Leon’s POV.Scarlett had known from the beginning that something was going on. She wasn’t paranoid or over-emotional as Caden, her father and mother-in-law had claimed. She saw it all coming before any of us wanted to see it.But again—how?Something must have happened for her to know everything before it even played out.I closed the file and leaned forward, elbows on the desk, hands pressed against my face.It wasn’t just anger building anymore.It was reckoning.They were coming at her from every angle—through the press, through personal history, through public reputation. If Scarlett wasn’t already cracking under the weight of it, she would be soon. No one could stand alone under that kind of pressure forever.Another alert came in.My tech operative had completed the courier trace.The man who delivered the poisoned muffins had never gone near the bakery listed on the card. His badge had been faked, just like we assumed. The security cam at a traffic signal two blocks from my hou
Leon’s POV.Scarlett didn’t say much, but her expression had changed. The angry edge in her tone had faded. She was looking at me like she was still processing everything, but no longer ready to snap at me for doing something I saw as a kind gesture.She’d been through a lot, and I know this won’t fix any of it. But I was hopeful it would lighten her mood the slightest.She nodded once, her brows pinching. Then with a weak smile she said, “Thank you.”Just that.But from her, right now, it was enough.I didn’t respond right away. I let her have the last word. She turned and left the room, moving slower than usual, like her steps were no longer dragging.It wasn’t a full-on smile, sure. It wasn’t some miraculous change. But it was the closest I’d seen to light in her since this all started.I watched her until she disappeared down the hall. A few minutes passed before I moved again.My wallet was still in my back pocket. I reached for it, hesitated. My fingers paused over the familiar
Scarlett’s POV.My phone buzzed while I was still lying in bed, unable to find the willpower to move. It took a long moment before I was able to sit up and see it was Olivia.“Check your messages. It’s urgent.”My shoulders tensed, my heart already beating faster. I opened the message and stared at the attachments without tapping them right away. I knew what this was. I didn’t want to be right, but I was. As soon as I opened the first image, it confirmed everything.A new article was going live.The headline made my throat go dry. “Scarlett Lemaire’s History of Psychological Abuse Toward Her Younger Stepsister—New Claims Surface.”I couldn’t move. I just stared at the screen as if not reacting would stop it from being real.Instead, I kept scrolling.Screenshots from fake interviews and quotes from people I’d never even met—“former teachers” and “neighbors” claiming I was unstable as a child, hostile and flat-out emotionally cruel to Dahlia. There were tons of blurry, misused childho
Leon’s POV.The full report came in before sunrise.It was sitting in my inbox with the subject line: Primary Findings: Phase One - URGENT.I sat in my office, the only light coming from my computer’s screen. I scanned the first two pages, and it told me everything I needed to know.This wasn’t a random outburst of spite or some desperate act driven by simple jealousy—No. It was deliberate, methodical, and driven by nothing but pure hate.There was no question about it; this was an attempt to end not one, but two lives.My private team had pulled encrypted communications from Dana—Dahlia’s mother—using her secondary phone. She’d been communicating with an offshore alias that was heavily protected and incredibly difficult to trace. But they’d managed to isolate a few message timestamps that lined up with known events in the timeline.The release of the edited reunion video.The first wave of bot-fueled social media comments.The bakery delivery.The same phone had accessed a digital sm
Scarlett’s POV.The interview was set up through Olivia’s contact—someone she swore was discreet, seasoned, and immune to bribery. The location was quiet, a small rented office in a mixed-use building downtown.There were no cameras or people around that could potentially add more to the already fake news spreading all over the media.Ezra drove me, because Leon had apparently given him unspoken orders not to let me go anywhere alone anymore. I didn’t fight it. Ezra kept his mouth shut, not passing any judgment, and didn’t get in my way, and for that, I let him stay close.The files were in my bag—printed screenshots, copies of text chains, statements from the hospital, and a highlighted timeline of every event starting from the school reunion. I went over them three times this morning. Every date, every time something significant happened. I knew what I was walking into, and I was ready.When we got there, the woman waiting for me stood as I entered. She was in her late thirties, wit
Leon’s POV.The report landed in my inbox just after noon. I read it twice.The smear campaign wasn’t something small and insignificant that could be swept away overnight.No. It was much, much bigger than I would have imagined—organized, timed, and executed with professional planning. Dozens of fake accounts across platforms, all created within the same 48-hour window. Same wording, same hashtags, same talking points. Scarlett was being called unstable, manipulative, and dangerous.And it hadn’t happened by accident.The video itself had been edited—segments cut and reordered. Her confrontation with the man at the reunion looked like she’d staged it. Like she’d coached the guy to attack her. There were even clips spliced in from earlier in the night, making it look like she was smirking about it before it happened.Someone had planned this. Someone wanted the world to believe she was faking everything—including the pregnancy.It wasn’t just petty gossip. It was a hit job, and someone