The heavy silence in the cramped living room was shattered not by a physical blow, but by a jagged, mocking explosion of laughter erupting from the smartphone on the coffee table. It was a coarse, grating sound—the sound of a man who held all the cards and knew his opponent was bluffing with a handful of lint.
“Hahaha! Holy mother of God… are you trying to kill us with laughter, you pathetic little bastard?”
The voice on the other end belonged to a mid-level enforcer for the Fraud Syndicate, a man whose job was to squeeze blood from stones and tears from the desperate. His tone dripped with a toxic mix of amusement and genuine malice.
“I swear, I’m recording this. I’m sending this audio back to HQ so the boys can have a good laugh for the next six months. Maybe I’ll even talk to the bos
