Arianne continued, “We paid her her wages on the day we dismissed her and did not charge her for eating the desserts or drinking our beverages every day. We simply cut a small part out due to her lateness every day. She was extremely unhappy and had an argument with us before leaving. From that day onwards, she’s been asking her friends to make takeaway orders for our desserts, every day. Then, after receiving the order, they’d leave a bad review. No one has ever had any problems with our products, and we certainly don’t have hygiene issues. She’s slandering us.
“Finally, I personally went to deliver their order. However, I did not threaten her. I simply blacklisted her and her friends’ accounts, to stop them from leaving any more bad reviews. I’ve even told them that I’d recorded the whole thing when, in fact, I didn’t. I thought that doing this could make her drop the matter, but it escalated — she spray painted our door. We spent $1,500 dollars on that door during renovations. I’d like compensation. If she continues slandering our café for its uncleanliness and problematic ingredients, I will file a lawsuit.”
The policeman turned to Regina after making notes, “Do you have anything more to say? Is she telling the truth? Should I call your little friends out for questioning?”
Regina panicked. Ever since Arianne’s confrontation, her friends had refused to help her in her vengeance spree. She was the only one behind the spray painting incident. If she ended up dragging her friends to the police station as well, they’d certainly sell her out in order to protect themselves.
After some careful thought and an inward struggle, she nodded, “She’s right… I was deliberately exacting revenge… I have no money for compensation… Am I going to be put in jail?”
The policeman curled his lips, “No, not to that extent, but you might be detained. This would largely depend on negotiations for the compensation. They’ve taken the door down, and we’ve taken pictures as proof of that. It was badly vandalized, so I’m pretty sure you’ll have to compensate them. You’d better contact your family members as soon as possible to negotiate the compensation, or you’ll never leave this place.”
Regina knew how Arianne was like—gullible and kind. She did not want to turn this into a big deal, so she turned to Arianne and said, “I know that I’ve done wrong. I won’t do it again. Will you let me off? I really don’t have any money on me, and my parents won’t concern themselves with me. I lied to you before; I haven’t found a job. I’ve been borrowing money to get by. I’ll clean off the paint from your door, okay?”
Tiffany answered in Arianne’s stead, “No way. We’re only accepting monetary compensation. We’ve already changed the door, and you’re going to have to provide us with substantial compensation for our loss. We haven’t even calculated the rest — you’ve caused us a lot of complications by having your little friends leave us those bad reviews, and we haven’t even considered the compensation for that. Quit while you’re ahead.”
Arianne nodded, agreeing with Tiffany.
Regina threw caution out the window, “Fine then. I don’t have money anyway. You can do whatever you want. I’ll just go to jail. It’s not like they can keep me there for that long over this. I’ll be out very soon. I’m still young; I don’t care!”
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