traditional billboard space, we are proposing hyper-local, geo-targeted mobile campaigns aimed at tourists the exact moment they step out of the water down at the creek. Combined with that, we’ve designed interactive can concepts featuring beautiful, minimalist topographic maps of our local mountain trails. Clear Creek isn’t just a beverage; it’s the premium reward for living the Colorado outdoor experience. It’s forged in the Rockies, and poured right here in Golden.”

She paused, smiling warmly as she wrapped up her opening hook, waiting for the enthusiastic reaction we had rehearsed.

But the reaction never came.

Instead, a heavy, suffocating silence fell over the boardroom. Marcus wasn’t smiling. There was an actual crease between his brows. As Sofia continued, his brow furrowed deeply as his eyes darted from Sofia’s presentation board over to the chief financial officer sitting next to him. The CFO shifted uncomfortably, adjusting his glasses while looking down at the printed briefs we’d passed out.

I immediately straightened up in my chair, my internal alarm bells sounding a deafening warning. The energy in the room had completely shifted into something cold and rigid.

Marcus cleared his throat, interrupting Sofia with a low, rumbling sound. He leaned forward on his forearms, looking directly at me with a pained expression.

“Rick…” Marcus said slowly, shaking his head. “I’m really not sure what’s going on here. But we saw pretty much this exact same presentation yesterday afternoon.”

I sat back, my blood instantly turning to ice as Marcus’s words echoed through the timbered room.

Sofia was still holding the cloth she had just pulled away from the last easel, when her body frozen and her face completely drained of color. The vibrant digital layouts and the beautifully drawn can designs stood exposed under the boardroom lights, but the energy in the room had shifted into something suffocating.

“What do you mean, the same presentation?” I asked, my voice dangerously calm, the corporate executive veneer locking hard into place.

“I mean everything,” the brewery’s CFO chimed in, adjusting his glasses as he looked over our printed briefs. “The designs are slightly different, but the interactive trail maps on the cans are the same, even the color palettes. Outside of that ‘Poured in Golden’ tagline you mentioned at the restaurant, everything she just laid out is identical to what was pitched to us yesterday.”

Marcus sighed, leaning forward on his forearms. “He even claimed it was all his proprietary work. We liked what we saw yesterday. It’s a killer strategy. But walking into this room today and seeing pretty much the carbon copy? It doesn’t look good for Gold Standard. It looks like you guys are trailing behind a boutique startup and at almost double the cost.”

I could feel the raw, crushing weight of the moment pressing down on Sofia. She didn’t say a word, but her knuckles were white against the edge of the easel. She was being robbed once again in broad daylight, her hard work paraded around by a thief who had used her to build his life raft.

I stood up slowly, drawing the attention of the entire board away from Sofia, absorbing the pressure.

“Marcus, gentlemen, I apologize for any confusion. I fully understand how this looks,” I said, my voice steady, carrying the absolute weight of authority. “But I can assure you, with absolute certainty, that what you are looking at right now is the original, authentic pitch. Leonard Whistler was an employee of Gold Standard Marketing up until last week, but every concept, every line of copy, and every strategy on that board was conceived right inside our building by none other than Sofia. Mr. Whistler left our firm under… less than honorable circumstances. And it appears that he must have taken property which didn’t belong to him.”

Marcus stared at me, his brow furrowing. His family had known my family for a decades, and he knew I didn’t play corporate games. “That’s a heavy accusation, Rick.”