With a violent clang, the vehicle door slammed open.
Two squads of fully armed SWAT officers in black tactical gear stormed out first. They moved efficiently, splitting off into formation and locking down every exit of the restaurant within seconds.
Right behind them came a wave of officers in navy-blue uniforms—ecological enforcement agents. Each of them looked like they were bracing for a high-risk biohazard breach.
Then the last to step out was a sharply dressed middle-aged man with the kind of presence that made people instinctively move aside.
His expression was grim. Around him clustered a group of senior officers and SWAT commanders, clearing the way as he strode toward the restaurant with furious purpose. It was Roy Marshall, head of the MESC—the same man who had been shouting over the phone minutes earlier.
The door to the restaurant flew open, slamming hard against the wall.
“Lock down the scene! Everyone on the ground! Hands on your heads! No phones! No cameras!” A SWAT commander barked into a megaphone, voice full of unchallengeable authority.
Every diner, server and staff member dropped into a crouch like their lives depended on it. The dining hall, once filled with the buzz of conversation and the clatter of hotpot ladles, was now silent—save for the sound of shaky breathing and teeth chattering in fear.
At our table... we were still standing.
Roy’s eyes immediately locked onto the toad remnants in the dish in front of Cassey and the glowing phone screen still sitting on the table—frozen on a screenshot of her social media post. The damning evidence.
Roy instantly went livid, veins bulging at his temple. “You absolute idiots!”
He stormed over in three strides, eyes burning with barely contained rage.
The moment he reached our table, he practically shouted, “Golden-Spined Mountain Toads! One of the last confirmed wild populations on the planet! Fewer than fifty left—worldwide—and you two thought it was soup meat?!”
He was trembling with fury, pointing first at the bubbling hotpot, then at the shredded carcass in the dish and finally pointed a finger at Cassey’s pale, frozen face.
“Illegal poaching. Illegal slaughter. Illegal consumption. And you had the nerve to brag about it online?! Who the hell gave you that kind of arrogance?!”
Then he turned to the ghost-pale looking Gavin.
“Gavin Cole. Heir to Cole Tech, huh? Very impressive. Covering up a federal crime? Threatening a government researcher? Forcing someone to consume remains of a critically endangered species?!”
“Do you think your family is above national law?!”
“C-Commander Marshall!” Gavin’s voice was shaking now. His arrogant and dismissive tone from few moments ago were gone.
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. That one call from me, had summoned the kind of force most people only saw in breaking-news headlines.
Gavin had never imagined that those three toads could carry enough weight to bring down the full wrath of the National Ecological Security Command, complete with SWAT teams and armored convoys.
His knees buckled. For the first time, he truly looked at me compared to the earlier moments of the day.
“Ari…” he croaked my nickname as he stumbled a step toward me—and dropped. Hard. On his knees hitting the greasy hotpot-stained tile floor.
“Ari, I was wrong! I messed up! I really messed up!” Tears streamed down his once-handsome face, now twisted with fear and desperation.
“I was blind! I let myself be manipulated by that viper Cassey—I didn’t know what I was doing! Please, I beg you—say something to Commander Marshall! Tell him it was a misunderstanding!”
“Spare the Coles! Just this once!”
“I’ll do anything! I’ll make this right! I’ll tell my family we loved the date! I’ll tell them the match was perfect! We’ll marry—right away! We’ll make it official between the Coles and the Linfields!”
