Jackson deliberately walked toward a small store to buy a drink, but he knew that from afar two figures were following him.
"One stayed behind, this will be easier."
It seemed they had noticed him too, and seeing him enter the store, their confidence shot up because they thought Jackson was looking for help.
And what those two idiots did was something Jackson didn't expect.
"Seriously?" Jackson's eyes gleamed with brief surprise.
Then something unexpected happened.
Clang!
The store door was suddenly opened by one of the men, who was none other than the friend of the guy Jackson had argued with earlier, and another stayed blocking the view inside from the outside.
The loud noise startled the woman running the place, who had been putting products on the shelves. She approached quickly, still holding two cans of soda.
"Do you need anything?" Before she could finish her sentence, the woman's face turned pale and she froze in place.
Anyone else here would also have been frightened by what was happening.
The two men who burst into the store, both wearing masks and caps, after closing the entrance, suddenly took out knives from their waistbands.
One stood next to the door, pointing at Jackson, while the other walked toward the woman in charge of the store.
"Hurry up, give me the money in the register, then we'll deal with that nosy idiot, move it!"
The men's vicious voices sounded familiar to Jackson, as if he had heard them in some cheap movie.
Clap!
The soda cans in the woman's hands fell to the floor.
Only now did she understand she was being robbed!
The woman, who was in the aisle area, trembled in fear and her face grew pale.
Seeing the man pointing a knife at her and approaching, she froze in terror and her legs trembled uncontrollably.
In an instant, she lost her balance and fell to the floor.
"Don't call the police if you want to live."
"Be obedient and you'd better hand over all the money."
One of the men grew impatient and shouted: "Forget it, that bitch isn't getting up from the floor, tell that idiot to do it for us."
The man wearing a cap by the cash register continued threatening and ordered Jackson to walk to the register to get the money for them.
At that moment, there were no other customers in the store besides him. And after closing the entrance, few would notice what was going on inside.
Showing no emotion, Jackson inwardly felt slightly irritated.
Seeing a knife pointed at him, and looking at the woman trembling on the floor, he walked toward the counter and opened the cash drawer.
He wasn't afraid to fight; he feared that woman on the floor would get hurt because of a reckless decision from him. That was why he signaled her with his eyes to get as far away as she could from the robbers.
"Hurry the hell up!"
"Stop trying to waste my time!" The man at the register grew impatient and his voice became harsher.
Jackson knew this guy wasn't the one he had argued with earlier by his voice. Because of that, he trusted he could get out of this without too much drama.
"Did you hear me?" While speaking, he even struck Jackson's head as a warning.
This made Jackson suddenly stop, and something in his mind activated on instinct. Without touching the bills, he slightly lifted his head and looked into the robber's eyes.
"What the hell are you looking at?!"
"Money! I told you to put the money in a bag! And the cigarettes behind you, grab as many as you can, hurry up!" The man waved his knife toward Jackson, and Jackson looked at the shelf area where the cigarettes were.
"A little more…" Jackson told these words to the woman, who by now had backed away quite far from where she had been. She wanted to call the police, but feared that doing so would cause harm to the young man held hostage.
"Damn it, are you going to keep standing there like an idiot?"
"You think I won't stab you right now if you don't do what I say?" Seeing Jackson hesitate to grab the money, the man near him shouted angrily.
The knife in his hand, pointed at Jackson, grew tense, as if he were about to strike.
"Are you sure?" Jackson then asked seriously while the air in his lungs traveled softly through his nose.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Crack!
A loud snap suddenly echoed!
Before the man near Jackson could finish speaking, a sudden sharp pain in his wrist stopped him from thrusting his knife, and when he looked down, he saw that Jackson was the one holding his wrist.
He and his partner both stared at Jackson, and in that distraction the woman ran to the back room to call the police.
"Are you deaf now?"
Bam!
With a fierce pull, Jackson used all his strength and slammed the robber's hand against the cash register.
The knife flew out of the man's hand, and the robber's face turned pale from shock.
Before he could counterattack, Jackson's left hand shot forward and grabbed the man's head.
Then, with a powerful move, his head was smashed against Jackson's knee, which had risen up to his chest.
Crack!!
The dull sound echoed and the thief's mask cracked from the strong impact.
The man's cap flew off as his body collapsed to the floor, and the store fell into an unsettling silence.
"Damn it!"
"Don't come any closer!" shouted the man at the store entrance, trying to sound threatening.
Jackson remained calm, ignoring the unconscious man, and jumped over the counter to go after the remaining guy.
The knife in the hand of the man who started all this moved, but Jackson instinctively dodged it, and his experience took control of his senses.
Since the first knife attack failed, Jackson, with his sharp instincts, took the initiative upon seeing an opening.
Without hesitation, he launched a powerful punch.
Crack!!
The punch struck the masked man's jaw, sending his mask flying and revealing the familiar face Jackson had seen earlier—the same guy from the supermarket who had bothered Tory.
The man staggered sideways, knocking over a shelf and collapsing on the floor, unconscious.
The sound of falling products echoed, and the woman, who had rushed to the back room to call the police, came running out with a broom, but upon seeing the scene, she froze in shock.
"My name is Jackson, this is my phone number in case you need my statement. Since I'm in a hurry, I'll leave these thieves to you." Now that Jackson had taken care of the trouble, he walked toward the exit, pushing things aside on the floor.
"Wait…"
"Don't be afraid, those men on the floor aren't getting up." Jackson waved his hand and, without looking back, walked out of the store.
Truthfully, he didn't want to deal with statements and preferred to escape now. He was almost sure that with the woman's testimony and the security camera footage, it would be more than enough.
After the driver saw Jackson and noticed his reddened cheek, he shook his head. "Just by the look of you, I can tell your girlfriend's father caught you two having sex. I don't have anything good to say, but if it makes you feel better, something similar happened to me, but in my case my grandmother found me pleasuring myself with pictures of her favorite singer—my god, man, that woman was gorgeous…"
Jackson was left speechless for a moment at that story and muttered, "I'm guessing you were harassed by your family after that…"
"Not at all, the topic never came up again."
"They say our parents have always known about that, but they'll never tell you." Jackson kept a smile as he replied to a series of insults on his phone—his gym friends always left messages in group chats.
Regarding his gym friends, who had become his best friends in New York and who stayed by his side even after all the scandal, Jackson wasn't stupid; he knew he owed all of that to martial arts.
"Is your girlfriend calling you?" After he hung up the phone, the taxi driver asked with a grin.
"Ha, ha, ha, I haven't spoken to my girlfriend in a week… I think that relationship came to an end." Jackson, who heard those words, felt slightly.
"That's definitely a problem, but try calling her, maybe you two can fix things." The taxi stopped at a traffic light. At that moment, two women were fighting in the street and everyone jumped in surprise.
Jackson also noticed that those two women probably had a big encounter with the man who claimed to be single.
The driver suddenly asked: "Young man, are you in a hurry?"
"No, what's wrong?" Jackson responded lightly upon hearing those words.
As soon as Jackson answered, the driver immediately pulled over.
"Was that it?" Jackson was confused, not knowing why he wanted to watch a fight between women.
The driver pulled out a few bills and said in a serious tone: "Since we're not in a hurry, let's watch this beautiful battle—want to place a bet?"
Jackson smiled confidently and asked: "How much do you want to lose?"