Diane had never paid me for the food I made for her son, but I didn't mind, figuring that life wasn't easy for a single mother.

But now, I felt disheartened. It turned out I was giving her too much credit.

"Hurry up and give me the money, Jess," Lucy urged.

However, I calmly met her gaze before shaking my head. "I won't be giving you guys anything. Since you think I broke the law, go ahead and sue me. Even if the authorities come to seal off my house, I don't care."

As I tried to close the door, Lucy grabbed the doorframe to stop me.

"If we sue you, you're definitely going to lose the court case. Once that happens, you're going to have to pay the fine anyway. We used to be your colleagues, but you'd rather give that money to the court instead of us? How can you be so mean and heartless?"

I couldn't believe Lucy was calling me the mean and heartless one. Weren't they the ones who were being utterly cruel and heartless toward me?

I moved to slam the door shut, which made Lucy retract her hand at once. All she could do was continue to scream in rage helplessly outside my house.

Meanwhile, I called Maisie at once. Since she was in the restaurant business, she would know these laws better than I did. I wasn't willing to let myself be the victim of my ex-colleagues' scheme.

After hearing about the situation, she marched right over to my house with a lawyer in tow that very afternoon.

I showed the lawyer, Lucas Chase, the group chat, including the records of the dinner gatherings.

After skimming through everything, Mr. Chase asked me, "Before these dinner gatherings, did you clearly state that this was a friendly meal between colleagues, with the grocery bill split evenly between all of you, and not a for-profit private catering service?"

"I did. Before every dinner gathering, I would say in the group chat that we'd split the grocery costs, and I'd only be responsible for cooking," I replied.

I also told him that I had security cameras installed at my house. If we looked at the footage, it'd be clear from everyone's conversations that this was just a dinner gathering among colleagues.

"You do? That's great. Your defense can be that these were just friendly gatherings among colleagues, with both parties benefiting equally from the arrangement, and not a business operation.

"It's not illegal if they agreed to split the grocery costs between them, and if your calculation of the costs was reasonable," Mr. Chase explained.

I was relieved to hear that I had a chance of winning this case.

But Mr. Chase warned, "However, since they've been plotting against you for three years now, they would've probably prepared thoroughly for this situation. It won't be easy to dismantle their case."

He pointed out the note my colleagues made when they transferred the money to me and said, "For example, take a look at this. They specifically denoted the money as a catering fee, and you never questioned that.

"Therefore, it becomes unclear whether you'd actually engaged in a business transaction with them. It won't be easy to settle the argument over this."

Scoffing, Maisie declared, "What's there to be afraid of? The fine of approximately 20 times the amount when the value of goods has surpassed 10,000 dollars is specific to the value of the goods in question. It doesn't include the excess amount they transferred to you.

"Even if you end up having to provide any sort of compensation, it won't be that much."

Mr. Chase nodded, saying, "That's true. Even if you have to pay a fine, I'll do my best to ensure that's as small a fine as possible. More importantly, it'll be a fine that's payable to the court, not any sort of compensation to them."

After a pause, he added, "We can also proceed to sue them for extortion first. It doesn't matter whether we can win that case. The key is to drag things out.

"They might decide that a lawsuit takes too much time and effort, and to avoid letting it affect their work, they might decide not to cause any further trouble for you."

It was good that I had multiple courses of action available to me.

…

Lucy came looking for me again, saying that she was ready to file a lawsuit against me.

"I'm giving you one last chance, Jess. If you give us 200,000 dollars, we won't sue you. If this gets taken to court, you're the one who'll be humiliated."

I looked her calmly in the eye and said, "You'd better file the lawsuit as soon as you can. Otherwise, I'll be suing you guys for extortion soon enough."