Do you still have the rape video

Ricky saw the message as it popped up on the man's phone on the counter, just beside the glass cladded menu.

His suspicion spiked when he realized the name was pretty familiar, the normal looking guy who he thought was just a stuck up rich guy was clearly not who he thought he was, he was at first worried what a man would be going through, to let him forget his phone and just take his keys and leave, I mean, if he was hungry, he wouldn't even be in venus cafe in the first place, he would have gone to the McDonalds or Starbucks for whole meals.

Ricky took off his blue apron uniform and took the phone to run after the rich business dude. If he was able to tip him as much as eighty four bucks, the least he could do is hand the guy back his phone and go on about his day to day life.

When he got out of the cafe, he saw him going into an underground parking lot that belonged to the Southern Millers enterprise. He crossed the road with haste and zero precautions earning him a bunch of loud horns and spray of curses from the regular bitter and impatient New yorkers, nothing he wasn't used to.

When he used to be a bike delivery guy, he used to receive so many stray curses, after months on the job, he realized that taking it personally was a waste of time. Half, if not a good 90% of New Yorkers had anger issues, or running to a meeting they were already late for due to traffic or a mixture of both and some were just bitter like his former boss.

Finally, he was able to get into the parking lot with a lot of struggle in breathing, now he wished he took PE a little more seriously. Aside from the company vans, every car was flashy and looked like they could single handedly foot his student loan and just enough for a long deserved vacation.

"Hey sir!" Ricky felt weird yelling that out loud, and it ended up not catching his attention.

"Mister!" He tried something different and still couldn't get his attention. Getting frustrated, he called him by what he was wearing.

"Man in black!" Ricky yelled, then bent down and tried to catch his breath. Since highschool, he hadn't had a chance of running anymore from bullies because this time, life was the bully, whether you ran or hid or not gave a fuck, life was gonna fuck you up either way.

Guessing he finally caught the man in black attention either from the random call outs or from his over dramatic method of trying to catch his breath like kung fu panda always did after every short run.

"Oh hey,"

"You are the barista guy," Xander remembered the quirky guy behind the counter, staring at him weirdly as he was dramatically taking in oxygen through his mouth.

"Sorry, are you asthmatic or something?" Xander said, getting worried at the way he was trying to take in air, he had a friend in middle school who would get an attack just from running down the hall.

"Oh no, I'm not,"

"My lungs are just weak as hell, they can't even perform a simple task of keeping me conscious after twenty meters run," Ricky filled him in on his weak system. Finally, he could stand up straight and take the man's phone out of his pocket.

"Is that sarcasm?" Xander asked.

"No, it's the truth actually, unprivileged people are actually a thing,"

"And I'm Ricky actually, said it back at the store," Ricky reminded, as if trying to help him catch up.

"Okay, so what do you want exactly or what exactly is the problem?" Xander asked.

"Well, you left your phone back in the cafe, so I had to run after you to give it back," Ricky said, using his hands to show where he was coming from.

"Okay, thanks man, got to run," Xander rushed, collecting his phone and leaving the barista behind in the parking lot as he yelled "you are welcome" back.

He headed to the elevator and tapped the top floor, before checking his phone and saw that he had a text from Alice, but the text content took him by shock.

He had totally forgotten about the video he asked the hooligans to take, but he never asked for it before the outcome of the event took a completely different turn.

You

I don't think I do, it should still be with Mikey's gang, I forgot to collect it from them.

Alice

Get them tomorrow, I have an idea.

Back at the cafe

Ricky returned back to the cafe only to get an ear full of complaint from his manager telling him that he was really on his last nerve and stuff, and he wouldn't even listen to him or grant him a little grace of letting him speak so he let him rant on and got off with a warning, he knew Carson wouldn't fire him, the pay is shitty, they were down on workers, and workers that came here to work didn't last more than two to three months because it was a typical summer job or job for the holiday.

The only person who worked here permanently was the manager and Joan, your typical emo girl with tattoos and black or nude lipstick with nose septums and black outfits, she was very quite and the only time he had heard her speak was when she was clocking out of her shift and it was always some low and inaudible Japanese.

He was ten minutes to the end of his shift when Araceli and Amy walked into the cafe laughing. Araceli was wearing her hair as a fringe which looked nicely weird on her with black specs and oversized panda print tee with above the knee shorts, while Amy wore a glittering notice-me silver dress with black heels.

"What shall I get my favorite ladies?" Ricky asked bowing to both of them playfully.

"A cup of double espresso for the panda girl and latte cream sugar for the queen, and do not look at us in the eye, you common peasant," Amy played along, lifting her jew upwards graciously.

"Don't push it Amy, I can make really bad Latte's too, you know," Ricky smiled cunningly.

"Don't you dare mess up my latte," Amy warned.

"Isn't your shift over already? Ace keeps dialing my phone that he can't wait to go to the Arcade and it's a long drive outside the city," Rachel reminded them of how long of a day they had.

"It's in the next five minutes girl, calm your tits," Ricky said, handing them their orders while attending to the other customer behind them.

They went ahead to get a chair to sit as they waited for eleven thirty. Rachel stopped by Amy's house to fill her in on everything that happened and the whole plan going on, which made Amy very excited, to be finally involved in someone's life.

"Jesus!" Ricky sat on the chair beside Araceli with a dramatic landing earning him stares but he didn't give enough fucks to return the looks they gave him, it wasn't a library for christ sake.

"I had a very fucked up day in the weirdest way possible, even though it came with an eighty four dollar tip," Ricky said, smiling at the thought of him being eighty four dollars richer.

"Eighty four dollars!"

"What the hell Ricky! Did Jeff Bezos drop by and you couldn't even call your closest friend," Amy whined, and Rachel just laughed at the over exaggerating comparison, she knew it was someone who didn't have enough patience to wait for the barrister to change the count.

"Look girl, it was just some random dude from a business magazine that got the whole cafe staring and whispering, sacrificing and risking their necks just to turn to awkward degrees and have a look at some plain white boy in an impressive suit," Ricky said, waving her in dismissal, drinking his plain coffee.

"Look, that wasn't even the weirdest shit alright, the thing is that when he took his order yeah, he forgot his iphone 12 pro on my counter during my shift and before I could return it, some Alice girl sent a message asking if he still had a rape video!!" Ricky half yelled, getting both of his hands slapped.

"Keep your fucking voice down," Amy whispered at him as people gave them weird stares.

"A fucking rape video!" Ricky said again, only this time, he was whispering.

That's when it suddenly hit her in the end, the girl name was Alice, wait, Alice as in Alice...

"Ricky, you said her name was Alice right?" Rachel asked, just to be sure and that caught the attention of Amy too.

"Wait, her name is Alice?" Amy asked, suddenly alarmed.

"Yes! Jesus can you guys stop asking for her name, I have already said it like three times now," Ricky said, exasperated.

"Wait by chance, was the guy in a fancy suit named Xander?," Rachel asked.

"Yeah, I think so, even though he could—" Ricky was saying till he saw their once playful expressions go serious, they shared a glance and kept quite looking like they just heard about a friend's death.

"What's the problem? Do you guys know him?" Ricky asked, confused.

Araceli just stayed pale staring down at her espresso while Amy kept looking at her with worry coating her features. The whole drama unwrapping itself in front of him made him even more anxious to know about what was going on.

"Guys! What's going on? Is he some kind of serial killer or something? I still remember his face you know,"

"He's Araceli's fiancé." Amy dropped the bomb

"Fuck."