Chapter 4

Once the story hit the trending page, plenty of strangers piled on to tear me apart. But it wasn't only people looking to insult me who came looking.

The first message I got was from a guy who went by "Cola"—his real name, I'd later learn, was Jason Cole. He told me he'd gone to look at cars at the same dealership the year before, and Lenny had taken one look at his flip-flops and told him he was too poorly dressed to be allowed inside. He'd been so angry he slammed the door on his way out, bought a car from a different brand instead, and still felt a flash of irritation every time he thought back on it.

The second was a woman Lenny had added on messaging. He'd sent her flirty texts every day, saying things like, "A pretty girl like you doesn't need anything fancy—get something cheap, I'll pick it out for you." When she turned him down, he'd taken to her social media with snide, backhanded posts calling her "picky" and "impossible to please."

A third woman had it even worse. She'd gone to look at cars alone, and Lenny had asked her outright, "What do you even do for work? You're not one of THOSE girls, are you? Where else would you get the money to buy a car like this?"

I bundled up every piece of evidence—along with the recording where Lenny bragged that the branch general manager, Franklin Reeves, was his uncle—and submitted the whole package straight to corporate's legal department through the internal system.

Then I closed my laptop.

When Lenny saw that I hadn't fought back, he escalated even further. He photoshopped a set of fake hotel check-in records, complete with my photo and my name, and posted them online. The images were blurry and obviously doctored, but nobody in the comments cared whether they were real.

[Guys who sell themselves are always this shameless. Must be desperate for cash.]

[His hotel records are right there. There's no way he can deny it now.]

[Not just morally bankrupt but a con artist too. Absolutely no shame.]

Things kept escalating. On the third day of the pile-on, there was a sudden burst of pounding at my door.

"Open up! I know you're in there!"

It was Lenny's voice.

I didn't move. Instead, I sent a text straight to the police.

He pounded a few more times, and then I heard a jumble of footsteps outside—he wasn't alone.

"We're car bloggers. We're here today because we want a straight answer—why did you order a car and never pay for it? That salesman busted his ass giving you a test drive, walking you through every feature, and you just took off after paying the deposit? Who does that?"

"Yeah, get out here and explain yourself!"

I looked through the peephole. Five or six people were crowded in the hallway. Lenny stood in front, with a few men behind him holding up their phones.

Lenny pulled out his own phone, dialed a number in front of the cameras, and put it on speaker. It rang three times before someone picked up.

"Hello?"

It was Fleur's voice.

Lenny's tone instantly turned pitiful, like he was the one who'd been wronged. "You tell me, is this fair? Your boyfriend ordered a car and never paid for it. My commission's still hanging in limbo, and the company's about to dock my pay. What am I supposed to do here?"

There were two seconds of silence on the line. Then Fleur's voice came through, mumbled and evasive.

"He… he's just the type who cares a lot about pride and has a stubborn streak. Either way, he's the one who put the deposit down, and he's the one who wanted the car. It has nothing to do with me."

Lenny's eyes lit up. He waved his phone toward the cameras. "You all hear that? Even his girlfriend's saying it. I don't think I need to spell out what kind of guy this is."

The comments must have exploded again.

The bloggers outside the door started egging things on too.

"Open up! Apologize to the man!"

"He's just trying to make a living—what gives you the right to mess with his job?"

"Get out here, you filthy escort!"

The noise in the hallway kept climbing. A neighbor cracked their door open, peeked out, then quickly shut it again.

Lenny leaned in close to the peephole and lowered his voice.

"I know you're in there. Open the door, let's talk this out like adults. If you admit you were wrong right now, I can still tell everyone online it was all a misunderstanding. But if you don't open up..."

He glanced back at the group of influencers. A few of them, catching his meaning, took a step forward.

"Then we'll just let ourselves in."

That was exactly when my phone chimed with a new email.

I glanced down at the screen. Sender: Corporate Legal Department.

The message read: "Review approved. Case has been forwarded to the board and to law enforcement. See attached for the official documentation."

Outside, Lenny's hand was already on the door handle, still shouting.

"Playing dead? Open the damn door! I'll show you—"

I yanked the door open.

Five or six pairs of eyes snapped toward me at once. Four phone cameras zeroed in on my face, comments scrolling past in a blur on their screens.

Lenny froze for a second—he clearly hadn't expected me to actually open the door. But he quickly snapped back into his usual smugness, jabbing a finger at my face, about to launch into another tirade.

I held up my phone and let the email glow on the screen in front of him.

His expression visibly locked up.

"What the hell is that supposed to be?"

He was still talking tough, but his eyes had already started to panic.

I didn't say a word. I held the phone out toward the cameras that were still recording live.

Then I pulled out my badge. In the corner was the corporate logo. In the middle was my photo, and beneath it, the title: Corporate Annual Mystery Shopper — Service Quality Division.

I held the badge up next to my face, and together, I turned to face every single camera pointed at me.