LOGINI looked at his miserable condition and felt nothing but pure satisfaction.Justice had finally been served.I reached into the car’s storage compartment and took out a single dollar note and dropped it into the broken bowl by his feet.“Here, take this as charity.“After all, I’m fine on my end.”He had said the same thing when he was showing off in front of the emergency room door.I said the same thing to him before rolling up the window and flooring the gas pedal.I left him and that nauseating past behind in a cloud of exhaust.The morning sun shone over the gloomy cemetery.I carried the white lilies that my mother had loved and walked up the steps lightly.In the photo on the headstone, my mother was smiling kindly.I gently placed the lilies before her grave and reached out to brush a fallen leaf off the stone.“Mom, are you watching?“That monster who killed you has finally gotten what he deserved.”I stood in the wind, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath of f
The flyers showed the police notice on John’s fraud case, as well as screenshots from surveillance footage of loan sharks hounding him for debts.I grabbed a megaphone and shouted at the crowd of onlookers.“Everyone, take a good look! This cripple on the ground is named Max!“My mother needed surgery to survive, but he gave away every penny of her life-saving money just to play rich in front of a scammer!“After he got my mother killed, he went and borrowed from loan sharks to keep up his act. Now that his legs are broken, he has the nerve to come back and bleed me dry!”The crowd instantly erupted into an uproar.Several elderly women in the audience were shaking in rage. They started throwing stones at Max. He finally broke down. He gave up his pride and started slapping himself wildly while begging for forgiveness.“Honey, I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry!“Please, just give me another chance. We can get back together. I’ll treat you right for the rest of my life!”I walked
In the midst of the chaos, several battered vans pulled up at the main entrance.More than a dozen loan sharks rushed in, each carrying a baseball bat in hand.“Where’s Max?! Where’s the trash who owes us money?”The scar-faced leader spotted Max lying on the floor at once.Max was so terrified that he scrambled to hide under the table.“No, please don’t hit me! My wife’s got the money! Ask her!”The scar-faced man walked over, grabbed Max by the back of his collar, and dragged him out from under the table.He swung and slapped Max across the face more than a dozen times in front of everyone.“Do you think you can dodge our boss and get away with it? You got a death wish or something?”Max wept bitterly as he crawled toward me and clung desperately to my legs.“Honey, I’m sorry! I’m really sorry!“Please, just give them the fifty thousand dollars! They’ll beat me to death! Please!”I kicked his filthy hands away.“I told you before. I’m not giving you a single cent.”I pu
All relatives turned to look at Max.“Uh… I left the house in a hurry, and I don’t have any other bank cards with me. Could someone lend me two thousand dollars just to get through this? I promise I’ll return it tomorrow.”Those who had been acting friendly with him instantly turned away.“Oh, Max, what terrible timing! My wife just texted. I left the gas on at home. I need to leave,” said one of the men. He then bolted.The others quickly made up their own excuses to leave.“Oh, no! I’m having a stomachache. I need to go to the restroom.”“I think my car was just towed!”In less than a minute, the so-called friends all scampered.Some even turned back at the door to shout mockingly.“This guy can’t even cover a nine-thousand-dollar bill, and he’s out here playing billionaire? Talk about being all bark and no bite!”The relatives began to catch on, and the murmurs grew louder.“So he’s all talk after all? I knew he couldn’t have that kind of money!”“What a joke! All that t
“That fifty-thousand-dollar insurance payout is hitting my account any day now anyway. This is chump change.”At the mention of the fifty thousand dollars, Max gritted his teeth and signed off on the order boldly.“Waiter, bring everything on this order! Do I look like someone who needs to pinch pennies?”After we left the restaurant, I went to the restroom.That was when I saw Max hiding in the emergency stairwell, making a frantic phone call.“John, uh… Remember the ten thousand dollars I invested with you last month? I was just wondering if this month’s payout is ready.”The voice on the other end sounded somewhat annoyed.“Oh, Mr. Grove, you know overseas projects take time to clear. Don’t be so impatient!”Max said in embarrassment, “Look, John, I hosted this big event, and now I’m short on cash. Is there any way you could pay me back on some of my investment?”The call disconnected immediately.Max was stunned for a moment. He tried calling again, only to hear a cold, r
Max wasted no time. Within just a couple of days, he waved a thick stack of photocopied loan contracts in my face.He boasted smugly, “See that? That’s called clout! All I need to do is say the word, and ten thousand dollars hits my account just like that!I looked at the documents and kept my head down in silence.Behind his back, I had already asked someone to check Max’s bank statements.Over the years, just to show off, he had given over a hundred thousand dollars of my hard-earned money to his so-called friends just to look good. None of them ever paid him back.Even more ridiculous was what I found when I went through his phone’s transfer records.He never used the ten-thousand-dollar loan to pay off the remaining balance for the cemetery plot.Instead, he transferred it immediately to that scammer John from the hospital.In their chat history, John’s messages were full of “Mr. Grove” this and “Mr. Grove” that, selling him some overseas deal that supposedly paid back 300%







