Story code: ST-001159
Part 2: Crossfire
The weight of the flyers pressed against my ribs like a physical threat. I took the cardboard box, my fingers slipping slightly on the glossy stock. “Yes, sir,” I managed to say, my voice tight and hollow. My father didn’t wait for further confirmation. He simply nodded, his eyes already scanning the dispersing crowd for his next lieutenant, and pivoted away to rally the rest of the congregation.
I walked out into the blinding Sunday morning sunlight. The heat coming off the asphalt of the church parking lot was suffocating. I dumped the box into the passenger seat of my rusted sedan, the heavy thud of the paper mocking my empty bank account. I didn’t drive to the west side of Elm Street immediately. Instead, I drove three blocks in the opposite direction, pulling into the empty parking lot of a closed laundromat, killing the engine so I could finally think.
I pulled up a driver forum on my phone, scrolling frantically through threads of frustrated gig workers. I needed a bypass, a hidden phone number that circumvented the sterile automated bot in the delivery app. After ten minutes of desperate digging, I found a ten-digit number buried in an archived thread titled *Tier 2 Escalation – Use Only In Emergencies*.
My hands were shaking as I dialed. The line rang four times before a jarring electronic click connected me to a hold queue. A tinny, cheerful jazz loop played in my ear, looping every fifteen seconds. I stared at the dashboard clock. It was 11:15 AM. By Tuesday morning, the Bridgeport apartment would be gone.
“Driver Support, my name is Aris. How can I assist you today?”
The voice was exhausted, flattened by hours of fielding complaints.
“My account is suspended,” I said, the words tumbling out in a rushed panic. “The banner says funds are frozen. I had over three thousand dollars in there. I’m a driver, I didn’t do anything wrong. I need that money transferred to my bank right now.”
“I need your phone number and email to pull up the account, sir.”
I rattled off my information. I could hear the aggressive clacking of a mechanical keyboard on Aris’s end. The silence stretched for almost a full minute. The quiet in the car felt heavy, oppressive, like the dead air right before a thunderstorm.
“Okay, I see the account,” Aris finally said, his tone shifting from bored to guarded. “Sir, this account has been flagged by our automated fraud detection matrix and locked for a Level 3 Terms of Service violation.”
“What? I just deliver food. I have a 4.9 rating. What violation?”
“The system flagged your residential IP address and device fingerprint. It shows that your driver account is operating on the same local network as a customer account that has been initiating a coordinated mass-refund scam.”
My stomach dropped. “A what?”
“A customer account registered at your home address has placed forty-seven orders in the last forty-eight hours to a single merchant: Elm Street Bakery. All forty-seven orders were subsequently disputed and charged back as ‘Fraudulent Merchant Activity’ or ‘Items Not Received.’ Our system recognized this as an orchestrated financial attack on the merchant. As a security measure, all accounts-customer and driver-associated with that IP address and physical residence have been indefinitely frozen pending a legal review.”
The air in the car evaporated. My lungs burned. The pieces slammed together with a sickening clarity. *Financial siege. Righteous starvation.* My father hadn’t just been preaching in metaphors. He had weaponized the congregation, and he had started right inside our own house, using the family desktop and the home Wi-Fi to bombard the bakery with fake orders and chargebacks, crippling their digital storefront. The delivery app’s security algorithm didn’t know the difference between a religious crusade and credit card fraud. It just saw the attack coming from my IP address, swept up my driver account in the crossfire, and locked my three thousand dollars in a digital vault.
“You don’t understand,” I pleaded, my voice cracking. “That’s not me. I’m just the driver. I live with my parents. I didn’t make those orders. You have to look at my GPS data, I wasn’t even home!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Aris said, retreating into his corporate script. “Because the chargebacks exceed a thousand dollars, the funds in your driver wallet are being held to offset the merchant’s losses. The only way to lift the freeze is for the primary customer account holder to submit a notarized affidavit admitting fault and repaying the charged-back amount, or you can wait for the ninety-day manual review process.”
Ninety days. A notarized confession from my father. Both were completely impossible.
“Please,” I begged, tears of absolute rage and terror prickling the corners of my eyes. “I need that money to move. I’m leaving on Tuesday.”
“I cannot override a Level 3 security lock. Have a good day, sir.”
The line went dead.
I dropped the phone into my lap and grabbed the steering wheel, squeezing the cracked leather until my knuckles turned white. My father’s crusade had literally bankrupted me. The very money I earned to escape him had been confiscated to pay for his holy war.
My phone buzzed against my leg. It was a text message from the Bridgeport landlord.
*Hey Micah. Lots of interest in the unit today. If I don’t have the deposit transferred by 5:00 PM today, I have to give the keys to the next applicant. Let me know.*
Five o’clock. Five and a half hours.
I looked at the cardboard box sitting in the passenger seat. Hundreds of glossy flyers detailing the “sins” of Elm Street Bakery. My father had ordered me to hand them out. If I didn’t, he would know I defied him, and the interrogation at home would be brutal. But my money-my literal freedom-was tied directly to the damage he was doing to that exact same bakery.
I started the engine and drove toward Elm Street. When I pulled up to the bakery, the protest was already underway. A dozen members of the congregation were marching in a tight circle on the sidewalk, holding signs and shouting at bewildered customers trying to buy Sunday pastries.
I parked a block away, grabbed the heavy box of flyers, and stepped out into the oppressive heat. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but the automated system was a brick wall. The only way to get my money back before 5:00 PM was to somehow make my father undo the digital damage he had caused.
As I approached the protest line, a sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb. My father stepped out, his Bible still in hand, his eyes locking directly onto me. He pointed a rigid finger at the unopened box in my arms, his face hardening into a scowl. I had five hours to break a man who believed he was on a mission from God.