Chapter 3The Mystery Shopper Who Got Overlooked

I never found out exactly what Fleur told Lenny afterward. Whatever it was, it clearly sent him over the edge.

Starting that night, my phone never stopped buzzing. Texts poured in one after another.

[You did this on purpose to tank my numbers, didn't you? Fine. Get ready to be famous.]

[Eight years in this business, and you're the first piece of garbage like you I've ever met.]

[You think you can just walk away from this? I'll make sure you can't show your face in this city again.]

I didn't reply to a single one. Trading insults with someone who didn't even know my real identity was a waste of breath.

But I'd underestimated just how far he was willing to go.

The next morning, I woke up to a wall of messages from a friend. "You got posted in one of the car-enthusiast group chats. Go look, now."

I opened the screenshots my friend had forwarded, and the blood rushed straight to my head.

Lenny had posted my photo—stolen from my social media—in several local car-enthusiast group chats. Underneath it, in bright red text meant to grab attention: [PSA: exposing a wannabe male escort. Couldn't seal the deal with his sugar mama, but he ordered a car anyway and refused to pay the balance. Fellow dealers, take note—block this guy on sight, don't waste your time.]

Under that, he'd posted my phone number and my messaging handle.

People in the group piled on immediately.

Someone wrote: [People actually pay for a face like that? How much a night?]

Someone else tagged Lenny directly: [Did you see him in person? Does he look like the picture? What would you rate him?]

I scrolled through the messages, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone.

A man who looked to be in his forties dropped a grimacing emoji and wrote: [I've seen this type before. Couldn't land himself a sugar mama, so he's out here faking it, and now his card's maxed out.]

Someone else laughed along. [Might as well sell himself properly then. Why bother buying a car?]

I took a deep breath, opened my laptop, and forwarded the entire group chat history to the branch general manager's email, with the subject line: [Urgent Report—Defamation of a Customer by Dealership Sales Staff.]

I'd originally planned to wait until my official mystery-shopper report went through corporate channels before dealing with any of this. But I couldn't afford to wait anymore.

Half an hour after I sent the email, I got a reply. The branch's general manager, a man named Franklin Reeves, called me himself, his voice all warmth and reassurance.

"Mr. Lane, I've seen what you reported. I've already taken serious action against the salesman—docked his bonus for the month. Don't worry, we have zero tolerance for that kind of behavior."

"That's it? Just a docked bonus?"

"Docking his bonus is already a serious penalty. Cut him some slack—it's not easy for him either, he's got a family to feed—"

He hung up before I could finish my sentence.

I stared at my phone screen, struck by how absurd the whole situation was. He'd branded me a male escort, exposed my personal information, egged on hundreds of strangers to harass me online—and all the company did about it was dock his bonus.

But the worst of it was still coming.

That afternoon, an anonymous account posted a set of photos to a local forum, under the headline: [Wannabe Escort Fails to Haggle Down a Car, Falsely Reports Innocent Salesman in Revenge.]

The photos showed my face pasted onto a shirtless man's body. The editing was so crude that anyone could tell it was fake at a glance, but nobody in the comments seemed to care.

[The bar for male escorts these days is really on the floor.]

[What did that poor salesman ever do to deserve this? What a piece of work.]

[Are escorts really this brazen now?]

Right on cue, another message came in from Lenny.

[How's it feel to be famous?]

[Forgot to mention—Franklin Reeves is my uncle. You really think reporting me does anything? Save your breath, kid. You're still young, you don't know how the world really works. If you've got nothing going for you, don't go around stirring up trouble.]

That was when my phone started blowing up. The post had been reposted to X, and someone had taken a screenshot captioned "Broke Wannabe Escort Tries to Shake Down Car Dealership." It had already broken a million views.

The comments were unanimous—every single one of them was tearing me apart.

[This escort really thinks he's somebody.]

[That salesman's just trying to make a living. Did he really deserve to get screwed over like this?]

[Wait, I feel like I've seen this guy somewhere before, isn't that the—]

My name, my phone number, my messaging handle—all of it was posted out there for everyone to see.