"For attention," she added.
Her son laughed.
His girlfriend kept recording.
I felt my chest tighten.
The easiest thing in the world would have been to yell.
Part of me wanted to.
But twelve years of running a business had taught me something important.
The moment somebody wants you angry, anger becomes dangerous.
So I stayed still.
I continued taking pictures.
The Lamborghini was worth more than their house.
The custom paint alone had taken months.
The finish had been built in layers, tested beneath shop lights, cured, corrected, polished, and protected with the kind of precision most people never understand because they only see the shine when the work is finished.
I knew red paint dripping into vents and panel gaps was not a simple cleaning job.
I knew exactly how expensive this was becoming.
The son apparently did not.
He stepped closer.
"Call the cops," he said.
I looked at him.
He smiled.
"Nobody's going to believe you over us."
His mother folded her arms.
Then she said something loud enough for several houses to hear.
"People like you shouldn't own cars like that in this neighborhood anyway."
Everything changed.
Until that sentence, somebody could have tried to describe what happened as a stupid teenager committing vandalism.
Cruel.
Expensive.
Criminal.
But stupid.
Her sentence revealed something deeper.
This was not only about a car.
It was not only jealousy.
It was not only a spoiled nineteen-year-old trying to impress his girlfriend.
It was about who they believed belonged there.
I looked toward the surrounding houses.
Curtains moved.
People were watching.
A garage door across the street was partially open.
Someone stood behind it.
Another neighbor watched through an upstairs window.
Nobody came outside.
Nobody said anything.
That silence told me something too.
This family was used to people staying quiet.
I called the police.
Then I called my company attorney.
The son kept joking while I made the first call.
He stopped joking during the second.
I deliberately mentioned the market value of the Lamborghini.
I mentioned the custom finish.
I mentioned security footage.
Then I mentioned that the repair amount could potentially turn what he considered a prank into a serious property offense.
His smile flickered.
His mother noticed.
She stepped closer to me.
Her voice became quieter.
"Delete whatever you recorded."
I backed away.
"No."
"I'm telling you to delete it."
"Everything is already uploading."
She looked at my phone.
"Uploading where?"
"Cloud storage."
For the first time that morning, I saw fear in her face.
It lasted maybe one second.
Then anger covered it.
She understood something her son had not understood yet.
They could no longer simply talk louder than me and make reality disappear.
The police arrived minutes later.
Two officers separated everyone.
One officer spoke with me while the other questioned the son.
His story changed almost immediately.
He claimed he had found the paint can near my driveway.
He said he had picked it up because he was curious.
His girlfriend agreed.
She said they had walked outside only after noticing the damaged car.
I looked at the phone still in her hand.
One officer noticed it too.
"Were you recording?"
She lowered it.
"No."
The officer looked at her.
"I saw you holding the phone when we arrived."
She hesitated.
"I was just texting."
The son interrupted.
"She didn't record anything."
That was his second mistake.
The officer asked whether he could see the phone.
She refused.
Then he looked toward the surrounding houses.
"Anybody around here have cameras?"
That question changed the neighborhood.
At first, nobody moved.
Then an older man across the street slowly opened his front door.