Chapter 2

When the front desk urgently paged me down to the lobby, I could hear the hysterical screaming before the elevator doors even opened.

"Someone help me! Look at what the younger generation has become! So heartless!"

"She signed an agreement! She promised to look after my mother this weekend, but she bailed!"

"My poor mother broke her leg and laid on the cold floor for three hours!"

The elevator doors slid open, revealing a lobby packed with people.

Security guards, coworkers, janitors, and even a few strangers holding up their phones, livestreaming the whole thing.

Right in the center of the lobby lay a stretcher.

An elderly woman with white hair lay on it, her leg wrapped in a thick plaster cast. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her face was deathly pale.

It was my neighbor, Grace.

Kneeling beside the stretcher, sobbing with tears and snot running down his face, was her son, Pierce.

Pierce was wearing a faded, washed-out shirt, holding a piece of paper high in the air.

The moment he saw me step out, he sprang up from the floor and pointed a shaking finger at me, screaming:

"Amanda! You finally showed your face!"

"Look at what you did to my mother!"

Instantly, every gaze in the room stabbed into me like knives.

I didn’t flinch. Stepping firmly in my high heels, I walked toward him, one deliberate step at a time.

"Pierce, what kind of crazy stunt are you pulling here?"

My voice wasn't loud, but in the spacious lobby, it cut through the noise with absolute clarity.

Pierce sneered, slamming the paper onto the reception desk next to him.

"Me? Crazy?"

"Amanda, this is the 'Volunteer Caregiver Agreement' you signed with your own hand!"

"It states clearly right here. You promised to look after my mother every single weekend, 24/7!"

"Last Saturday, you ignored my calls just so you could go out on some hot date!"

"My mother wanted a glass of water, tried to get out of bed herself, and shattered her hip!"

"You are going to take responsibility today!"

"Pay up fifty thousand dollars for her medical bills, or I will make sure you get fired from this company!"

The crowd immediately erupted into hushed whispers.

"She looks so pretty, how could she be so cruel?"

"How can you break a promise like that? An old lady almost died."

"Exactly. Abandoning an elder just for a date? That’s disgusting."

I stared coldly at Pierce. His face was slightly distorted with a sick sense of triumph.

I could see the greedy, calculating glint in his eyes.

He assumed that by making a scene at my workplace, I would desperately hand over the cash just to save my job and reputation.

I picked up the so-called agreement from the desk.

The paper was crisp and new, the form poorly formatted.

It indeed had my name, phone number, and apartment number printed on it.

And at the very bottom, there was my "signature."

The handwriting was a decent imitation. But I knew with absolute certainty that I had never signed any such thing.

I laid the paper down, pulled out my phone, and dialed 911.

"Hi, I need to report an incident."

"I am at the lobby of Parkview Tower."

"A man is using a forged document to extort fifty thousand dollars from me. He is currently disrupting a place of business and causing a public nuisance."

"Yes, the suspect is right here. Please dispatch officers immediately."

I hung up and looked back at Pierce.

The smug grin on his face instantly froze.