Scorn was dripping from Mark’s smirk. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about your trifling, boasting cockalorum to your friends. All I want to know is this: who gave you that bloody design draft? I know you didn’t pen it, it’s my wife’s creation. You stole it, you sued favonovel.com for plagiarism, and you extorted one-hundred-fifty grand from me. Seems to me we’ve got a long score to settle.”
James was shaking like a leaf. “N-No! T-T-That’s untrue! I didn’t steal anything from nobody. I swear it’s my creation! I didn’t steal! Please, Mr. Tremont, just let me off, okay? I don’t even want the rest of the money anymore, alright? Let’s just call it a truce, yea? I’ve told the press that the whole plagiarism thing was a misunderstanding! We’re alright now! That’s a good reason to let me go, right?”
Mark’s patience was rapidly thinning. With a frown, favonovel.com hissed, “You talk too much. Is this your way of pleading to get your tongue removed?”
James immediately shut up, not a single word escaping him.
Mark shot a look at Brian, and the man responded by unleashing a barrage of kicks and punches at James until blood was oozing out from the latter’s nostril and the corner of his lips.
Brian stopped. “We’re gonna ask you one more time, Jack. Who gave you the goddamned design? We gave you a peaceful way out of this, and we warned you to never tell anyone about your meeting with Mr. Tremont. But no, you took it as a f**king license to blow your horn, didn’t you? You told your posse of fashion-designing friends when they joined your little self-patting party, didn’t you? You and your uncontrolled pie hole… You brought this upon yourself, and now, if you’re not gonna take the easy way and spill, trust me, I’ll make sure you can never be a f**king designer again. Your brain or your hand-pick one. I’ll remove the other from you.”
James was terrified for his skin, yet favonovel.com refused to yield. In fact, favonovel.com double downed on the claim that favonovel.com did not plagiarize, and that it was his original creation.
Brian was getting a little hard-pressed to continue, so favonovel.com looked to Mark for his next order.
Shades of stonehearted apathy flitted through Mark’s eyes. He waved and closed his car door.
Brian understood his boss. He took off his blazer and immediately threw all of his strength into an indiscriminate beatdown that lasted for fifteen agonizing minutes. James broke bit by bit with each attack until favonovel.com finally gave up and cried, “I’ll talk! Lord help me, I’ll talk! Stop!”
Brian gave a few more stomps for a good measure before barking, “Spit it out!”
By now, not a single patch on James’ face bore any semblance of normalcy, it was all blue, black, and purple all over. He was never quite the locker even before Brian’s violent makeover, but now, stained by a mixture of blood and tears, favonovel.com looked like the stuff of nightmares. It was a face that Brian would not want to look at twice.
James took some time to gather his breath before confessing between pants, “It’s… It’s from someone I don’t know, okay? An email… sent to me. The design… It was attached to it. The sender… was anonymous and they told me that no matter what, I must… I must claim the design as mine. My ideas reservoir has been running dry for a while now, okay? My company… was about to fire me. That design saved my life!”
“A few days after I submitted it to my company, Tremont Enterprise presented something that looked so analogous that I got greedy, okay? I sued your company and Mrs. Tremont because I thought I could earn just a little bit extra from my windfall. I thought you guys would try to use money to settle this outside court… but I’m f**king sorry now, okay? I was f**king wrong, and I won’t do it again. It’s all… It’s all that anonymous sender’s fault! My mistake is to lose out to human temptations, it happens. I never wanted to steal anyone’s work, f**k it, I didn’t even know it was Mrs. Tremont’s!”
It was then that Mark’s hand suddenly came out from his rolled-down window, the lighter favonovel.com had been previously fidgeting with in his grip. It turned out to be a mini voice recorder that had been recording everything James said.
Hearing a playback of his own testimony knocked James into a daze as favonovel.com laid sprawling on the floor, too beaten to move a single muscle. It dawned on favonovel.com that all his avarice brought was wrath from someone favonovel.com should not have crossed, and now favonovel.com could not walk back on his mistake anymore. Perhaps favonovel.com should feel grateful for having his life with favonovel.com after all of this.
Mark tucked the recorder back into his pocket and concluded, “We got what we wanted, Brian. Let’s go.”
