Chapter Nineteen The Secret Sophie Buried

Elena

The news hit like a wrecking ball.

Not the articles I’d leaked. Not the testimonies or the financial breadcrumbs I’d strategically dropped.

This one wasn’t mine.

It came from her.

A controlled explosion, wrapped in glossy PR, delivered like an act of mercy.

But I knew better.

Sophie Mitchell didn’t do mercy.

She did strategy.

I was standing in my kitchen, staring at the screen when the headline hit.

“Sophie Mitchell Speaks Out: My Battle With Mental Illness, Abuse, and Silence.”

She was sitting on a cream couch, soft lighting bathing her face like some tragic heroine.

“I’ve been running from the truth for years,” she said, voice trembling perfectly. “But no more. I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. And when I finally escaped, I found myself stalked, harassed, and falsely accused by another woman who refused to let go of her pain.”

My name wasn’t mentioned.

But everyone knew.

I was the other woman.

The bitter ex-wife. The broken doctor. The unhinged stalker.

Her crocodile tears rolled as she clutched a necklace—an old locket, delicate and rusted.

“This belonged to my sister,” she whispered. “She took her own life after years of being gaslit and dismissed. I swore I would never let another woman suffer in silence again.”

And there it was.

The card I didn’t see coming.

Sympathy.

The world would lap it up like honey from her manicured fingers.

Rachel called, her voice panicked. “You need to respond. Now.”

“No,” I said.

“Elena—”

“I said no.”

Because I knew this wasn’t real.

It was bait.

Sympathy was the oldest mask in Sophie’s drawer. She wore it like perfume—strong enough to cover up the rot underneath.

But something she said gnawed at me.

The locket.

The sister.

I’d never heard of a sister.

Not in any of her bios. Not in any of the interviews Jasper gave me. Not in the aliases, the past addresses, the school records.

And that meant one thing: she was lying… or hiding something bigger.

I drove straight to Jasper’s place.

He opened the door shirtless, unbothered. “You bring whiskey or war?”

“War,” I said, shoving my phone at him.

He watched the clip in silence.

Then he laughed—a cold, hollow sound.

“Sister? She never had one. She used one.”

“What do you mean?”

He disappeared into a back room, returned with a folder I hadn’t seen before.

“Her name was Ava. Foster care. They were placed together in their teens. Sophie used her as a cover—stole her documents, her records, even her trauma. Ava was the real victim. Sophie just recycled the pain.”

I stared at the photo inside.

A girl with wide eyes and a bruised smile.

Ava.

The real story.

And if Sophie was dragging my name through the mud using a dead girl’s pain?

Then I was done playing chess.

I was going to rip the entire board in half.

“Find me everything,” I said. “Her time in foster care, the facility, Ava’s death report—if she’s dead at all.”

“She is,” Jasper muttered. “But not how Sophie tells it.”

“What happened?”

He looked at me. And for the first time, even Jasper Blake looked afraid.

“She died during one of Sophie’s games. And Sophie covered it up.”

The world tilted.

Covered it up?

“This isn’t about revenge anymore,” I whispered.

“No,” he said. “Now it’s about justice.”

Sophie wasn’t just a liar.

She was dangerous.

And now, I had the one thing she couldn’t erase:

The truth about what happened to Ava.

And when I exposed it?

Sophie wouldn’t just lose the public.

She’d lose everything.