Chapter 4

On Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, our names dominated the trending algorithms in every sickening combination imaginable:

#ExecutiveAssistantChloeMillerAffairWithCEO

#CorporateMistressWithholdsSeveranceToKillBoyfriendMother

#ChloeMillerTraitorousWhore

The livestream had over a hundred thousand active viewers, and the chat moved at lightning speed, dripping with filth.

【She looks innocent on the outside, but she's rotten to the core. Disgusting.】

【I just doxxed her! Her SSN, phone number, and apartment address are available—DM me.】

【Selling deepfake explicit videos of her for five bucks a pop. Hit my link.】

My personal accounts were completely inundated with hundreds of thousands of death threats and graphic, AI-generated pornographic images plastered with my face.

Julian clenched his jaw, watching me scroll. "Honestly, Chloe, let him quit. Why are you still sacrificing yourself for a monster like that?"

My hands shook so violently the tablet rattled. Before I could speak, a chaotic commotion erupted out in the hallway.

The door was violently kicked open. Ethan marched in, trailed by a swarm of sensationalist local reporters and livestreamers.

Camera flashes exploded in my face, blinding me. Microphones on boom poles were thrust straight toward Julian and me.

Julian instinctively moved to shield the lens, but Ethan shoved him aside, cursing like a madman.

He reached out and violently ripped the bandages from my face. "What are you hiding for, Chloe? If you were brave enough to spread your legs, you should be brave enough to show your face!"

"My mother is lying in the ICU, fighting for her life, and you're here playing sick to flirt with your side piece! Even on her deathbed, my mom reminded me to marry you! How could you do this to us?!"

He sat heavily on the edge of the bed, crushing my IV line. The needle tore free from the back of my hand, spurting dark crimson blood onto the white sheets.

Agony twisted my face. Gathering every ounce of breath in my body, I screamed, "Get out! GET OUT!"

"Get out? You two are the ones who deserve to burn!" Ethan grabbed my hair again, while the crowd pinned Julian against the wall. "Look at them, everyone! My cheating girlfriend and her corrupt boss, actively embezzling my mother's life-saving money!"

The reporters fed on the drama like vultures circling carrion, shouting aggressive questions. The onlookers gathering outside the door began chanting:

"Beat the cheating btches to death!"

By the time hospital security and the police finally broke through the crowd, Julian and I had been battered and bruised.

As the officers wrestled Ethan into handcuffs, a doctor burst into the room, panting heavily.

"Mr. Davis! Your mother's condition just took a critical turn for the worse! Her heart is failing—she has less than twenty-four hours left! If we don't operate immediately, it'll be too late!"

Ethan's mother was admitted to this very same hospital.

Hearing the news, Ethan looked completely unhinged. As the police dragged him down the corridor, his shrill screams echoed off the walls: "Chloe! Even if I become a ghost, I will drag you down to hell with me!"

Julian was bleeding from a split lip, his face covered in bruises. My hair was ripped out in clumps, and dark contusions marred my arms and legs.

The relentless sensory overload overwhelmed my battered body, and I slipped into unconsciousness.

When I opened my eyes again, it was the final day of the acquisition's retention evaluation.

I struggled to sit up, pushing past Julian's desperate attempts to stop me. "I have to finalize the donor paperwork for Ethan's mother..."

Julian looked at me with profound frustration, pointing at the mirror across the room. A pale, battered woman stared back at me, one side of her face horribly swollen and discolored.

"Chloe, have you lost your mind?!" he yelled, his voice cracking. "Look at what he did to you! Look at what he made them do to you! And you still want to save his family?!"

His words pierced my heart like a dagger. But I took a shaky breath and whispered, "I can't let an innocent woman die if I have the power to stop it."

Realizing he couldn't change my mind, Julian sighed heavily and helped me into his car to drive to the acquiring group's headquarters.

We were only halfway there when a massive commercial truck suddenly swerved into our lane, high beams blinding us.

Through the windshield, I saw the driver's face.

My heart plummeted into an icy abyss. "Ethan, NO!"

"Die, you cheating scumbags! DIE TOGETHER!"

Ethan's deranged screams ripped through his open window as he held down the horn and slammed the accelerator to the floor.

I waved my hands frantically, screaming, pulling out my phone to show him the documents, but it was useless.

CRASH!

The deafening crunch of metal tore through the air. The airbags exploded against my chest. Jagged shards of windshield glass drove deep into my thighs, and my head slammed violently into the dashboard.

When the sirens finally wailed in the distance, I was already lying in an expanding pool of my own blood.

Ethan stumbled out of the truck cab, his face smeared with crimson, laughing hysterically like a maniac.

Julian pulled my limp, fading body into his arms, his eyes rimmed with raw, furious tears.

"You fcking idiot!" Julian screamed at Ethan, his voice trembling with unspeakable rage. "Do you have any idea what you just did?!"

"You just killed your mother with your own hands!"