Chapter 5

I gripped my phone tightly, almost crushing the screen.

"It's obviously a smear campaign! You completed those designs two months ago—I witnessed it firsthand! I'm going to set the record straight right now!" Harrison York, my friend, exclaimed indignantly as he opened his laptop and started typing away.

"Forget it, Harrison," I said, my gaze dimming. I had brought all of this upon myself.

"You're just going to sit there and take this slander? Where's Teresa? Isn't she going to step up and clear things up for you, Aaron?"

I smiled bitterly after hearing that. Teresa was the reason things had come to this, but I couldn't even speak up about it.

Harrison went ahead and created an alt account. He went to several of the most popular posts criticizing me, laid out the timeline in detail, and pointed out that I had finished my designs two months before the incident. He also included my original design sketches.

Hardly anyone believed him—if anything, it triggered an even stronger backlash against me.

"Check it out! Aaron's hired bots are showing up!"

"What's the point of posting those design sketches? Do you really think it's that hard to fabricate something like that these days, especially with technology this advanced?"

"Why are you putting in this much effort to defend him? How much are you getting out of it?"

I initially wanted to convince Harrison to drop it, but he suddenly vanished. It wasn't until Quentin called me for a meetup the next day that I realized he had taken Harrison hostage.

"Come alone if you want to save your friend."

I knew Quentin had something planned, but I had to show up for Harrison.

Quentin had picked an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city as the meeting spot.

I had barely gotten out of the car when someone struck me in the back of the head. Four or five burly men surrounded me before Quentin emerged from the group.

I asked, "Where's Harrison? What did you do to him?"

Quentin looked at me with contempt. "You have nothing to worry about since he was never my target, Aaron."

I felt a growing sense of unease after hearing that. "What do you mean by that?"

"You're the one who broke your promise first, so today I'm going to teach you a lesson, Aaron."

"Teresa won't let you off the hook for this!"

"Do you actually think she'll believe you?"

Quentin was right. Teresa loved him so much that even if he had lied or made a mistake, she would have let him off without a second thought.

I turned to make a break for it, but the burly men closed in on me again.

"Where should I begin? How about this hand of yours—the one you use to draw your designs?"

I was totally outnumbered. I fought back with everything I had, but they quickly knocked me to the ground. They then pinned me into the dirt and kicked my right hand, which hadn't even healed yet.

I yelled hoarsely at Quentin, "How long do you think you can keep your scheme under wraps? You won't get off the hook so easily if anything happens to me, Quentin!"

Quentin scoffed. "No one's ever going to find out. Who gives a damn about a mere plagiarist anyway? Teresa won't even give you the time of day once you're crippled, Aaron!"

He then ordered the burly men, "Hold him down and keep hitting him—don't stop!"

I lost track of how much time had passed, but I could feel warm blood flowing out of my body, staining the dirt around me red. Only then did they finally stop beating me.

I suddenly heard Teresa's anxious voice. "Aaron! What happened to you? Who beat you up like this?"

Quentin realized that things weren't going as planned, so he hurriedly collapsed to the ground and pretended to be seriously injured.

He began to whimper pitifully, saying, "It's all my fault. I just wanted to talk to Aaron. I didn't expect those people to show up suddenly. Aaron was badly injured because of me. Don't worry about me and get him out of here first. I'll be fine since my injuries aren't serious."