Chapter 128: I’ll Send You on Your Way

Chapter 128: I’ll Send You on Your Way

Tree Island Café was a good size and handsomely done—twenty or thirty tables in all, some for two and some for four, with a long bar toward the back.

There was a second floor as well.

When Wu Chen walked in, the ground floor already held more than thirty “customers.”

All of them male, most between twenty and forty. Some were extremely muscular. Nearly all wore their hair clipped short. Some wore black suits; others did not. They were spread evenly through the room, occupying almost every table.

That was not remotely the normal makeup of a café crowd.

Anyone walking in would sense at once that something was wrong—let alone when all of them looked over at the same moment. Not one of those gazes was friendly.

Wu Chen knew who they were. He knew they were together. He knew every one of them belonged to the same “security company.”

He stopped just inside the door. Nearly everyone looked at him, but most soon turned away and lost interest. He was a young man in his early twenties, college age—exactly like an ordinary customer come in for coffee. Not the man they were waiting for.

His expression stayed even. He swept the room with his eyes, then walked toward the western side, toward the innermost seats against the wall.

Every head came back around to him. A few of them actually stared.

Because—did this kid really have that kind of nerve?

He was going deeper in?

Since they had sat down, not one customer had dared venture past the entrance. Every single person who had come in that afternoon had stopped a step inside, dropped their eyes, and left. Nobody dared stay long enough to order.

Was this young man really that bold?

Still walking in?

At a four-person booth against the western wall sat a skinny, bald, middle-aged man with hollow cheeks. He had been on his phone. Catching movement at the edge of his vision, he glanced up, saw a young man in a suit, and froze for a beat, brows drawing together.

Were there really young people these days with this much nerve, this little fear of trouble?

He too took Wu Chen for a customer after coffee—looking for an empty seat, maybe headed upstairs.

But Wu Chen came straight to his table, pulled out the chair opposite, and sat down. He crossed one leg over the other and leaned back, one hand still in his suit pocket.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, and smiled.

The bald man’s face changed. Surprise flashed across it. Then he shot to his feet, slapped the table, and demanded furiously, “You’re the one who’s been calling me?”

It was not confirmation. It was disbelief, hedged with suspicion.

Because Wu Chen was too young.

The voice on the phone had sounded young, but the bald man had never dared imagine anything like this.

Screech. Clatter.

The instant his palm hit the table, dozens of men across the ground floor shoved back their chairs and stood. The noise was enormous. In a heartbeat the whole café seemed packed wall to wall with standing men.

Only Wu Chen remained seated.

Every eye was on him.

He was entirely unbothered. He looked at the bald man and smiled. “That’s right. It was me. Surprised?”

Then he tilted his head slightly, taking in the ring of men glaring at him around the room, and turned back with the same smile. “What’s all this supposed to be? You’re trying to frighten me? Or do you want every one of these men to hear about those dirty little secrets of yours—let them all in on it, so they can help spread the word for you?”

A muscle jumped in the bald man’s cheek. He stared.

Wu Chen’s composure went past anything he had pictured.

He had staged this entire display, and it had not stirred a flicker in the man across the table.

Of course it had not.

Even in the absurd event that it came to blows, the thirty-odd men in this café could not beat Wu Chen even all together—not in a room this open, with this much open space, terrain, and so many objects he could use.

Besides.

There was no chance of a fight today. Wu…