“Who are you to him?” a bald man asked, stepping forward just then.
“His guarantor,” Diarmuid said, cutting to the chase.
“Just tell us what he did, and what it would take you to release him.”
Upon hearing Diarmuid’s words, someone promptly showed Diarmuid a painting covered in puke, saying, ”He came to our art exhibition and threw up over one of our paintings.He definitely has to pay.”
“How much?”
“Thirty grand,” the bald man said.
“That painting is worth thirty grand? I can paint something better with my foot!” Zachary said, struggling but failing to free himself.
“Let me go already!”
“You never learn, do you?” the bald man growled, shooting Zachary a warning look.
“You’d better watch yourself!”
Even Abigail told Zachary to stop talking for a moment, but Zachary refused.
“I’m just telling the truth! A piece of crap like that is worth thirty grand? It’s daylight robbery!”
Diarmuid shot him a glare right then, as if telling him that he was the one who messed up.
Zachary understood that and he pursed his lips in silence.
Moreover, since art was subjective and pricing was as well, Diarmuid wrote a check for thirty grand and handed it to the bald man, not wanting to wrangle.
“It’s not the work of anyone important,”
Abigail whispered to Diarmuid just then.
Even art pieces varied in importance.
Something that neither drew interest nor was the work of anyone important would have zero demand, and was therefore of no value.
Diarmuid should not waste his money even if he was rich.
Diarmuid gave her an assuring look.
“I’ll handle it.”
Abigail believed that too, and stayed silent.
“Now let him go,” Diarmuid said.
The bald man gestured for his boys to do so after getting the money.
With that, Zachary started to wobble toward Abigail and Diarmuid, and there was no telling if he was hurt elsewhere aside from the face.
“What happened here?” Abigail asked.
However, Zachary wobbled in front of her before dropping to the floor with a thud.
Left dumbfounded, Abigail promptly dropped to a crouch to check on him the next instant.
However, she found Zachary winking at her away from the others’ gazes.
Abigail was speechless.He was pretending? Why? While she was still confused, the bald man beckoned for his thugs to leave.
Zachary quickly tugged on her sleeve and mouthed, “Com—pen— sa—tion.”
Abigail realized with a start and sprang to her feet.
“Stop! Are you trying to leave just like that after you caused injury?”
The bald man wheeled on her with a vicious glare.
“Are you trying to swindle me?!”
“No, but he’s unconscious and needs the hospital.You have to foot his bill,” Abigail said.
The bald man strode toward her right then, but Diarmuid stepped in between, his presence calm but intimidating.
“What do you think you are doing?”
“She’s trying to swindle me.”
The bald man naturally knew how far they went, since they did not hit Zachary anywhere else aside from the face, and not so hard that I he would be knocked out.
Abigail was naturally confident with Diarmuid around, and she kept insisting that Zachary was hurt.
“He’s already unconscious.Anything that happens next, including disability, is on you.Also—”
The bald man’s cheeks twitched and he pointed at her.
“Don’t fuck with me—argh!”
He screamed before he could finish, while Abigail did a double take too.
She was staring at Diarmuid’s hand, as he had grabbed the bald man’s index finger and twisted it when the bald man began to snap at her.
There was a crunch —the crisp sound of bone breaking, and it was now pointing at himself.
Abigail frowned, while the bald man kept screaming.
“Are you people idiots?!”
He then barked at his thugs, “Get over here! Kill him!”
However, his thugs had been staring at their phones, having been googling about Diarmuid.
They naturally would not lay a finger on a man as rich as powerful as him.
After all, most of them were more or less involved in crime, and once word of this got out, said record might surface, and they would lose way more than what they would gain.
Naturally, none of them would want to end up in jail.
“Should we just bail?” someone suggested.
“No.Baldie won’t want us back if we do, and he might even get back at us for this.”
“Then, what?”
Meanwhile, the bald man was kicked away and he was down on the ground, curling into a ball and clutching his hand as he screamed.
At the same time, he was still snapping at his thugs, “You pigs! I feed you for nothing!”
With that, someone withstood the pressure and snuck up to him, whispering, “You really should return the check, boss —that’s Diarmuid Althoff, and he’ll come for us if he knows the painting is worthless and we conned him off thirty grand.”
The bald man’s eyes flashed.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I won’t lie to you.Just look at his car, boss…And he also whipped out thirty grand like it was nothing.It’s obvious that he’s rich.”
The bald man glanced at the car then, and then at Diarmuid.He seemed to forget the pain from his finger and shuddered.
Pushing himself to his feet, he took out the check and said, “Sorry, I didn’t know who you were…It’s all my fault, so please spare me?”
Zachary got off the floor right then and promptly took the check.
“Don’t bother swindling people from now on,” he said, whipping out his wallet and throwing him all the cash.
“That’s all that painting was worth.”
One of the bald man’s thugs picked it up—it was just around 150 dollars, but the bald man said repeatedly, “It’s plenty, it’s plenty.”
With that done, they let the bald man and his thugs go.
Diarmuid then took Abigail’s hand and started to leave, so Zachary followed.
“Wait up—”
Diarmuid suddenly wheeled on him with a sharp glare.
“Fuck off!”
Zachary was left puzzled by Diarmuid’s sudden outburst.
“What? How did you upset you now?”
He puffed his chest confidently, his usual fear of Diarmuid gone since Abigail was here with them.
Diarmuid really wanted to kick Zachary right then.
“Clean up your own mess from now on! What were you thinking, asking for her? What can a woman like her do?! If I didn’t happen to get home at the same time, she would have come alone.
Who knows what would happen then? Maybe you did not think before you did? Or maybe your brain is just mush?!”
“It wasn’t me—they took my phone,”
Zachary quickly explained.
“They called her.”
Diarmuid was skeptical.
“How many contacts do you have on your phone? And they had to call her?”
Zachary hung his head guiltily then, afraid to look Diarmuid in the eye.
“Say something!” Diarmuid barked.
“I wanted to call her, but I didn’t even though it was on display.I just slipped my phone back in my pocket, and they saw it when they unlocked the screen.”
He wanted to ask Abigail about Lulu, but stopped himself from calling her because he wanted to let it go.
As such, he quickly apologized.
“Look, I know it’s my fault.This won’t ever happen again.”
Diarmuid was glaring at Zachary straight in the eye.
“We won’t be friends if it does.”
With that, he got in his car with Abigail, while Zachary braced himself and followed suit.
Taking the backseat, he poked his head between the front seats.
“Come on, you don’t have to be so cold.I apologized, and you’d still cut ties with me just like that? It’s like our relationship doesn’t matter to you—” Diarmuid narrowed his eyes.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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