chapter 3

Evelyn

I woke up to the sound of my father’s voice in my head. ‘Evelyn, you’re going to be a brilliant lawyer. Better than I ever was.’ He’d said that the day I got accepted to law school, the same day he found out the cancer had spread. He never lived to see me graduate, never saw me argue my first case. But he would’ve been proud. For those first ten years, at least. Before I gave it all up.

That sweet memory was interrupted when my head pounded from the too much wine I had. My mouth tasted like regret and something bitter. I reached for my phone on the nightstand, turned it on for the first time since yesterday afternoon. Three hundred notifications. My stomach dropped.

I opened the first social app. The anonymous account I’d created yesterday had forty thousand followers overnight. The photos I’d uploaded had been retweeted thousands of times. The videos had hundreds of thousands of views.

“#AlfredColeScandal” was trending number two nationwide.

I scrolled through the comments, my hands shaking.

“Family values candidate caught cheating with his secretary”

“LMAOOO this man really thought he could run for governor”

“His poor wife”

“She should leave him”

News articles were already live. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, local stations, political blogs. Everyone had picked it up.

“Gubernatorial Candidate Alfred Cole Caught in Compromising Position with Campaign Secretary”

“Photos and Videos Surface of Alfred Cole’s Alleged Affair”

“Cole Campaign in Crisis After Leaked Evidence of Extramarital Relationship”

I sat up in bed, my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. I did this.

I actually did this. Alfred’s phone was still ringing in his office down the hall. Then I heard his voice loud over the phone screaming at his manager over the phone

Moments later I heard his footsteps walking towards the bedroom then the bedroom door slammed open.

Alfred stood there in yesterday’s clothes, his face red, his eyes wild. He looked like he hadn’t slept.

“YOU did this.”

I didn’t move.

“You fucking did this.” He crossed the room in three steps, grabbed my arm yanked me out of bed. “You uploaded those photos. You leaked them to the press.”

His hands were tight around my arms, fingers digging in hard enough to hurt.

“Alfred…”

“Don’t lie to me.” He shook me. “I know it was you. Who else would have those photos? Who else would…

“Let go of me.”

“You better pray I can fix this mess.” His face was inches from mine, he grabbed my hair spit flying as he yelled. “You better pray to God I can salvage this campaign because if I can’t, if you just destroyed everything I’ve worked for…”

His hands moved to my throat. Not squeezing, not yet, but there a threat.

“Dad, what the hell?”

Alfred froze.

Nathan stood in the doorway surprisingly. He must have come home late, snuck in the way he always did when he didn’t want us to know he was back from his college apartment across town.

“Nathan.” Alfred dropped his hands immediately, stepped back. “This isn’t…”

“Get away from her.” Nathan moved into the room, his face hard. “What are you doing?”

“Your mother and I were just…”

“I saw you.” Nathan looked at me. “Mom, are you okay?”

I rubbed my arms where Alfred’s hands had been. “I’m fine.”

“Is it true?” Clara appeared behind Nathan, still in her pajamas, phone in hand. “The photos online. Everyone’s talking about it. Is it true?”

Alfred switched modes instantly. The anger disappeared, replaced by concern, by hurt, by the wounded expression he’d perfected over years of politics.

“No.” He ran a hand through his hair. “No, it’s not true. Someone doctored photos to make it look like I was having an affair. It’s a smear campaign, sweetie. Someone trying to sabotage me.”

Clara looked at her phone, then at him. “Dad, there are videos.”

“Deepfakes. AI-generated. You know how advanced that technology is now.” He moved toward her, put his hands on her shoulders. “Someone is trying to destroy me. To destroy this family. And your mother…” He glanced at me. “Your mother is understandably upset about the whole thing.”

“But…”

“Clara, look at me.” His voice went soft, paternal. “You know me. You know I would never do this to our family. To your mother. This is what they do in politics. They lie. They manipulate. They create scandals out of nothing.”

Nathan crossed his arms. “Who’s ‘they’?”

“Patrick Mane’s campaign. My opponents. People who don’t want me to win.” Alfred’s voice was so sincere, so believable. “You know how dirty politics gets. They’ll do anything to take me down.”

Clara looked at me. “Mom?”

I stood there in my nightgown, arms still aching, throat still feeling the ghost of Alfred’s hands, and I had a choice.

Tell them the truth. Tell them their father is a liar and a cheat and I was the one who leaked the photos because I was done protecting him.

Or stay silent.

I stayed silent.

“Your mother knows it’s fake,” Alfred said, filling my silence. “She’s just upset that we have to deal with this at all. Right, Eve?”

I looked at my children. Nathan, twenty years old looking so much like the younger version of his father though it hurt. Clara, still young enough to believe her parents’ marriage was real.

“Right,” I heard myself say.

Alfred’s phone rang again. He pulled it out, looked at the screen. “I need to take this. Lawson’s calling an emergency meeting.” He looked at the kids. “Go get ready for school, Clara. Nathan, stick around. I might need you .”

He turned to Clara and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. We’ll fix it.”

Clara left, phone still in hand, probably texting her friends. Nathan lingered in the doorway, looking between me and Alfred like he wasn’t sure what he’d walked into.

“Nathan, go.” Alfred’s voice went firm.

“Mom?” Nathan looked at me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Go.”

He left, but slowly, like he didn’t want to leave me alone with Alfred.

The moment Nathan’s footsteps faded down the hall, Alfred turned to me.

“Don’t ever contradict me in front of them again.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Exactly. Your silence spoke loud enough.” He grabbed his jacket from the chair. “I’m going to the campaign office. Lawson’s setting up a press conference for tomorrow. You’ll be there. You’ll stand beside me. You’ll smile. And you’ll tell the reporters that these photos are fake and that we’re stronger than ever.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He moved to the door. “Because if you don’t, I’ll make sure those kids know exactly who destroyed this family. I’ll make sure they know their mother is the one who leaked those photos out of spite and jealousy.”

“They won’t believe you.”

“Won’t they?” He smiled. “I just convinced them in thirty seconds that videos of me fucking my secretary are deepfakes. You think I can’t convince them their mother is unstable?”

He left before I could respond.

I heard him in the hallway, already on the phone. “Lawson, yeah. Set it up for tomorrow at Make it look intimate, family-focused. And get our crisis PR team on standby.”

His voice faded as he went downstairs.

I sat back down on the bed, picked up my phone. The notifications were still coming in. More retweets, more comments, more articles. The whole world was watching Alfred Cole’s campaign implode. And he was already spinning it. Already lying. Already convincing people it was fake, that he was the victim, that someone was out to destroy him.

I looked at my arms where his hands had been. Red marks already forming.

He’d grabbed me. Almost choked me. And then he’d lied so smoothly that even I almost believed him.

I sat there alone in the bedroom surrounded by

lies, and I realized something. Leaking the photos wasn’t enough. Embarrassing him wasn’t enough.

He was too good at this. Too good at lying, at manipulating, at making himself the victim.

I needed to be smarter. I needed a plan.

And I needed help.