Chapter 5

Ashley watched the disgusting, vile comments flooding the live chat, her face twisting into a manic laugh.

"Now, your reputation is completely ruined. Tomorrow, the entire city will see this video."

"Everyone will know that Chloe Vance is nothing but a cheap, trashy whore who can't live without selling her body."

Tears welled up in my eyes, but I forced them back. I screamed at the top of my lungs,

"Ashley! Aren't you afraid of what the Gibson family will do to you?!"

I had gone missing when I was three years old and was adopted by the Gibsons—the most powerful billionaire dynasty in North America, with deep connections in both corporate America and the underground world.

Their private security detail was always watching me from the shadows.

What was happening here was likely already being relayed to them.

Ashley laughed as if she had just heard the funniest joke in the world.

"The Gibson family? You mean the billionaire elite Gibsons?"

She doubled over with laughter. "A daughter of the Gibson family would be working a shift job at a dirty factory? Without a single bodyguard protecting her?"

She sneered, looking me up and down.

"At least make your lies believable. First, you claim to be Arthur Vance’s daughter, and now you’re a Gibson? Are you just a homeless beggar who goes around claiming random rich people as your parents?"

I lay on the floor, my bandaged finger throbbing.

The security guards my adoptive parents assigned to me always stayed in the shadows because the Vance family’s territory was crowded, and they didn't want to cause a scene unless absolutely necessary.

Suddenly, two dirty, disheveled middle-aged people burst into the room from a side door, heading straight for me.

They held cracked plastic bowls and shoved them in my face.

"Chloe! How can you be so heartless? We raised you from a baby, and this is how you treat us?!"

"You're out here wearing nice clothes and eating expensive food, and you leave your own parents to starve on the streets?!"

The TikTok Live chat exploded with comments:

[Oh my god, what an ungrateful bitch!]

[Leaving her own parents to beg? She deserves to be canceled!]

[No wonder she’s selling her body behind closed doors. Trash.]

Ashley pointed her phone camera directly at my face.

"Haha! Chloe, so these are your real parents!"

"It all makes sense now. A factory worker with beggar parents. You really belong in the gutter."

I looked up at Ashley. From the smug satisfaction in her eyes, I knew she had hired these actors to destroy me completely.

I tried to crawl away, but the two actors grabbed me, screaming filth.

"I don't know you! Get away from me!" I screamed.

"You ungrateful brat!" they yelled, ripping at my clothes. "Didn't you bag a rich sugar daddy? You got rich and forgot about your own parents?!"

"Money from selling your body is still money! Give us our share!"

As they pinned me down, the live stream chat erupted in mockery.

[Even her own parents came out to expose her! There's no escaping this!]

Ashley sneered, "No wonder you keep claiming to be other people's daughter. Having beggar parents must be so embarrassing."

Then, she looked down at me like she was offering charity.

"Chloe, if you get on your knees, crawl over, and beg me, maybe I'll help you pay off these beggars."

I snapped my head up, glaring at her ugly, mocking face.

"Go to hell."

Her smile didn't fade. "Keep acting tough. In a minute, even if you beg me on your knees, I won't save you."

Just then, a cold, booming voice echoed from the entrance of the villa.

Everyone froze.

A middle-aged man in a tailored black Italian suit stepped into the room. He held a cane adorned with a gold dragon head, and his eyes carried an terrifying, commanding authority.