Chapter 6 - The Hostile Leak
Corner a snake, and it will try to bite.
Chloe, realizing her grip on me was slipping, decided to accelerate her backup plan. If she couldn't marry me, she was going to destroy my reputation and force a massive settlement to keep her quiet.
My intelligence chief, Marcus, intercepted an email from Chloe to a notorious tabloid journalist known for destroying corporate titans.
"She's offering an exclusive," Marcus told me over the secure line. "She's claiming emotional abuse, financial control, and—get this—that you have a secret, violent temper that forced her mother-in-law into a nursing home to silence her."
I couldn't help but laugh. It was a bold move. "When is she meeting the journalist?"
"Tomorrow at noon. Private room at the St. Regis."
"Let her," I said. "But ensure the journalist gets a package from an 'anonymous source' one hour before the meeting."
The next day, the journalist sat in the St. Regis, opening a manila envelope left at the front desk for him. Inside was a USB drive. When he plugged it into his laptop, he didn't find dirt on me.
He found high-definition video footage of Chloe threatening my mother in the kitchen. He found audio recordings of Chloe conspiring with Julian Thorne for corporate espionage. He found bank records of her offshore accounts from her previous three grifts.
When Chloe confidently walked into the private room, ready to spin a web of lies and play the ultimate victim, the journalist didn't pull out a notepad. He pulled out his laptop, hit play on the video of her digging her nails into an elderly woman, and asked her for a comment.
May you like
Chloe fled the hotel in tears, her PR strategy burned to the ground before a single word was published.
Her weapon had been turned into a mirror, reflecting her monstrous nature directly back at her.
