Chapter 3

A few minutes later, the diner door swung open, letting in a blast of chilly air.

Three men sauntered in. Leading the pack was a guy with a buzz cut and a leather jacket, sporting a thick fake-gold chain around his neck that jingled with every swaggering step.

Trailing behind him were a scrawny dude with bleached-blond hair and a burly guy in a tight black tee.

The buzz-cut guy scanned the room, his eyes finally landing on me. A crooked smirk spread across his face, and he let out a mock chuckle.

"Yo, Big Tony, this is it? You can't even handle one chick?"

The owner walked out from the kitchen, looking thoroughly humiliated and aggravated as he jabbed a finger at me.

"She's live-streaming this! There are tens of thousands of people watching!"

The buzz-cut guy dropped his smirk and strolled casually over to my table. He leaned down, squinting at my phone screen for a couple of seconds, his cigarette smoke blowing directly into my face.

"Oh, an influencer, huh?"

I looked up at him, my expression completely flat.

"You're blocking my light."

The guy blinked, clearly caught off guard that those were the first words out of my mouth.

He sneered and casually reached out to swat my phone away, treating it like an annoying fly.

Clack.

My metal fork clamped down hard, pinning his index finger flat against the tabletop.

The entire exchange was captured with crystal-clear precision on the live stream.

The buzz-cut guy stared down at his pinned finger, then looked up at me as if he had just seen a ghost.

The comments lost their absolute minds.

[LMAOOOOOOOOOO!!]

[SHE PINNED HIM!! SHE ACTUALLY PINNED HIS FINGER WITH A FORK!!]

[MOMENT OF THE YEAR!! SCREENSHOT THAT RIGHT NOW!!]

[Someone tell me why I'm on my knees watching this queen stream!!]

His face turned scarlet as he yanked his hand back violently, stumbling back a step and slamming into the blond kid behind him.

"Are you out of your damn mind, bitch?!"

The blond kid lunged forward, hands out to shove me.

Mark leaped up and threw his body between us. The blond shoved him hard in the chest, sending Mark crashing backward into our table. The bowls, forks, and glasses rattled violently across the wood.

My fork stopped.

I set the fork down, stood up, and held onto Mark.

He clutched his chest, coughing twice, and waved a hand to tell me he was fine, but his glasses were knocked completely crooked.

I turned back toward Buzz-cut and Blondie, and every trace of amusement evaporated from my eyes.

I picked up my phone and turned the front-facing camera directly onto the three thugs blocking the door.

Buzz-cut, Blondie, Crew-cut. One by one, I zoomed right in on their faces.

"Chat, do me a favor and take clear screenshots of these three faces, along with the storefront banner outside."

My voice wasn't loud, but the diner was dead quiet, save for the low hum of the kitchen exhaust fan.

"Who's calling 911 for me?"

Buzz-cut and Blondie froze. They clearly hadn't expected me to pull a stunt like this.

The owner rushed out from the counter, his face purple with rage, his voice cracking:

"Don't listen to her bullshit—!"

Before he could finish, the stream chat scrolled at an impossible speed.

[ALREADY ON WITH THE DISPATCHER!!]

[I WORK ON THE NEXT BLOCK, I'M RUNNING OVER RIGHT NOW!!]

[30,000 WITNESSES RIGHT HERE, WE GOT YOU!!]

[WE RECORDED THE GUY SHOVING YOUR COWORKER ON SCREEN RECORD!!]

Buzz-cut instinctively brought his hands up to shield his face, so I simply shifted the angle and kept filming.

He dodged left, and my lens followed left. He ducked right, and my lens tracked right, like a cat playing with a trapped mouse.

"Stop recording! I told you to stop fucking recording!"

His voice had completely lost its swagger, cracking with genuine panic.

Blondie hid behind Buzz-cut, while Crew-cut turned his back completely to the wall.

In less than five minutes, sirens wailed from down the street, growing louder until a cruiser pulled up right outside the glass doors, red and blue lights flashing against the diner windows.

Two police officers pushed the door open—one tall, one shorter.

The taller officer swept his gaze across the diner, paused briefly on the three cornered thugs, and then looked at us.

"Who called 911?"

The live chat flooded in unison.

[I DID!]

[ME! ME! ME!]

[ALL 30,000 OF US DID!!]

The owner lunged forward, cutting off everyone else, his trembling finger practically poking into my eye.

"Officers, she's skipping out on the bill! She ate a massive bowl of pasta and refuses to pay!"

I stood calmly beside Mark. Without breaking a sweat, I tapped my screen, pulled up the stream's instant replay buffer, and handed my phone to the taller officer.

Starting from the owner saying, "If you finish it, lunch is on me," to him dumping the ghost pepper oil, to Buzz-cut reaching for my phone and getting pinned, to Blondie shoving Mark into the table—everything was documented in pristine high-definition, frame by frame.

The two officers leaned in and watched the clip together. The diner was so quiet you could hear the rhythmic ticking of the cheap plastic clock on the wall.

The taller officer finally looked up, locked eyes with the owner, and asked in a deadpan tone:

"Are you a man of your word, or not?"