Chapter 117: Confidence at its peak

As Tom drove toward the building, he began sorting the problem out in silence.

He already knew what he was not. He could not throw himself into a pack of street gang and expect to come out with anything useful, and he had no gun to lean on either in case the mafia members decided to come with full force. Since brute force was not available to him, he was left with the things he had actually been building; authority, charm, dominance... the quieter weapons that worked on nerves, posture, and hesitation.

Inwardly, he spoke to the System, half nervous.

’Those ones better not disappoint me.’

[As long as Host remains confident,] [they will do what they were designed to do.] the System replied, it could tell how nervous Tom was.

Tom breathed out quietly, quiet enough to not draw Josie’s attention. Then he adjusted his grip on the wheel.

"Confident, then."he said to himself inwardly, preparing himself to carry himself and speak certain enough for the room to feel him before he explained himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~

When they arrived, the scene was already ugly.

A group of men had taken over the front of the building like the place belonged to them. Most of them were gathered around one man in the center, clearly the one carrying the order for this set, their leader, while Josie’s construction workers remained pushed off to the side, too frightened to come any closer.

Their tools lay where they had been dropped and the whole frontage looked like work interrupted by force and left that way on purpose.

At the center of it, one of Josie’s managers was being humiliated in the open. He had been commanded to remove his suit and was currently using it to blow air to the leader’s legs, along with his mouth.

He was on his knees as he carried out the undignified act without a choice.

The men around the leader were laughing over it, using the man’s position to make a show of the company’s helplessness. Nobody from the construction team dared step in. The message was not subtle. This was not only about blocking the site. It was about making resistance look expensive.

Josie’s face changed the moment she took it in. Her nostrils flared in hot anger and she was out of the car before Tom fully brought it to a stop, walking the ground with uncontrolled anger in every step.

"What is this nonsense in broad daylight?" she demanded, her eyes shooting daggers at the men.

The men paused just long enough to look at her.

Then several of them laughed and returned to what they were doing, as if her presence changed nothing.

Josie’s voice sharpened. "I asked a question. Where is the man who sent you here?"

That only widened the amusement on the leader’s face. He leaned back slightly and looked her over with open disrespect.

"What are you waiting for?" he began with a disrespectful smirk.

"Where are those police officers you like sending every time? Your husband is still Deputy Mayor or has he been dismissed overnight? You shouldn’t be running out of cooperation from that side, I believe."

His boys laughed around him.

"We are waiting for them," the leader continued, his voice warmer with mockery now. "Let them come and arrest us. Another set will still arrive this evening. You can keep wasting time, energy, and resources picking up boys who will never finish coming. Or you can take your mind off this building." He spread his hands. "We are ready to be arrested."

The arrogance in it was loud and suffocating Josie. She gritted her teeth but before she could speak up, someone beat her to it... A voice from behind her;

"There will be no need for an arrest," Tom’s voice came up. He had stepped out of the car and started walking forward.

His voice was not raised completely high but landed so confidently and firm that it cut enough through the noise.

The effect showed at once when the men raised their eyes and their gazes landed on him.

Conversation quieted. Several of the seated men straightened and stood up sharply. Even the ones who had been laughing lost a portion of their ease as Tom approached, his presence arriving ahead of any introduction. By the time he stood in front of them, the change in the air was obvious enough that the leader himself rose from his seat, almost by reflex, as if someone more important than expected had entered the space.

Josie noticed it immediately. Her eyes moved from the men’s shifted posture to Tom’s face and stayed there, watching the scene unfold.

The leader recovered a second later, though not completely. "And who are you supposed to be?" he asked trying his possible best in forcing authority to his voice but failing.

Tom felt the opening and did not waste it. The authority he had been carrying in theory was working in practice now, visible in the men’s attention and in the careful way the leader reassessed him. He let that confidence settle fully into his stance.

"You want to know who I am? If that’s so, you’d need to rephrase the question properly." Tom said calmly.

The leader blinked then after a heartbeat, he cleared his throat;

"May we know you, sir?" his voice sounded unsure if the words were polite enough.

Tom’s gaze remained fixed on him, making the man blinked uncomfortably.

"Maybe but not right now." He glanced over the group, then back to the man in front. "I am more interested in the person who sent you. I want a physical conversation with him."

The boys exchanged looks.

The leader’s answer came slower than his earlier mockery. "That one will be slightly difficult."

"Why?"

"Boss is not in town for now."

Tom nodded in understanding as if that were only a logistical detail. "Then give me a number. I will keep in touch until he is around."

There was a brief hesitation. The leader looked at his boys once again, he called out his number while Tom put it in his phone. gave the number.

No words were exchanged, Just the quiet compliance of a man who had read the room and decided not to test it further in public.

Tom saved it and looked at him again. "I need you and your men to leave this building. Do not come back."

The leader exhaled through his nose, his shoulders sagging in defeat;

"Leaving is not the main problem. Another set is already arranged for tomorrow, and the day next and next. Clearing us now does not end anything."

"That is my concern. Yours is to leave." Tom maintained flatly.

For a moment the leader stared at him as if searching for the bluff. Whatever he found, or failed to find, was enough. He signaled the others with a short movement of his hand. The men began moving away from the front of the building, one by one until the approach was clear again.

Meanwhile, the humiliated manager remained where he was, shaken and upright now that the circle around him had gone. The construction workers still did not move immediately. Even relief took a second to trust itself.

Only when the last of the boys had gone did Josie turn fully to Tom.

The anger on her face had vanished, and was now replaced by a sharp, unconcealed shock.

"Did that just happen?" she asked.