“You killed my uncle and blinded my brother,” she said, voice cold as ice. “But I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself.”
She laid out her terms like a dealer: one billion dollars, transfer your company to mine, a signed apology and her uncle’s family’s sworn statement that they wouldn’t pursue the murder charge. “Do that,” she said, “and you won’t face execution.”
I rose without wasting breath or time. Her jaw tightened. “Jerome, this is your last chance,” she warned. “Refuse and I’ll make sure you die with a scandal that haunts your name forever. I’ll expose what happened back then and the staged assault yesterday. Think of your daughter. If she knew the truth about her father—”
My daughter. She used that word to threaten me. She was truly evil. She was the mother, too and now she used our child as a weapon. I laughed at the thought; let her play her theater for a few days. I left while she raged, letting her words hang worthless in the air.
She tried again the next day with a letter slipped to me through an outside party. The handwriting was neat, the message colder still.
[I will not forgive you. I almost forgot I am your daughter’s mother. She’s the legal heir to your estate; if you’re executed, custody falls to me. Before you die, I will fulfill my promise and I will make you a villain for the ages. By the time you read this, all your sins will be online. If your parents learn the truth again, they may not survive this time. You deserve it.]
I opened my phone. The internet was already alive with their version: [A heartless husband, consumed by his wife’s friend’s beauty, descends into criminality.]
The story had been written and the world was ready to read.
The title burned across every major platform. Within minutes, millions had clicked. The post contained photos, videos and words that ruin through my life.
In just a few years, I had built a name in the new media world. People knew me; my face, my voice, my brand. Now, that recognition became my curse.
The first video opened with Shannon’s best friend lying on a bed, her eyes swollen from crying, staring blankly at the ceiling, despair etched into every line of her face.
Next to her was me, asleep, bare, exposed. Two naked bodies under the cruel light of a camera.