Chapter 6

Three days ago—wasn’t that when Chloe and Marcus were on their romantic getaway?

It was one thing for her to throw me under the bus, but she had the nerve to drag my late mother into her web of lies!

Just as my rage was about to boil over, the police arrived, putting an end to the chaos.

“Who sent the distress text message? What exactly is going on here?”

Julian shot me a venomous glare. I opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to it, playing the victim and launching a shameless false accusation.

“Officers, you came just in time! This woman is my wife’s best friend. She tricked my wife into coming here, and she’s been missing ever since. I was worried sick and couldn’t get a hold of her, so I came over to search the place.

“While looking for my wife, I found out this woman’s running an escort business out of her home! Officers, you can’t let her walk free!”

I let out an incredulous laugh then fired back:

“You forced your way into my home under the pretense of looking for your wife, maliciously destroyed my private property and stole my jewelry.

“On top of that, you assaulted me physically, even ran a livestream to spread slanderous lies about me. All of that will send you behind bars for a very long time!”

Julian’s face turned pale, though he barked back: “You’re making things up! Do you have any proof? I have witnesses!”

The moment the words left his mouth, the thugs stepped forward one after another to back him up, claiming I was lying through my teeth.

When one officer turned to me and asked if I had any evidence to back up my claims, I remained silent.

Seeing me fall quiet, Julian beamed with smug triumph and urged the policemen:

“Please, take her away! You can’t let a criminal like her roam the street!”

Under the thugs’ mocking stares, my lips curled into a smile as I pulled up the feed from my home security system.

“You want proof? My cameras caught every single thing you did on tape!”

Handing the footage over to the police, I continued:

“They broke into my apartment out of nowhere and ransacked the place.”

I then laid out the entire sequence of events in detail. After reviewing the footage, the senior officer turned toward the thugs, his eyes cold and lethal.

“Outrageous! This is a blatant violation of the law!”

Julian had never expected me to have a card up my sleeve. His face turned sour at once, but still he refused to yield.

“I mean, you can’t blame it all on me! If she hadn’t kidnapped my wife, I wouldn’t have smashed any of her stuff!

“I can’t reach my wife at all! She must have done something to her!

“Where are you hiding her? What did you do to my Chloe?”

Where else could she possibly be? Out on a date with her secret lover, that was where.

Telling myself that, still I maintained a look of innocent concern.

“I genuinely have no idea where Chloe is. She only told me it was an emergency and begged me to cover for her, but she never specified where she was going.

“I haven’t been able to reach her either. Could something have happened to her?”

With that, I pleaded with the officers to help locate Chloe’s whereabouts.

I was done covering her dirty little secret. Now was the time to unveil her true colors to the world.

To speed up the search, I suggested leveraging the power of social media, posting online an urgent missing person alert.

The police acted immediately.

Before long, a response popped up in the inbox, with an attached photo.

When the file was opened, everyone in the room froze on the spot.

In the photo, Chloe was arm in arm with a strange man, the two exchanging an intimate smile—right in front of the entrance of a hotel.