How did everyone feel about Tidal Holdsworth’s suffering?Ecstatic.Here came the elephant in the room, though: What was going to happen to Javier, the guy who had fixed up Tidal so well? What Javier had done was nothing short of torment, after all, which meant his comeuppance would likely be just as torturous. At that thought, the crowd turned to him, feeling concerned.“Hate to say this but…Xavier’s dead meat now. Tormenting anyone else would have been fine, but Tidal Holdsworth? That’s the student council president, someone infamous for being hyper-vindictive and sh*t! His vengeance is gonna be painful…”“Not to say Tidal doesn’t deserve what he got, and I’m not gonna pretend that I didn’t get a kick out of seeing Xavier thumping his *ss like a bad*ss, but Xavier did it at a cost, man. Revenge is gonna be really painful…”“I hope he doesn’t suffer too much. Besides, we can help, right? We’ll vouch for him, you know. Put in a good word when Tidal’s revenge comes…?”It was all t
Tidal did not manage to avoid eventually getting his head stuck in the drawer once more, let alone getting tormented by having his pants pulled down by several male students before they screwed him with whatever was on their minds.Javier skipped on this “entertainment” this time. Cher had just summoned him to her office right afterward, and en route, she asked, “Why did you make Zenya Turing the new president? Don’t tell me the two of you…”She trailed off mid-question, but Javier knew what was really on her mind.“Aww, you think I must share some super-intimate relationship with her and you’re feeling a teensy-weensy-bit jealous, right?” he quipped.“As if!” Cher protested hotly. “I don’t even know you personally! Why would I be jealous?”Javier was amused. Even Cher would find an excuse this flimsy! To appease her, of course, Javier followed her to her office and pacified her the old-fashioned way.They had a rather prolonged after-sex teasing session before Javier went back t
Herschel drove Javier to Liamsworth, his car tearing through the freeway at a speed that obviously exceeded the speed limit.What about the punishment for violating the law, one might ask. But the hammer of lawful punishment had always applied only to certain people, as privilege was indeed a thing. If privilege did not exist, then why would the masses sometimes find themselves not allowed to drive through a green light and instead get stopped so a few big cars driving important people could pass before they could resume their lives?Herschel’s car was such an example—on the privilege side of the equation. He crossed several speed limits at different intervals, condensing a two-hour journey into an hour. There were even moments when he was driving at 370% of the speed limit—a sort of crime so brazen that even the authorities would have no idea how to punish him.Not that the cops would ever punish him. Herschel’s skills were just that good, and he had a powerful boss behind him. Whe
Javier had taken off his mask by this point, so most people recognized him as the bona fide Javier Kersey, as evidenced by how many bystanders stopped by to point, look, and gossip in his presence. Everyone started talking about the surprisingly young yet achieved chairman when they laid eyes on him.Lay Alfred’s later upbringing abroad had bereft him of the knowledge of such impeccable luminary, however. At least he had heard of Reivaj cars; he owned one, even. In Lay’s mind, Javier was hopelessly outclassed by his stacked resume. Not many people could claim they had graduated from Karlos Tech Institute with a double-major masters degree at the age of 30, after all. A winning combination of youth, skill, and knowledge was something even top IT companies like Microsoft and Apple recognized, so they had invited him to join their ranks.Who would have known that, despite what should have been an unbearably dazzling resume, he was still one-upped by Javier’s claim to be on Karl-Tech’s b
Quinna and Javier’s dinner after leaving the airport changed from a romantic couple’s meal to accommodate a third wheel. Still, the dinner was nothing short of intriguing, as Lay’s self-driving programming idea was ingenious.Javier was more or less an amateur at these things, but Quinna was an actual expert. After all, automobile engineering was related to what she had majored in at university. Spending a decade in Heisenberg Group had reasonably made her one of the biggest experts there was, and no one would dare doubt her professional judgment. Anything she deemed worthy automatically cleared the bar—be it the hydrogen power system of the Chinean or Lay’s algorithms.It was why she started a bidding war against Javier.“Listen to me, Lay. If you join Heisenberg, this thing between you and me might still have a chance, okay? If you dare join Reivaj, though, darling, we’re gonna be an impossibility real soon!” she announced.Javier almost spat out. “Lady, is this the level you’d s
Javier came to the door and opened the envelope. The first thing that greeted him was a photo that made him frown. He could already guess just by looking at the photo of himself and Quinna what this was about without even having to look at the content of the paper.“You’ve got a cursed mouth, don’t you? Why didn’t I sense it when I kissed you earlier?!”Quinna was a little lost when she heard Javier say that, not understanding what he was getting at. Javier did not explain. He only unfolded the piece of paper. As expected, the note asked for 80,000 dollars in exchange for the photo. There was a bank account number on it too, but Javier did not have to check to know that the account must have been created by someone else’s ID. It would be nonsense to try to track the culprit down through the ID of the bank account.Luckily, Javier was not thinking of checking it either, while Quinna asked from the bed, “What happened?”“Nothing.”Anything that could be solved with money was not a
Eddie was shocked. He had wholeheartedly believed that Javier would be threatened, only for the latter to say that. He did not want to die. He just wanted money.“No, Mr. Kersey, you misunderstood me. I meant to let bygones be bygones, okay?”Let bygones be bygones, huh? That meant he was not going to return Javier the 80,000 dollars, and the latter would not have to worry about his photo being leaked. Whatever there was between them had been settled.Was it possible? Javier did not think so. He lit a cigarette and told Eddie, “I gave you 80,000 dollars before this because I didn’t want to make a fuss over this.“But you sent me another letter now, which means that you’re greedy and you aren’t satisfied.“What’s the matter? You think you have to be scared of me because I’m the chairman of Reivaj Group?“If that’s what you think, I can only tell you that you’re thinking too f*cking much.”Javier snapped his fingers and told Running Man, “Make it look like a gas poisoning. I’ll ar
It was apparent that Quinna’s sister-in-law was there with a motive. There was the boy who cried wolf, but Quinna’s sister-in-law was there crying for money. She and her husband had a clear goal: They were crying about how pitiful their life was to force Quinna to make arrangements for them to get the car accessory business.However, Quinna’s elder brother and sister-in-law had obviously underestimated Quinna’s temper.“Sure, my nephew will be implicated, you say? That’s easy. Send him to me. I’ll take care of him on your behalf. I’ll make sure he’s fed well.”Her sister-in-law was speechless at once. She did not want to do that. That was her own son! She then sobbed about how she was reluctant to part with her son and all that, hoping that Quinna could help her.Quinna did not want to even look at her sister-in-law and went to her office with Javier, but her sister-in-law followed them all the way there.Said sister-in-law looked at Javier coldly once they were inside the office.