"If you don't want face, then don't expect me to give you any!"

Toby Dickerson stared straight at me as the words left his mouth.

I smiled. "I've already called the police. We wait."

I turned to glance at the clients seated behind me.

This was supposed to be a business dinner, after all. What had happened was embarrassing, and I owed them an apology.

"Everyone, I apologize. Please go ahead and leave."

"We can pick up the business talk tomorrow."

"I'll take care of this on my own."

I addressed the group directly.

They nodded, understanding the situation.

Several of them were already getting to their feet when Toby's entire demeanor shifted.

Anger flashed across his face. He fixed his eyes on me. "Nobody leaves!"

"Shut the doors!"

"Until this bill is settled, no one walks out of here!"

The two security guards behind him moved at once, pulling the doors closed.

The heavy doors slammed shut.

Toby's gaze locked onto me.

There was something cold and flat in his eyes. "President Gilbert, I'm warning you right now—if you don't pay up, nobody leaves this room."

"Come on, President Gilbert. A man in your position—you wouldn't want to make this hard on us, would you?"

His voice was all ice, threaded with threat.

The clients frowned, their eyes shifting to me.

I could see it in their faces—they thought I was the one trying to skip out on the bill.

"Alex, what's really going on?"

"If the tab isn't too bad, we can cover it between us."

A few of the clients I was closer with spoke up.

I shook my head and set the $200,000 bill down in front of them.

The room went silent. Every one of them froze.

A few faces turned ashen.

These people had eaten with me here plenty of times. They knew what a normal tab looked like.

This bill was wrong, and it was obvious.

Eight bottles of premium wine, all opened in a single sitting.

Not to mention the liquor and cigarettes tacked on.

I always picked up the check, and my clients had always been reasonable about it. None of them would have run up a tab like this.

Seeing their faces darken, Toby turned to me immediately. "President Gilbert, these are all your clients."

"I'm sure you don't want them stuck in this room with you all night."

"If you won't pay, none of you are leaving."

He said it like he was stating a fact.

I looked at him. Smugness was written all over his face.

It was obvious what he was thinking—I had clients with me, so of course I'd pay rather than lose face.

What he didn't know was that my relationship with these clients ran deep.

And I wasn't about to do whatever he told me.

When Toby first walked in, I'd quietly started recording on my phone. I knew that in a situation like this, preserving evidence was what mattered most.

"Toby, I'm not paying this."

I looked him dead in the eye. "And I have every reason to believe you're trying to pin someone else's charges on me."

"I've called the police."

"We'll sort this out when they get here."

As my words landed, Toby's expression turned dark. His stare bored into me for a long moment before his head slowly turned toward my clients.

"Gentlemen—every one of you is President Gilbert's client!"

"And President Gilbert can't even cover a meal at our restaurant!"

"So tell me, you still want to do business with this man?"

His words made every client at the table freeze.

One of the longtime clients just laughed. "If President Gilbert really can't cover the bill, we'll pay it ourselves."

"But this charge is obviously wrong."

We'd done business together for years. Half the people at that table knew exactly what I was worth.

A two-hundred-thousand-dollar tab was pocket change. Toby's little stunt was dead on arrival.

So naturally, they trusted me without question.

Toby looked at the clients, and a flicker of surprise crossed his face.

He hadn't expected them to ignore his provocation entirely, just sitting there, calm and unmoved.

That rattled him.

"Toby, if these are the only tricks you have, save yourself the embarrassment."

I looked at him, my voice flat and cold. "These are my clients, and they trust me."

"They're not going to believe a word you say."

"Also, your restaurant has surveillance cameras."

"I want to see the footage. I want proof that this person even knows me."

"You said he's been here with me multiple times. Then show me the evidence."

Something tightened behind Toby's eyes the instant I stopped talking—a flinch he couldn't quite hide.

That told me enough. This ran deeper than I'd thought, because the only person panicking in this room was Toby.

Then his face darkened, and he fixed his eyes on me. "Alex, you obviously already know our surveillance system's been down recently."

"That's why you're so confident."

"Besides, I trusted you. When your father-in-law came in, he said you'd come pay the bill."

"That's the only reason I let him run a tab."

"And now you're denying it?"

The second he finished, Toby spun toward my clients and raised his voice. "Gentlemen—this is the kind of man Alex Gilbert is. You really still want to work with him?"

The clients stayed silent.

Toby's face went ashen.

He'd counted on the pressure breaking me—that I'd pay rather than lose face in front of my clients. But none of them had flinched, and I hadn't so much as looked his way. He had nothing left.

"Alex, since you refuse to pay, we have no choice."

Toby turned to the security guards behind him and barked, "Hold them down!"

"I clocked it when they walked in—every single one of them is wearing a luxury watch."

"Strip the watches. That'll more than cover the bill."

My stomach dropped. Trust was one thing. But if my clients got manhandled at a dinner I'd invited them to, no amount of trust would undo that—I'd never be able to look any of them in the eye again.

"You wouldn't dare!"

I slammed the words out. "I spend over a million a year at this place. This is how you treat a customer like me?"

Fury tore through every syllable, and I raised my voice even higher. "Where's your boss? Get him out here!"

I knew Toby was just a manager. The owner of a restaurant this size was someone else entirely.

And anyone capable of running an operation like this wouldn't pull something this low.

Toby sneered.

"Alex, who the hell do you think you are? You think you can just snap your fingers and our boss comes running?"

"I'm the manager of this restaurant. If there's a problem, it's on me!"

"What are you standing around for?"

"Get it done!"

Toby turned to the security guards behind him and barked, "I don't care how you do it. Rip those watches off their wrists!"

The moment the order left his mouth, the guards had no choice. They started toward me.

I saw them coming and my face changed with rage.

They weren't even pretending anymore.

"Stop! I'll pay. Let my clients go first!"

I shouted it loud, and at the same time, glanced toward the door of the private room.

The police still hadn't arrived.

My clients' safety came first. I'd pay.

The payment record would exist either way—they couldn't deny it.

The second I gave in, a smug grin spread across Toby's face.

"President Gilbert, why didn't you just do that from the start?"

"A place as big as Harborview—you think we need to scam you?"

"You eat and don't pay? How's that okay!"

I ignored him completely and said, flat and cold, "Give me an itemized receipt."

"And pull up the payment code."

My phone had been recording the whole time. I was stalling too. Drag it out until the police showed up, and this was done.

Toby was clearly prepared. He waved to someone behind him without missing a beat. "Two hundred thousand on one tab, twenty thousand on the other—two hundred twenty thousand. Pay up."

He shot me a triumphant look as he said it.

I stayed calm, picked up my phone, and got ready to scan.

Just as I raised my phone to the code, the door of the private room swung open and several police officers strode in.

"We received a report. Which one of you is Alex Gilbert?"

They scanned the room and asked immediately.

I let out a visible breath of relief.

I turned and saw the color already draining from Toby's face.

I didn't spare him another glance. I raised my hand and called out, "Officer, that's me. I'm Alex Gilbert."

"And I'm not just filing a complaint for extortion."

"They held us against our will."

"And they tried to rob us."

My voice was loud enough that every officer in the room turned to me.

Before any of them could respond, Toby cut in. "Misunderstanding, officer—all a misunderstanding!"

His voice was tight, threaded with something close to panic.

"He ate here—President Gilbert ate here and wouldn't pay the bill!"

"That's why—we only did this because of that! We can sort it out ourselves!"

Even as he said it, he fixed me with a strained smile. "President Gilbert, come on, it's a little thing. We can handle it ourselves."

I let out a cold laugh. "I don't think it's small at all."

"And I'm very curious who exactly ran up a bill this big at your restaurant and decided to stick it on me."

"Manager Dickerson, are your surveillance cameras really broken?"

I stared him down, voice full of barely contained fury. "Right now, you're not the one coming after us."

"We're coming after you."