“Thomas, you son of a bitch! You’ve been sleeping with my wife!”
2
“So that’s why Bella was always ‘working late‘ and never coming home! It was because of you!”
“You’re a real piece of work. You have the nerve to show up at our wedding, in her car, with her driver?”
Lary’s rage escalated with every word. His punch had left me stunned, my mind struggling to catch up.
This has always been my car, my primary vehicle for business. I often lent it to isabella for work. When did it become hers?
“Lary, man, calm down. Bella doesn’t seem like that kind of person, right? Maybe you’re mistaken?” a few classmates tried to inter-
vene, looking awkward.
“Mistaken? I’d recognize this car if it was a pile of burnt scrap metal!” Lary snarled, whipping out his phone and shoving his photo
album in everyone’s faces.
They were private, intimate photos of him and Isabella.
The two of them locked in a passionate kiss in the driver’s seat. Lary holding Isabella in his arms as they posed on the hood of the
car.
I even saw a few that were far more compromising.
The license plate, the specific details of the car–it was undeniable. Isabella had been using my car to carry on an affair with Lary.
In an instant, the onlookers were no longer bystanders. They were a mob, and I was their target.
“Thomas. Care to explain?”
“I knew there was something off about you from the start. I just didn’t realize you were rotten to the core. You’d really stoop so low
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as to seduce your friend’s wife?”
Lary was completely unhinged now, jabbing a finger in my face. “I knew it! That’s why you didn’t want to come to the wedding! You
were afraid of being exposed!”
“You just couldn’t stand to see me happy, could you? You had to come here and ruin everything!”
Even my old college advisor glared at me with disgust. “Thomas, I am ashamed that our school produced someone like you.”
The insults rained down on me. Someone raised their phone, recording me while spewing obscenities.
I let out a cold, humorless laugh, picking up my glasses which had been knocked to the ground. “Twisting the facts, ignoring the
truth. Lary, is this who you really are?”
“Go to hell! I’m the one who’s ignoring the truth? You’re sleeping with my wife and you have the nerve to say that? Have you no shame?” he spat. “Fine. You want to act tough? You want to roll up in my wife’s car just to humiliate me?”
Lary sneered, then pulled out his keys and carved three words into the hood of my Panamera.
“FUCKING SCUMBAG.”
The gouged letters seared my eyes and heart. My voice dropped to an icy whisper. “Are you sure you can afford the price of carving
those words?”
Lary let out a bark of laughter. “Still talking tough? Who the hell do you think you’re fooling?”
“You stole my woman! Keying your car is getting off easy!”
“You should be thanking me for not tearing that filthy mouth off your face!”
With that, he raised his keys and charged at me, a wild look in his eyes, as if he fully intended to rip my lips from my skull.
The crowd didn’t stop him. In fact, they closed in around me, forming a human wall to ensure every one of Lary’s blows landed.
When he was done hitting me, his rage still wasn’t spent. He grabbed a loose brick from a nearby planter and started smashing my car, shattering windows, denting panels, inside and out. His lackeys, my so–called “old classmates,” eagerly joined in, their cheers mingling with the sound of destruction.
“This loser Thomas thinks he can mess with Lary? Our future tycoon? Not on our watch!”
After the car was wrecked and the beating was over, my face and clothes were soaked in a mixture of sweat and their spit. The evening wind was sharp, chilling my skin, but it was nothing compared to the ice in my heart.
“A car is just a car. It can be replaced,” I said, my voice raspy. “But when the bill comes, I hope you can pay it with the same ferocity
you used to smash it.”
“Pah!” Lary spat a thick glob of phlegm onto my collar. “Who do you think you are? Talking like the car is actually yours.”
As he spoke, his eyes fell on the jade locket I wore around my neck. “The hell is this? You trying to look classy with a piece of jade?”
“How much did you pay for this piece of junk at a flea market?”
A cold dread seized me. That locket was the last thing my mother left me. Its sentimental value was immeasurable. He couldn’t
break it.
My instinctive flinch to protect it only spurred him on. He kicked me squarely in the chest, sending me sprawling to the ground.
“Whoa, this actually feels… nice. Doesn’t seem like junk after all,” Lary mused, bending down and ripping the locket from my neck.
“If you touch that, I swear I will make you regret the day you were born!” I roared, my eyes bloodshot, my fists clenched so tight my
knuckles cracked.
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“Threatening me? You?” Lary rolled his eyes and brought his foot down, crushing the jade locket into dust.
“See this?” he said, holding up his hand and waggling a large, ornate ring on his finger. “This ring is what Bella gave me. This is the
real deal!”
I recognized it instantly. It was the engagement ring I had given Isabella. The air was punched from my lungs. I was speechless.
She had given the symbol of my love for her… to him?
Though my heart had already hardened against her, this final, cruel twist was a physical blow. I never imagined her feelings for Lary ran so deep. In her eyes, was I nothing more than an ATM?
Seeing my look of utter devastation, the crowd around Lary erupted in laughter.
“Look at this idiot. He had no idea his girl would drop a million–dollar ring on another man, did he?”
“What’s wrong? Your cheap trinket got crushed by the real thing? Upset?”
Their taunts shocked me back to a cold, hard clarity. I smiled a chilling, empty smile and pulled out my phone.
“Isabella. Get your ass over here. Now.”
