Chapter 6

I realized at once that every one of those explicit videos had been made with AI.

My bloodshot eyes locked on one spot in the video. The AI-generated man had his most private area exposed, and on it were three small moles in a neat row.

The first time Adele had seen those moles, she had remarked offhandedly, "That's quite an unusual arrangement."

No one but Adele could have known exactly where those three moles were.

She was the one who had ordered these videos to be made. Worse still, she had single-handedly stirred up the entire online backlash. She had done all of it just to placate Cyrus.

The moment I realized that, it felt as though my heart had been shoved into the deepest pit of hell. The pain was so sharp that my breath caught in my throat.

"Why?" I glared at Adele, nearly grinding my teeth. "Why would you fabricate all this to ruin me?"

Adele's brow creased slightly. She seemed irritated, and there was a faint trace of disgust in her voice. "Kenneth, that's a question you should be asking yourself. If you hadn't mailed the marriage certificate to Cyrus, none of this would have happened!"

"It wasn't me!" I roared, my eyes so red they looked ready to bleed.

"I moved out of the house ages ago. I never even had a chance to get my hands on that certificate. How could I have mailed it to Cyrus?"

The moment I finished, a small figure shoved the door open and slammed into me.

The child I had once loved more than life itself rammed her forehead hard into my stomach and screamed, "It was you! It was you! I saw you do it! You stinky homewrecker, you snuck the marriage certificate out and mailed it to Papa, and now he's so sad!

"Why are you still alive? Why don't you just die?"

Matilda's hands were balled into fists, and her eyes glittered with venom. She looked as though she hated me with everything she had. She was almost nothing like the daughter who used to trust me completely.

I did not even know when she had started hating me this much.

When Matilda sank her teeth into my thigh, the pain was too much, and I instinctively stepped back. I had not laid a finger on her, yet she fell hard to the floor and burst into wounded wails.

"You pushed me! Papa, Mommy, the homewrecker pushed me!"

Cyrus rushed forward and swept Matilda into his arms. When he looked up, his usual wild expression shifted into a calm I had never seen on him before. He even gave Matilda an encouraging smile, as if to tell her she had done well.

Matilda broke into a grin, then buried her face in his shoulder and wailed even louder. "Papa, he's a big bad man! He's mean to you, and he's mean to me too!"

Behind them, Adele's expression had turned stormy. She looked at me with disappointment and shook her head slightly. "Kenneth, what happened to you? How could you bring yourself to hurt your own daughter like that?"

I clenched my fists so hard that my nails dug into my palms and sent a sharp sting through my hands. "I didn't push her."

Adele laughed. "So you're saying your daughter is lying about you? A six-year-old child, your own flesh and blood, is faking tears to frame you? Kenneth, would you even believe that if you heard it from someone else?"

I would not.

Yet it had happened. The child I had protected with my life really had been raised into the little monster in front of me.

Never had I been so grateful that I had given up custody of her.

I let out a self-mocking laugh. I knew explaining would be pointless, so I spoke in an exhausted voice. "Think whatever you want."

Adele's eyes turned ice-cold. "Get on your knees and apologize. Apologize to your daughter, and apologize to Cyrus. Until Cyrus forgives you, you're not getting up."