"Keep the change." The customer took the pizza box from Damion's hands.
Damion smiled. "Bless you, sir. Have a good evening."
When the man returned inside the bodega, he checked his hand and realised he had just been tipped a $100. His hand flew over his mouth, muffling his gasp.
Damion glanced at the workers of the store through the glass while they had a late night dinner.
He couldn't contain his excitement about the 100 dollar tip as he picked his helmet.
Across the street, the doors of the luxury fashion store opened. Damion squinted, placing the helmet back on his bike.
He began to wave vigorously.
It was his girlfriend, Maliya, who had just walked out of the store across from him.
"Maliya!" He shouted, but the cars zooming past between them drowned his voice.
Damion quickly dialled her number, excited that he had run into her. They hadn't seen each other all week because both their schedules had been packed.
He watched her phone ring, but his smile slipped from his face when she pressed her phone's power button, ignoring him.
Suddenly, a flashy black car appeared. It drove towards her, and after a few seconds, it vanished from the curb. Damion blinked. Maliya was gone, too.
He jumped on his bike and raced to meet up with the black car.
A while later. The black car drove into a mansion he had never seen before. Damion waited a few minutes down the street before ringing the bell, disguised as a pizza delivery guy.
They let him in, and instantly, he banged on the large house door. This place was magnificent. Grand. Fairytale-like.
"What do you want?" Maliya's stern voice asked, jerking his attention back to the front door.
Shocked, the pizza box he came with fell from his hands, smashing on the ground between them.
"Maliya, it's me..." Damion eyed the white shirt she had on and her shapely long legs bare underneath it. "I—I called you earlier. You didn't pick."
"Can't you see I'm busy?" She crossed her arms over her chest, rolling her eyes. "Leave this place, Damion. It's not meant for people like you."
He frowned at her harsh voice. "Maliya."
Immediately, a man appeared in the doorway. He was 6'4. A foot taller than Damion, and he looked like a foreigner. His ink black beards were healthy and neat. And his bare chest now plastered to Maliya's back.
"Who's he?" Damion asked warily.
"Your replacement. We are over, Damion—" Maliya stopped, letting the man kiss her senseless right before her ex.
She moaned, and Damion fell back a step on this modern porch. Stunned. Humiliated.
"We should talk about...about us first."
Maliya scoffed on an eye roll. "There's nothing to talk about between us, Damion. You are a worthless piece of trash who can't afford my lifestyle."
"But I've been trying for you! Last month, I bought you that couple's bracelet and treated you to an expensive dinner, no matter the cost."
Maliya shared a look with the man behind her, ridicule shining in her blue eyes.
She raised her hand and let the bracelet drop as she held onto one end. "You mean this cheap thing? Show him how a real man treats his woman, babe."
The man behind her obeyed. He moved her hair away and kissed a trail up her shoulder. His hand moved forward, undoing the first few buttons of her shirt.
Damion saw the gleaming stone hanging from her neck. It was a diamond. A pure cut diamond necklace.
He blinked, setting his jaw hard. "I don't make as much as he does to be able to buy you diamonds, but my love for you runs deeper than the ocean—"
The bracelet hit the centre of his forehead. She had thrown it at him.
Damion shut his eyes, mortified.
"You will regret leaving me for him." Eyes still closed, Damion gritted the promise out.
Maliya snapped. She moved closer into his personal space and backhanded him, poking him hard in the chest next.
"Should I tell you what you really are, Damion?" Maliya flashed a sardonic smirk, "A waste of space. Scum that's just existing. You have no one in this world. Everyone left you. Your mother. Your sister. They left you because they realised you are worth nothing!"
The man whispered to her, "Shh. Don't get worked up over nothing. Come here."
He pulled her behind him, across the threshold. Then he stepped forward, kicking the ruined box of pizza down the porch steps.
"How much is your pizza worth, boy?"
Damion couldn't speak. Anger roared like fierce winds inside him. He wanted to burst with heat like a chimney. His fists clenched.
The man laughed. "Look, Liya. He must have forgotten how to use his voice."
"Asshole! I'm too busy thinking of ways I can make you both—"
Cash rained down on him. Hundred dollar bills, causing him to shut up. His chest tightened. They had humiliated him enough.
"Make you both pay!" Damion growled out loud, completing his sentence.
But he was too late. They had already shut the door in his face. Damion wanted to claw through the wood and get to them, but it was impossible.
He returned to his bike outside the gate, tossing the ruined pizza box into the bushes.
He hadn't even remembered to slip on his helmet. Her words played in his head like a broken record.
'You are worth nothing'
Damion couldn't think straight. He went above the speed limit, seething on his machine. He needed to forget everything about Maliya and her new man.
There was a green light ahead.
It turned yellow.
Damion didn't want to stop. He amped up his speed, gunning for the crossroads.
3, 2, 1!
Red-light.
But he didn't stop. He kept going, and when he finally dived past the light. The headlights of an incoming vehicle blinded him.
Something crashed into him. His delivery bike flew, throwing him on the hard asphalt.
The last thing Damion saw before blackness was the boxes of pizza splattering down on him.
Beep. Beep. Beep.Damion felt groggy as his eyes opened. A haze cleared from his eyes, and he registered with his surroundings. This was a hospital room.He winced. The ache in his head was out of this world. When he touched his head, it had been bandaged, wrapped all the way around."Mr. Damion, how are you feeling?" He met the kind gaze of the doctor standing at the side of his bed. A few nurses had accompanied him."Tired. My head hurts," Damion croaked, mouth dry.The doctor scribbled down something on his notepad. "Yes, that's normal. You sustained a head injury from the impact of your fall, but I'm glad to tell you that you are out of danger.""When do I get to leave?""In a few weeks. We will have to monitor you for the time being."When the time came for Damion to leave the hospital, the accountant had prepared his bill, and the amount almost gave him a heart attack."$5000?" his eyes popped from their sockets.Damion didn't have that kind of money.But the nurse delivering t
Blinking hard at his phone screen, Damion peered even closer at the figures showing in his inbox as a credit alert. He laughed, his chest shaking with amusement as he scrolled out of his inbox, dismissing the alert as a spam message possibly from scammers. He went to drop his phone, but something clicked in his head. The credit alert was from his actual bank account. The one he used for all his transactions.He turned on the phone again, unlocking it with a swipe. He pulled up the message again.It was there for him to see. A credit alert : $100,000,000,000.What in the absolute hell?He dropped his phone beside him on the bed in disbelief. After a few breaths, he picked up the phone again, pausing for a minute to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand. Maybe he was feeling so tired and sleepy he was seeing things.Or maybe he was already asleep and fucking dreaming. He pinched himself. He felt the pain. Alright, yeah, he was awake.He went to his inbox, fully expecting to see n
Damion watched as his phone smashed against the hard wooden floors and bounced, sliding across a few feet away. He raised wide, furious eyes to the sales rep. “Are you insane? What the hell did you do that for?”He rushed to pick up his phone, his heart thundering in his chest furiously. This phone was one of his most cherished properties and he couldn't function properly without it. He didn't have any money to replace it if anything happened to it even. He snatched the phone from the floor, and stared at it, turning it over in his hand. Only half the screen was cracked and the light still worked. He glowered at the sales rep again. “What the fuck man?”The sales rep walked in a threatening stride ro Damion. “Excuse me, Sir,” he sneered, “Pearla is not a place for low life wannabes to come in and fucking take pictures of the clothes without buying anything.”Damion gestured widely at the suit he had his sights set on. “What the fuck do you mean? I was just about to ask about the s
The sidewalk was a little hot and Damion drew himself up sharply, cursing repeatedly at the world and at himself.“Should have known better than to go in there,” he swore, dusting his jeans which had now collected a little dust from the sidewalk. He picked his phone up and tapped at the screen. It was worse for wear, but amazingly, it still came on when he tapped on it. The time was almost 10 o'clock in the morning and he still hadn't gotten to Lance Towers. He also hadn't been able to change into an appropriate outfit. He had managed to get a tear on his jeans now. Damion didn't want to go anywhere at all, anymore. He felt very reluctant to head to Lance Towers, seeing how badly today was already going. If he just hadn't done what the woman had told him to. If he'd stayed on his decisionDamion didn't feel like going anywhere else after being treated poorly. If that woman hadn't suggested that he do this, then he wouldn't have been humiliated like this. He was a lowlife, a dirtb
Damion startled, backing up a few steps. The bodyguards still looked as astounded as Damion felt. Why was this woman calling him young master?“Lady, were you the one that called me last night? What do you want from me? What's that money in my bank account?”The woman raised her head a little to peek at him, before bringing down her head again. “I apologise for how you've been treated so far, young master. Please allow me to make amends.”Amends how?Damion stood there, glaring at the lady. If she would just tell him that all that money was his, he would forgive everything and be glad to go home. “If you would follow me, young master, we can go up to my office. I'll tell you everything.” the woman gestured with both hands in front of Damion, waving him to the elevator how Damion often saw rich men and politicians directed by their subordinates.If this was a scam, a thieving scheme, then it was a very elaborate one to rob him of money he didn't even have.He impatiently followed the
Damion stared at the old man in bemusement, more than a little taken aback by the man's familiarity with him. He took a step back from the old man.The man arched his brow, letting his hand drop in disappointment. He looked sad for some reason. Damion looked around the room, finally taking notice of a girl, a few years older than him, standing by the old man's desk. He remembered he'd been brought there to meet his supposed “grandfather”. He laughed. "Are you people alright in the head?" Damion blurted out. "Excuse me?" The young girl spoke up, arching a well carved brow in a show of arrogance that was second skin to those filthy rich people Damion always saw in the movies. “Why send me that ridiculous amount of money and then you,” he pointed at the man, “even call me your grandson?" Damion continued, completely ignoring the girl and glaring daggers at the man."We are your family, Damion." The old man answered, taking a step closer to him."No, you are not." Damion replied."I a
“Wait a minute,” Damion shifted back, his hands running over his face in jerky motions. “I can't be your grandson. I was raised in an orphanage and I grew up with nothing. I have never before heard anything about a family of my own. I don't even know how I came to be in that orphanage. I've never…I've never had a family.” Damion stuttered out, his heart stuttering, because did they really mean that he had a family? The lady smiled for the first time, also moving closer to Damion. “That's because we lost you. Uncle can explain everything to you later…cousin.”Damion laughed then, shaking his head in disbelief. “This can't be true.”Sensing Damion's frustrated disbelief, the doctor took the files from the desk and crossed to Damion's side, handing them to him a little too respectfully. Damion's eyes read the words slowly, over and over again.A 99.9 percent match to Lance Ericson.That was the old man. They were saying that man was Damion's father and it sounded like something out of
Damion jumped off the couch where he was sitting. He massaged his forehead as he paced around his grandfather’s office. He was so in a hurry this morning to get out of the house and come to Lance Towers because of his curiosity that he had forgotten about the most pressing issue in his life at the moment.As he paced around, his cousin approached and tapped him on the shoulder, mouthing ‘what happened?’ to him but he just shook his head and walked out of the office.He was glad he finally had a family, people that will care for him no matter what. It felt nice actually but he didn’t want them all up in his business. At least, they hadn’t reached that stage yet.“I’ll be right there, Daniel. Thanks for calling to notify me,” he finally replied to his friend on the phone and hung up.He walked back to the office and just when he was about to open the door, he sighed. This whole situation felt like a fairytale and he still felt awkward and out of place around them.At the moment, he was