My Cousin Borrowed a Lawsuit

"What even are the specs on this thing?"

My coworker Zack slid it back across the desk, frowning hard.

I was still fixing a design draft and barely looked up. "Latest model. Core Ultra 9, RTX 5090, 128 gigs of RAM. Why?"

"No shot." Zack shook his head. "I opened Photoshop and it froze for, like, three minutes straight. My busted three-year-old laptop runs better than this. And look." He tapped the bottom panel. "There are screwdriver marks back here. Looks like somebody opened it up and slapped it back together."

My chest tightened.

I grabbed the laptop and flipped it over.

Two fresh scratches sat near the vent. The edges looked like they'd been pried up.

I went still.

Three months ago, when my cousin borrowed it, the laptop had been perfectly fine.

"You sure you didn't buy a refurbished one?" Zack asked.

"I got it from the official store." My throat felt dry. "Three months ago."

Three months earlier, right after I bought the laptop, Vivian begged to borrow it.

"Lindsay, my company's starting this short-form video project, and I'm doing the editing." She grabbed my arm, practically bouncing. "My trash laptop can't even run 1080P without choking. Yours is crazy fast. Let me borrow it for a month? I swear I'll be careful."

My mom jumped in immediately. "Just let Vivian use it. She just started her job."

I hesitated.

The laptop had cost $6,800. I'd split it into twelve monthly payments—about $565 each month.

As a designer, my laptop was basically my life.

Vivian held up a hand like she was taking an oath. "One month. That's it. I'll give it back the second the project's done. I'll keep it clean. I won't mess with anything."

I believed her.

One month turned into three.

The first month, she said the project got delayed.

The second month, she said she'd picked up another project.

By the third month, she was telling me to quit bugging her about it.

When Vivian finally returned it, she didn't even come herself. She left the laptop with security and took off.

Now it was back.

But were the parts inside still mine?

"Can you check the inside for me?" My voice shook.

Zack grabbed a screwdriver set and popped off the back panel.

Click.

He went still.

My stomach dropped. "What?"

"This is the maxed-out version, right?"

"Yeah."

"The original motherboard assembly should have a specific laser marking." He pointed at the chip under the heatsink. "But this one's shallow, and the edges look rough. Somebody re-marked it. And the RAM—factory models use custom low-profile sticks. These are standard ones." He frowned. "They're used."

He flipped one over. A faint pencil mark sat in the corner.

"That's a common reseller mark." His voice got heavier.

He powered the laptop on and started running benchmarks. Numbers filled the screen one after another.

The CPU score was way below factory spec.

The RAM speed didn't match the original setup.

The SSD speeds were barely a third of what they should've been.

And the GPU memory had been slashed to 4GB.

My knees almost gave out. I grabbed the edge of the desk to keep myself upright.

"You should probably call the cops," Zack said.

I shook my head and snatched up my laptop bag. "I'm going to an authorized service center first. I want everything in writing."

I took a few hours off and went straight there.

The AC was blasting, but I was still sweating through my shirt.

The tech, wearing white gloves, slid the inspection report across the counter.

"Miss, this is pretty obvious. Most of the hardware inside your laptop was swapped out by an unauthorized repair shop."

He went down the list one item at a time.

The motherboard assembly had been tampered with. The CPU ID had been spoofed to show as a Core Ultra 9. The RAM was used. The SSD was some cheap off-brand replacement.

My voice shook. "Can you tell when it was replaced?"

"Based on the system logs, the original factory hardware was last detected three months ago. After that, there are signs the data was wiped."

Three months ago.

Exactly when Vivian borrowed the laptop.