Chapter 65

No.1

Elisa stared at the glowing screen of her phone. The bright blue light illuminated the absolute horror unfolding in real-time.

She tapped the link Jewel had sent. It opened the Page Six homepage. The banner headline was printed in massive, bold black letters, designed to inflict maximum psychological damage:

THE CRAZED HOMEWRECKER: Chambers Heir Stalked by Deranged Nurse, Real Girlfriend Narrowly Escapes Vicious Attack.

Elisa felt a cold, heavy stone drop into the pit of her stomach.

Directly beneath the headline was a video player.Elisa tapped it.

It was the security footage from the Belmont terrace.But it had been maliciously, professionally butchered.The video started exactly at the moment Elisa's hand was on Allena's sleeve. It completely cut out Allena

blocking her path and grabbing her first.

Worse, the video had been artificially slowed down.The moment Elisa shook her arm free was looped and zoomed in, making the defensive reflex look like a violent, aggressive shove. The footage cut to black the exact millisecond before Allena threw herself backward,leaving the viewer with the undeniable impression that Elisa had launched her down the stairs.

Below the video were high-definition photos taken by the paparazzi. They showed August kneeling on the marble, cradling a bleeding, weeping Allena. In the background, Elisa was standing against the pillar, her face pale and expressionless. The caption read: The attacker shows zero remorse, staring coldly at her victim.

No.2

"Elisa, are you seeing this?" Jewel's voice crackled through the phone speaker. "It's everywhere. It's trending number one."

Elisa swiped out of the browser and opened Twitter.

The hashtag JusticeForAllena was dominating the trending list with over two hundred thousand tweets.

Elisa clicked on the tag. A tsunami of pure, unfiltered human malice flooded her screen.

"Look at that nurse's face. She looks like a complete psychopath. Lock her up!"

"I heard she's been obsessed with August Chambers for years. She's a desperate gold digger trying to ruin his real relationship."

"Allena Mills is a literal hero who saves lives, and this trash tries to kill her out of jealousy? Disgusting."

Elisa's breathing grew shallow. The sheer volume of the hatred was suffocating.

But the worst was yet to come. She scrolled down and saw a post from a massive gossip account with millions of followers.

No.3

"Internet do your thing. Who is this crazy nurse?"

Beneath that tweet, the replies were a digital firing squad. Elisa's full name. The address of the municipal hospital where she used to work. And then,a photo of the exterior of her current temporary apartment building in Manhattan-clearly taken by a paparazzi Devon had hired to tail her Porsche

directly from the resort gates.

Her personal information had been completely doxxed.

Suddenly, her phone vibrated against her palm. An incoming call from an unknown number.

Elisa answered it on instinct.

"You ugly, jealous bitch," a distorted, angry male voice screamed through the speaker. "You better watch your back. We know where you live. You're dead!"

Elisa didn't gasp. She didn't reply. She pulled the phone away from her ear and hung up.

Three seconds later, another unknown number called. Then a text message popped up: Go kill yourself. Then another call.

No.4

The phone was vibrating so fast it felt like a live wire in her hand.

Elisa walked over to the kitchen drawer. She pulled out a small metal pin, popped the SIM card tray out of her phone, and physically removed the tiny chip.She snapped the SIM card in half and threw it in the

trash.

The phone went dead silent. The apartment was suddenly,terrifyingly quiet.

Elisa leaned her hands flat against the cool marble of the kitchen island. She closed her eyes. Her brain,trained to analyze complex Al algorithms, rapidly processed the data points.

This wasn't a spontaneous internet mob. This was a highly coordinated, incredibly expensive smear campaign. The video editing, the instant trending hashtags, the rapid doxxing-it required massive capital and a dedicated bot network.

She walked over to her laptop, opened a secure,encrypted terminal, and immediately sent a data extraction request to Alastair. Five minutes later,Alastair's top-tier cybersecurity team fired back a detailed report. The trace on the initial IP addresses that seeded the video pointed to a routing node belonging to a shell PR firm registered in Delaware.A firm wholly owned by the Browning Venture Capital Fund.

Devon.

Devon was executing the hit, and August was absolutely allowing it to happen to punish her for refusing to be his PR shield.

No.5

The screen of her laptop suddenly flashed green. An incoming encrypted video call request from Alastair Cromwell.

Elisa clicked accept.

Alastair's face appeared on the screen. He was sitting in his glass-walled office at Aethel headquarters. The usual calm amusement in his eyes was gone, replaced by a dark, lethal seriousness.

"Faye," Alastair said, his voice tight. "The situation is critical. I have my cyber team trying to scrub your address from the forums, but it's spreading too fast."

He typed something on his end, and a secondary window opened on Elisa's screen. It was a live feed from the traffic camera on her street corner.

"Look at the feed," Alastair commanded.

Elisa looked. Parked directly across the street from her apartment building were two unmarked, black Ford transit vans. The windows were heavily tinted.

"They aren't paparazzi," Alastair said grimly. "Those are hired fixers. Devon is trying to physically intimidate you, or worse, provoke an altercation so they can film you acting 'crazy' for the police. I am dispatching Aethel's Tier-One security team right now. Pack a bag. We are moving you to a secure black site."

Elisa walked over to the living room window. She peeked through the narrow slit of the blinds. She could see the black vans idling in the dark. They looked like vultures waiting for a corpse.

No.6

A heavy, suffocating pressure pressed against her chest. If she ran now, if she hid in a bunker, the internet would take it as an admission of guilt. The narrative that she was a deranged stalker would become historical fact.

Elisa turned away from the window. She walked back to the laptop.

"No, Alastair," Elisa said. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. It was the voice of a woman who had nothing left to lose."If I run,they win."

Alastair frowned deeply. "Faye, you cannot fight a

multi-million dollar PR machine with logic. They control the narrative."

"They control the lies," Elisa corrected him, her black eyes locking onto the camera lens. "There is only one weapon that can instantly decapitate this entire campaign. Absolute, legally binding truth."

She needed to prove she wasn't a stalker. She needed to prove she was the legal wife.

"I am going to release my original Marriage Certificate to the New York Times," Elisa stated."With the state embossed seal. The second that document goes live, Allena's 'real girlfriend' narrative becomes the biggest joke in the country, and the defamation lawsuits will bankrupt Devon's firm."

"Do you have the original?" Alastair asked.

No.7

Elisa's jaw tightened. "No. It's locked inside a biometric safe in the master bedroom of the Chambers Manor in Long Island. I left in such a rush the night I moved out, prioritizing my core Al hard drives, that this critical document was left behind."②

She reached into the closet and pulled out a heavy,black tactical windbreaker. She grabbed a black

baseball cap and a medical face mask.

"Call off your security team, Alastair," Elisasaid,pulling the zipper up to her chin. "I'm going back into the snake pit."