Chapter 1: You Are Worth Nothing!

"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.