Chapter 2

I didn't pick up the pen. I turned and walked out of the mediation room.

I had to keep Mom alive first.

I was halfway to the hospital on my scooter when my phone started blowing up with notifications from the group chat. I opened the Maplewood Estates residents' chat.

Mr. Kendrick had used the management company's official account to post three pinned announcements back to back.

"Alert: Storefront camera outside the main gate is illegally surveilling the entire complex, collecting private data on residents, and attempting to extort management fees!"

Below it was a photo of me from behind, holding my phone in the mediation room. The smear campaign had started.

The hospital corridor reeked of disinfectant. I handed over every cent I had, 30,000 dollars scraped together from everyone I could borrow from plus another 20,000 from a credit card cash advance, and paid it all at the billing window.

Receipt in hand, I walked to the glass window outside the ICU. Mom was hooked up to tubes everywhere, her face white as a sheet.

"Mom, don't worry. They're keeping you on the medication." My voice came out hoarse through the glass.

"I'm going to make this right."

My phone was buzzing nonstop in my pocket. I opened the residents' chat. There were already over 500 unread messages, and Greg had been flooding the chat with announcements.

"Attention everyone! The seafood shop across from the main gate has high-definition cameras installed. They can see everything, right down to us sitting out on our balconies at night!

"His mother went digging through the landscaping for junk and got herself hurt. Now he's trying to use illegally recorded footage to shake down the management company!

"We need to shut this guy out. Boycott his shop!"

Underneath, he'd attached a few screenshots supposedly showing the "spy camera's point of view," all fabricated by the HOA board. The residents who didn't know any better lost their minds.

"That's disgusting. He's been watching us every day?"

"Boycott his shop! Get him out of this neighborhood!"

"I bought fish from him just yesterday. Makes my skin crawl thinking about it. I'm never going back."

The insults filled the screen, every single one of them like a knife. I didn't fire back. Getting into it with a mob that had already been whipped into a frenzy was pointless.

I pocketed my phone and rode back to the shop. The second I got to the entrance, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Someone had thrown red paint all over the security gate. The words "Get Out" were scrawled across it in huge, sloppy letters, and the paint had dripped down through the seams to pool on the ground like blood.

I stood there, fists clenched, saying nothing.

A burst of shrill laughter came from nearby. Mr. Kendrick and a few of his security guards were standing in the shade of a tree not far away, smoking.

"Oh, would you look at that? Who could've done something like this? How trashy."

Mr. Kendrick strolled over and nudged a paint bucket on the ground with his shoe, not even trying to hide his contempt. "The people have spoken. A creep who spies on his neighbors isn't welcome here."

The head of security was standing right beside him, still wearing a face mask, bouncing a baton in his hand. "Just close up shop and get lost, unless you want paint on your door every day."

I looked at the head of security and couldn't help but let out a dry laugh. I pulled out my phone and brought up the feed from the camera inside the shop. The outside camera was covered in paint, but I also had a wide-angle lens mounted inside, aimed right at the entrance.

I scrubbed to the moment the vandal turned around and pulled his mask down to smoke.

"Mr. Kendrick, did you really think a face mask would be enough to stop me from recognizing your own head of security?" I zoomed in on the screenshot and held it right up to his face.

Mr. Kendrick's expression shifted for a second, but he recovered fast. "Don't go making wild accusations. That image is so blurry, who could even say it's him?"