Chapter 108: Crooked Vendor
"The agreement was that you hit all the red balloons within the first round of given shots," the vendor said. He eyed Matteo, who stood behind Amelia. "We didn’t agree that someone else could assist you."
"That’s right!" Emmeline agreed loudly. She was this close to flinging her hands up into the air in anger. How could Matteo willingly plaster himself to Amelia’s back, helping her to shoot? This was a blatantly unfair advantage and it caused Emmeline to lose focus, missing her shots.
"If I had Matteo assisting me from the very beginning, I would have beaten you before you even managed to shoot 5 balloons down. It’s not fair that you got help from Matteo― that just shows that you’re incapable of winning on your own!"
Matteo let out a low warning growl, causing Emmeline to take an instinctive step back.
"Let’s not kid ourselves," Matteo said with a dismissive snort. "Your lack of skill is so apparent that not even I would be able to salvage your score."
Amelia wore a patient smile on her face, even as her eyebrow twitched at the vendor’s blatant attempt to deny her the prize.
"We also didn’t agree that someone else couldn’t assist me," Amelia pointed out. "If you wanted me to win this without help, you should have made it clear from the very beginning. Doing this now just makes you seem like a sore loser that’s refusing to hand the prize over despite the amount of money my fiancé and family have already paid you to play."
"It’s a lot of money!" Aiden chimed in, slightly salty that Emmeline had used his cash instead of her own. The only silver lining was that Matteo hadn’t technically won, so he didn’t technically lose against him.
The vendor gaped at Amelia. "Why I never! If I let everyone cheat the way you did, I would be out of business! The purpose of this game is to gauge an individual’s shooting skills."