Tristan clearly fed on the audience. His posture straightened, his chest puffing out as Bryce and Cole flanked him, grinning at the cameras.
I remained on one knee on the asphalt. My right leg throbbed with a dull, rhythmic ache, a sharp reminder of my age and my physical vulnerability. The ocean breeze picked up, rustling the leaves of the oak tree above us, providing a strange, serene soundtrack to the malice unfolding on the ground.
"What are you doing, Tristan?" one of the girls in the crowd called out, giggling behind her hand.
"Just teaching a local vagrant some respect," Tristan called back, not even looking at her. He kept his eyes fixed on me. "He thought his garbage bike was too good to move. Now he's learning how things work here."
I slowly pushed myself into a more stable kneeling position, resting my weight on my good leg. I looked at the black Lamborghini. The front bumper was smeared with grease and a thick smudge of exhaust from where it had pinned my Harley's tailpipe.
Tristan noticed my gaze. He looked at his car, then back at me.
"You scratched my paint," he said, his voice dropping into a menacing register. "You know how much this custom wrap costs? It costs more than you’ve made in your miserable life."
He pointed a finger toward the bumper. "Get over there. Use your jacket and wipe it off."
I didn't move. I looked at the faces in the crowd. Dozens of teenagers, the future leaders of this country, the inheritors of vast fortunes, just watching a seventy-year-old man being publicly humiliated. Not one of them stepped forward. Not one of them told Tristan to stop. The social pressure of his wealth and his father's name was absolute.
"I'm not wiping your car, son," I said, my voice quiet, carrying effortlessly over the whispers of the crowd.
Tristan’s jaw tightened. Cole stepped forward, rolling his shoulders. "You heard him, old man. Wipe the car, or we're going to make you regret waking up today."
I took a slow breath. I had seen enough. The illusion I had carried for twenty years—that this pristine, wealthy world was somehow better, somehow cleaner than the violent streets I had conquered—shattered right there on the asphalt. Money didn't buy grace. It just bought a more expensive brand of cruelty.
Slowly, carefully, I reached my right hand inside the breast pocket of my leather jacket.
"Watch his hands!" Bryce snapped, flinching backward slightly.
I wasn't reaching for a weapon. I pulled out a heavy, blocky satellite phone. It was completely black, encased in military-grade titanium, and lacked a touchscreen. It was encrypted point-to-point, a direct line to a server room in Zurich, and it had exactly one speed-dial button.
I held the phone to my ear and pressed the button. It didn't ring. It simply connected.
"The small fry is in the net at parking lot three," I said softly into the receiver. "Drain the water."
I lowered the phone. The crowd fell completely silent, confused by the cryptic words.
Tristan stared at me for a long moment, and then he let out a sharp, barking laugh.
"Did you just call mall security?" he mocked, stepping directly into my space. "Who was that? Your biker gang? You think anyone is coming to help you?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Tristan snatched the heavy satellite phone right out of my hand with a violent yank. He threw it onto the hard asphalt between us. With a roar of exertion, he brought his heavy suede heel down onto the device.
The titanium cracked. The screen shattered. He stomped it a second time, a third time, grinding his heel into the electronics until the expensive device was nothing but shards of plastic and metal wire.