It was my second year undercover when my fiancée's childhood friend, Kerry Delgado, got himself dragged into a private room and beaten half to death. His arrogance had finally caught the wrong person's attention.

He looked straight at me, begging for help, telling them he knew me.

But I couldn't blow my cover. All I could do was stare back with the dead eyes of a man who didn't care.

That night, they destroyed one of his legs. My fiancée found me afterward and slapped me across the face.

“Why didn't you save him? If you'd just said you knew him, they would've let him go out of respect for you.”

The covert arrest operation was still active. I couldn't explain a thing.

I expected her to break up with me. Instead, she just let out a sigh and turned to leave.

“Forget it. I love you too much. But don't let it happen again.”

When the operation finally wrapped up, I made plans to take her out and tell her the truth.

That's when my mother's call came in：“Desmond Dickerson, please come save me.”

“Your fiancée took me to a restaurant for dinner, and the bill came to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then she disappeared, and the manager won't let me leave.”

——

By the time I got to the restaurant, my mother was sitting rigid in a chair, white-faced with terror.

The moment she saw me, relief flooded her eyes like I was the only thing between her and drowning.

“Desmond, you're here.”

She started to stand, but someone behind her shoved her back down by the shoulders.

“So this is your son? Good. Perfect timing.”

“Your mother ate at my restaurant, refused to pay, and then smashed an antique I acquired at auction for thirteen million dollars.”

The man's voice was ice. He spoke as though that piece of porcelain mattered more than the woman trembling in front of him.

I stepped closer and looked down at the shards scattered across the floor. My mother's guilt spilled out before I could speak.

“Desmond, I didn't break it on purpose. Fay Harding shoved me, and I lost my balance and……”

Her voice cracked into a quiet sob.

“Fay shoved you?”

Something cold coiled in my chest. A possibility I didn't want to name.

I didn't want it to be true. In my mind, Fay had always been reasonable, always understanding.

“Mom, don't be scared. If it was an accident, I'll pay for it.”

I pulled out my phone and called Fay. The line didn't connect.

The manager's patience had already run out. Each word he threw at me was sharper than the last.

“Kid, you've been on that phone for minutes now. You done yet?”

The second he finished, every employee in the restaurant closed in around us.

“Thirteen million and thirty thousand dollars. You're nobody. How exactly do you plan on paying me back?”

So that was why they'd surrounded us. They thought we'd run.

I lowered the phone and looked up at my mother.

“Mom, who ordered the food?”

“Your mother did, obviously.”

Someone answered before she could. The voice belonged to exactly the person I'd been trying to reach. Fay.

I turned toward the entrance. She stood in the doorway, one arm supporting Kerry, her expression completely blank.

“Your mother said she wanted to treat me to dinner. She handed me the menu and told me to order.”

“If you don't believe me, ask the staff. Check the security cameras.”

“That's right. This lady said she was treating the young miss to dinner, so the bill's on her. Nothing to do with anyone else.”

My mother's guilt deepened, her words tumbling out：“Desmond, it's true, I did invite Fay to eat.”

“You two were fighting over what happened with Kerry, so I asked her to tea so I could apologize.”

“But she said she wanted French cuisine and brought me here. I couldn't read a single thing on the menu. It was all in a foreign language.”

“So Fay ordered for me. The food, and bottle after bottle of wine.”

“I had no idea anything here cost that much. The wine alone was more than I could fathom.”

With everything laid bare, there was nothing left I didn't understand.

My mother had been set up by Fay. She wanted me to taste it for myself, that helpless agony of watching your own family be tormented right in front of you.

“Fay, can we talk?”

I was going to take her to the restroom and explain what had really happened that night.

My fingers barely grazed her wrist before she let out a short, mocking laugh and slowly pushed my hand away.

She met my confusion head-on, her eyes full of cold calculation.

“There's nothing left for us to talk about.”

“The night you let Kerry suffer and did nothing, you and I stopped having anything to discuss.”

“If you're so desperate to negotiate, take it up with the manager and the owner of that antique.”

Just as I'd suspected. Fay had brought my mother here to eat solely to settle the score for Kerry.

A few hundred thousand I could scrape together. Ten million was impossible.

“Kerry, come sit over here.”

“Best seat in the house for the show.”

Kerry's face was lit with the thrill of long-awaited payback. Then his gaze landed on me, and it turned cold and hateful.

“Desmond, you stood by and watched me nearly die that night. Now it's our turn to return the favor.”

His friends all fixed me with the same righteous contempt, as if I were something foul.

“Disgusting.”

“Did a dog eat your conscience? You just stood there and watched while they broke Kerry's legs.”

“Now karma's caught up. If he can't pay, then it's his turn to get his legs broken and tossed out like trash.”

My hands clenched into fists on reflex, a fire roaring through my chest.

That night, I'd already found a way to get Kerry out. But he'd gone and run his mouth right back at the bosses, practically begging them to finish the job.

I was afraid he'd keep talking and blow my cover, so I'd had no choice but to punch him in the mouth myself.

And even then, those men refused to let it go. They broke his legs and threw him out.

With that level of arrogance, even without that incident, someone would have beaten him sooner or later.

“Hey, everything's been sorted out, so pay up already. I've got a flight to catch in two hours.”

Victor's demand yanked me back to the present, but ten million dollars on the spot was money I simply did not have.

My mother saw the strain on my face, and the guilt in her eyes only deepened.

“Des, I'm sorry. This is all my fault.”

“If I hadn't invited Fay out to dinner, if I hadn't ordered blindly from a menu I couldn't even read, none of this would have happened.”

I quickly spoke up to comfort her：“Mom, stop blaming yourself.”

“This has nothing to do with you. When the person you trust most turns the knife on you, there's no way to see it coming.”

“But that kind of money, how could we ever pay it back!”

Tears streamed down her face and the pain in her chest flared sharper than before. I reached out and steadied her.

“Mom, what's wrong?”

“Is it your heart again?”

“Are you two done with the waterworks? Because if you're done, it's time to settle the damn bill.”

The words had barely left his mouth before Alfred stalked closer, glaring at us with open menace.

“The nerve. Can't even afford a meal and you waltz into a place like this? Pathetic. Absolute trash.”

“Been running this restaurant for years, and you two are the most worthless deadbeats I've ever seen.”

Kerry watched the crowd pile scorn on us, mother and son, and the satisfaction practically radiated off him.

Fay watched me too, eyes gleaming with vindictive pleasure, then smiled：“Kerry, don't worry. The best part is still coming.”

“I'm going to make sure Desmond learns his lesson. He needs to understand that being cold and heartless comes with consequences.”

“Better to deal with it now than marry him and spend a lifetime facing that coldness.”

Fay still wanted to marry me? I didn't want to marry her anymore.

Back then, because my work required absolute secrecy, I had no right to date or start a family like a normal person.

But Fay fell for me at first sight and launched an aggressive pursuit.

No matter how many times I turned her down, she kept coming back, undeterred.

It wasn't until she saved my mother twice and ended up hospitalized herself from a beating that I finally gave in.

She grabbed my hand and said：“You're on my ship now. Don't even think about escaping.”

The Harding princess, so moved she was crying, had melted something inside me that day.

Memories were beautiful. Reality was cruel.

Fay curled her lips into a cold smile：“Desmond, if you can't pay up, the owner of that antique and the manager will strip your mother naked and break your legs before throwing you out.”

The moment those words left her mouth, every pair of eyes in the room locked onto us, hungry for the spectacle.

“He's done for. There's no way he can afford that kind of money.”

“He's just some nobody. Honestly, someone like him was never good enough for Fay. At least she finally came to her senses.”

Victor's gaze crawled over my mother's body, and when he spoke, his voice was laced with menace.

“If you really can't pay, I'll tear the clothes off this old hag myself.”

“As for breaking legs, I'll leave that to the manager.”

My mother's face drained of all color.

The shock triggered her old heart condition. She clutched her chest with both hands and collapsed to the floor.

She knocked a glass of red wine off the table as she fell, and the wine splashed across Victor's shoes.

“You stupid woman!”

“Smashing my antique wasn't enough? Now you've ruined my shoes and my clothes too?”

“I have a flight to catch for a business trip, and you're out here begging for it.”

Before I could react, he raised his foot and stomped down hard on my mother's stomach.

“No! Stop!”

Fay shot to her feet, but Kerry grabbed her wrist：“Ow! Fay, my leg hurts so bad!”

Fay turned and saw Kerry's bandaged leg. The alarm on her face shifted to pity, and then, slowly, to something cold and hollow.

“Kerry, don't stand up. Sit down.”

“So you won't go rushing in to save them?”

Looking at the redness rimming Kerry's eyes, Fay answered without hesitation：“No.”

On the other side of the room, every staff member in the restaurant had closed ranks around me. I couldn't get anywhere near my mother.

She was curled around her stomach, a low, broken sound forcing itself through her teeth.

“Mom, are you okay?”

No answer. My chest tightened another notch.

“Move! Her condition is flaring up!”

“I already told you, I'll find a way to pay!”

They didn't budge. More bodies stepped in to fill the gaps.

“Pay? How exactly are you going to pay?”

“I'm leaving this city in two hours and I'm never coming back. Where am I supposed to collect from you?”

“Give me an address and a bank account number. Once I have the money I'll transfer……”

“Bullshit. Talk is cheap. There are plenty of deadbeats who skip out on what they owe. If I let a couple of strangers walk out of here, I'd be the idiot.”

The words barely left his mouth before he raised his foot and stomped on my mother's stomach a second time.

“Ahhh!”

Two full-force blows. She curled into a tight ball, trembling, and a mouthful of blood spilled from her lips.

Panic burned through me. I threw myself forward, fighting to break through the wall of bodies.

“Tighten up! He knows how to fight!”