I backed away.
"No."
"I'm telling you to delete it."
"Everything is already uploading."
She looked at my phone.
"Uploading where?"
"Cloud storage."
For the first time that morning, I saw fear in her face.
It lasted maybe one second.
Then anger covered it.
She understood something her son had not understood yet.
They could no longer simply talk louder than me and make reality disappear.
The police arrived minutes later.
Two officers separated everyone.
One officer spoke with me while the other questioned the son.
His story changed almost immediately.
He claimed he had found the paint can near my driveway.
He said he had picked it up because he was curious.
His girlfriend agreed.
She said they had walked outside only after noticing the damaged car.
I looked at the phone still in her hand.
One officer noticed it too.
"Were you recording?"
She lowered it.
"No."
The officer looked at her.
"I saw you holding the phone when we arrived."
She hesitated.
"I was just texting."
The son interrupted.
"She didn't record anything."
That was his second mistake.
The officer asked whether he could see the phone.
She refused.
Then he looked toward the surrounding houses.
"Anybody around here have cameras?"
That question changed the neighborhood.
At first, nobody moved.
Then an older man across the street slowly opened his front door.
"I do."
Another neighbor stepped out.
"My doorbell camera might've caught something."
Then another garage opened.
Within ten minutes, people who had been watching silently were suddenly checking phones and security systems.
There was doorbell footage.
Garage-camera footage.
A camera mounted above somebody's side gate.
Then a delivery driver who had passed through the neighborhood that morning returned after one neighbor called his company.
His dash camera had recorded part of the street.
Every angle showed the same thing.
My neighbor's son walking toward the Lamborghini carrying paint.
The footage was worse than I expected.
He had not lost his temper for thirty seconds.
He had spent almost ten minutes damaging the car.
He poured paint slowly across the hood.
He used a brush to form the word.
He stepped backward to admire it.
His girlfriend moved around the car recording different angles.
Then he kicked the side mirror.
Once.
Twice.
The second kick cracked the housing.
Afterward, he posed beside the hood.
But the worst part appeared in footage from across the street.
His mother was standing on her porch.
Watching.
She had been there almost the entire time.
At one point, her son looked toward her.
She clapped.
When the officer replayed that section, nobody spoke.
The mother finally shouted that the footage was misleading.
Nobody answered her.
There was nothing to answer.
The camera had done what the neighbors had been too frightened to do.
It had spoken plainly.
Her son's face changed when one officer told him to place his hands behind his back.
He looked toward his mother.
"Mom?"
She immediately stepped forward.
"You cannot arrest him."
The officer told her to stay back.
"This is ridiculous. He's nineteen."
"Ma'am, stay back."
"It was paint."
The officer looked at the Lamborghini.
Then at her.
"That's going to be for the court to decide."
Her son finally stopped laughing when they told him the repair value could make the charge much more serious than he expected.
His girlfriend started crying.
His mother did not.
She pointed at me.
"This isn't over."
My attorney was still on speakerphone.
He heard her.
She continued.
"I'll make sure every customer you have knows what kind of person you are."
I looked toward the officer.
"Did you hear that?"
He nodded.
My attorney told me not to respond.
So I didn't.
That silence seemed to make her angrier than anything I could have said.
She screamed while her son was placed inside the cruiser.
But something had changed around us.
The neighbors were no longer hiding behind curtains.
They were standing outside.
Some were recording her.
Others were talking quietly to officers.
For the first time, she was the one being watched.
The Lamborghini was transported to a specialist facility that afternoon.
The first estimate arrived several days later.
Approximately $184,000.
Even I stared at the number for several seconds.
The red paint had seeped into vents.
Sensors had been damaged.
Carbon-fiber trim was stained.
The protective coating was destroyed.
The mirror housing was cracked.
The driver's door had been dented.
Several panels needed removal.
Electronic systems required recalibration.
Parts had to be ordered.
Sections of the custom finish had to be rebuilt from the base layer upward.
My insurer covered the repairs.
Then the claims representative said something very calmly.
"We intend to recover every dollar."
That changed the financial reality for my neighbor's family.
Their son had laughed while holding a paint can that morning.
Now his family was potentially facing a claim larger than their mortgage.
That evening, his mother called me.
I recognized the number.
I answered only after starting a recording and confirming with my attorney how to handle further communication.
She did not apologize.
She did not ask how much damage had been done.
She did not ask whether we could sit down and resolve things.
Her first sentence was a demand.
"You need to withdraw the charges."
I said nothing.
"And tell your insurance company you're not pursuing us."
"I don't control what the insurance company does."
"Yes, you do."
"No."
She exhaled loudly.
Then her voice changed.
Suddenly she sounded friendly.
Almost reasonable.
She offered me five thousand dollars.
"If you tell the police this was a misunderstanding, I'll give you five thousand cash."
I actually thought I had misunderstood her.
"You want me to lie to the police?"
"I'm saying everybody got emotional."
"Your son poured paint on my car."
"He's a kid."
"He's nineteen."
"Exactly. He's young. Young people make mistakes."