The head waiter was a man dressed in a flawless white tuxedo.
He approached the table with a hesitant overly polite smile. He was clearly accustomed to the eccentric demands of the ultra-wealthy of Veridia.
But the loud public declaration of Julian to cover a massive tab had drawn the attention of the entire dining room.
"How may I serve you this evening, honored guests?" the waiter asked and offered a sleek glowing digital menu to Sera.
Sera reached for it.
Her mind rapidly scanned the high-end entrees.
She prepared to order something politely expensive to punish Julian slightly without breaking social decorum.
Dante didn’t let her take the menu.
He snatched the glowing tablet out of the air and completely ignored basic etiquette.
He stared at the screen, squinted his eyes, and aggressively tapped the glass like he had never seen a digital interface before.
"Wow, these numbers have a lot of zeroes," Dante announced loudly and leaned back in his chair.
He looked up at Julian, and his eyes were wide with fake overwhelming innocence.
"You are sure you are paying for all of this, right, Mr. Julian? I do not want to accidentally order the wrong thing and get stuck doing dishes!"
The eye of Julian twitched.
The loud uncultured display was exactly what he wanted to embarrass Sera. But the sheer volume of the voice of Dante was starting to grate on his nerves.
"I am the heir to the largest tech conglomerate on the planet," Julian stated and puffed his chest out.
"You cannot possibly order anything in this restaurant that I cannot effortlessly afford. Proceed."
"Awesome!" Dante cheered.
He turned to the waiter.
"I heard the fish eggs here are pretty good," Dante said and dragged a finger down the menu. "I will take the Starlight Beluga Caviar."
The polite smile of the waiter froze. He blinked rapidly and clearly struggled to maintain his professional composure.
"Sir," the waiter said softly.
"The Starlight Beluga Caviar is our premier exclusive appetizer. It is harvested from off-world sturgeon raised in absolute-zero orbital facilities. It is typically served in a three-gram tasting spoon."
"Three grams?" Dante scoffed and waved his hand dismissively.
"That is not going to fill me up! I am a growing boy. I want a full kilogram. Bring me a bucket of it."
Lila gasped quietly and covered her mouth to hide her shock.
Julian stood next to the table and actually choked on his own spit.
A kilogram of Starlight Beluga Caviar.
The stuff cost roughly two hundred thousand Veridian credits for a single spoonful.
A full kilogram would mathematically push the bill past ten million credits instantly.
It was an astronomical and completely absurd request. Nobody ordered caviar by the kilogram. It was physically impossible to eat that much rich food.
"A... a kilogram, sir?" the waiter stammered and looked helplessly at Julian for confirmation.
The face of Julian was rapidly cycling between pale shock and furious embarrassment.
He wanted to scream at the waiter to cancel the order. He wanted to drag Dante out of the restaurant by his collar.
But he couldn’t.
He had just loudly and publicly declared to the entire room of his ultra-wealthy peers that he could effortlessly afford anything the country bumpkin ordered.
If he backed down now and admitted a single appetizer was too expensive, he would look incredibly weak.
He would lose massive amounts of face in front of the exact corporate executives he was trying to impress.
"Bring him the caviar," Julian ground out through clenched teeth and forced a tight incredibly painful smile. "If the peasant wants to gorge himself, let him."
"Right away, sir," the waiter bowed frantically and practically ran toward the kitchen.
Dante didn’t stop.
"And I am really thirsty," Dante complained and tapped the drink menu. "What is this purple stuff? Lunar-Tide Wine? Sounds fancy."
"It is a century-old vintage," Sera spoke up and played along flawlessly.
Her business mind recognized exactly what Dante was doing.
"It is aged in zero-gravity cellars. It is considered the finest most delicate wine in the sector."
"Sounds great," Dante nodded eagerly. He looked back at the waiter who had hesitated near the kitchen doors. "Bring us five bottles!"
Julian actually grabbed the edge of the table to steady himself.
Five bottles of Century-Old Lunar-Tide.
The wine was priced at one hundred and sixty thousand credits a bottle. Dante had just casually tacked another eight hundred thousand credits onto the tab.
The hand of Julian drifted toward his jacket pocket, and his fingers brushed against the concealed vial of date-rape drugs.
He was bleeding massive amounts of liquid capital.
The only way to salvage the disastrous evening was to successfully drug the girls, secure the compromising photos, and force Sera into the merger. He needed them intoxicated.
"Excellent choice," Julian forced a laugh. He pulled a chair from a neighboring table and sat down next to them uninvited.
"The Lunar-Tide is exceptionally potent. I expect you ladies will enjoy it immensely."
He planned to wait for the waiter to pour the wine, create a distraction, and slip the drug into their glasses.
Ten minutes later, the waiter returned.
He wasn’t carrying a small tray. He was pushing a heavy silver serving cart.
Resting in the center of the cart was a massive ornate crystal bowl completely filled to the brim with glowing iridescent black caviar.
Next to it sat five dust-covered incredibly rare bottles of deep purple wine.
The entire restaurant was staring at their table.
The waiter carefully popped the cork on the first bottle of Lunar-Tide, and the rich complex aroma of the century-old vintage filled the air.
He prepared to pour a small delicate tasting portion into the glass of Sera.
Dante didn’t let him.
Dante reached out, grabbed the bottle directly from the hands of the waiter, and brought it to his lips.
Julian watched in absolute unadulterated horror as Dante chugged the one-hundred-and-sixty-thousand-credit bottle of wine like it was a cheap energy drink after a workout.
Dante drained half the bottle in three seconds, pulled it away from his mouth, and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
"Wow," Dante said and smacked his lips loudly. "That is terrible! It tastes exactly like cheap supermarket grape juice!"
Julian looked like he was about to have an aneurysm.
"You..." Julian stammered and his hands shook. "You are drinking it straight from the bottle."
"Yeah, I was thirsty," Dante said cheerfully.
He grabbed a massive serving-sized silver spoon, scooped a giant mound of the Starlight Beluga Caviar out of the crystal bowl, and shoved it into his mouth.
He chewed loudly, swallowed, and shrugged. "It is okay. A bit salty. Tastes like bait."
Nyx couldn’t hold it back anymore.
The top-tier analyst let out a loud genuine snort of laughter and quickly hid her face behind her napkin.
Julian was completely panicking.
He needed to drug the girls.
But Dante was monopolizing the alcohol and treating a priceless vintage like a sports drink.
Furthermore, the sheer volume of alcohol Dante was consuming should have instantly dropped a normal human into a comatose stupor.
The Lunar-Tide wine was notoriously potent.
But Dante wasn’t getting drunk.
His eyes were perfectly clear. His speech wasn’t slurred.
The physical bleed-over from the Zenith Protocol was actively mitigating the intoxication.
The [Frost-God Constitution] didn’t just grant him absurd damage multipliers in-game.
The massive systemic fortification of his digital avatar was heavily buffering his real-world metabolism. He was functionally immune to alcohol poisoning.
Dante grabbed the second bottle, popped the cork with his thumb, and chugged it.
"Pass me some of those fancy crackers," Dante mumbled through a mouthful of caviar.
Julian sat at the table completely paralyzed.
He watched the country bumpkin casually devour ten million credits worth of appetizers in less than five minutes.
The sheer overwhelming financial damage was entirely overriding his predatory plans.
He couldn’t focus on the drug vial. He was too busy doing the horrifying math in his head.
"You know, Julian," Sera smiled and leaned forward.
"This was incredibly generous of you. We were just celebrating the massive success of my studio today. Did you catch the auction?"
Julian gritted his teeth and his face was pale. "I heard about it."
"We cleared thirty billion credits," Sera stated softly and twisted the knife. "The merger is officially canceled. My family acknowledged the quota."
Julian stared at her.
He hadn’t just lost the merger. He hadn’t just lost the backing of Silas.
He was currently sitting at a table and watching a man he despised eat away a significant chunk of his monthly allowance.
He was entirely powerless to stop it without looking like a complete coward in front of the entire corporate elite.
Dante finished the fifth bottle of wine.
He slammed the empty glass bottle down on the table, let out a loud highly inappropriate burp, and pushed his chair back.
"Well, that hit the spot!" Dante announced brightly and stood up. "But honestly, the food here is kind of pretentious. I am craving a greasy burger."
He looked at Sera, Lila, and Nyx. "You guys want to hit that pub in Sector 4? My treat."
"I would love a burger," Lila agreed instantly. She stood up and grabbed her purse.
Sera and Nyx followed suit and offered polite incredibly smug smiles to the devastated tech heir.
Dante reached into his pocket. He pulled out a single crumpled one-hundred-credit note. It was practically pocket change.
He tossed it casually onto the center of the table and let it land right next to the empty crystal caviar bowl.
"Here is a tip for the waiter," Dante said loudly to ensure Julian heard him perfectly. "Thanks for covering the bill, Mr. Julian! You are a real high roller!"
Dante turned around and escorted the three women out of the dining room.
Julian sat alone at the table.
He stared at the empty bottles. He stared at the empty caviar bowl. He stared at the crumpled hundred-credit note.
The head waiter approached hesitantly and held a glowing digital tablet.
"Sir," the waiter whispered nervously. "The total comes to fifteen million, four hundred thousand Veridian credits. Shall I charge the account on file?"
Julian didn’t answer immediately.
He slowly reached into his jacket pocket. His fingers brushed against the unused vial of drugs.
He had been completely played.
The country bumpkin wasn’t an idiot.
He had systematically and ruthlessly weaponized the arrogance of Julian against him, drained his bank account, and utterly destroyed his attempt to sabotage the studio of Sera.
The face of Julian twisted into a mask of pure unadulterated hatred.
"Charge it," Julian hissed. His voice trembled with rage.
He was going to find out exactly who that man was. And he was going to destroy him.
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