Chapter 7

The next morning, I was jolted awake by Anna's frantic phone call.

"Liriel! Turn on the news! Something huge happened!" Anna's voice was panicked.

I shot up in bed and opened the news alert on my phone.

The headline was stark: [SHOCKING! Restaurant Owned by Volkov Don's Fiancée's Adoptive Father Under Investigation for Severe Food Poisoning!]

But when I clicked on the article, my blood ran cold.

Where a photo of Bianca's adoptive father should have been, there was a crystal-clear picture of my dead parents.

I immediately called the media outlet and demanded they change the photo.

The editor hemmed and hawed, refusing, until I threatened to call the police. Only then did he spill the truth:

"The Volkov Don provided the photos himself!"

My mind went blank. Without even changing, I stumbled out of the apartment and hailed a cab straight to Hudson's corporate headquarters.

I had to ask him to his face. Why would he do this?

When I reached the door to the CEO's office, it was slightly ajar.

I was about to push it open when I heard the angry, confused voice of his second-in-command, Dimitri. "Boss! Why would you use a photo of Miss Liriel's parents to take the fall?! They're dead!"

Hudson's tired, cold voice came through the door. "Because the person behind this is Liriel."

"She 'ran into us' at the restaurant yesterday, pretended to be generous and give up her room. Two hours later, there's a massive food poisoning incident. Bianca's adoptive parents are simple people. They'd never use bad ingredients."

Hudson let out a cold laugh. "Liriel is incorrigible. She's jealous of Bianca, so she framed her parents. If she's going to pull stunts like this, she needs to learn there are consequences."

Every word was a needle, stabbing into my chest.

The love I once had for him was now the only evidence he needed to condemn me.

I stood outside the door, my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle any sound.

I finally understood. Hudson had never trusted me. In his heart, he had already decided I was a wicked woman.

Ten years of devotion, all for a ridiculous, one-sided mistake.

I turned and left in a daze, without ever opening that door.

When I got back to my apartment, the sight that greeted me sent me spiraling.

My address had been leaked online by angry mobs.

The front door was splattered with bright red paint, the lock broken. I rushed inside to find the walls covered in graffiti: "MURDERER," "VICIOUS BITCH."

The antique furniture my parents had left me was smashed to pieces.

And the one and only family photo I had treasured for ten years was slashed to ribbons, floating in the filthy water of the toilet.

This was my last safe harbor.

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just silently packed what little I had left, called a cleaning service, and then contacted a real estate agent to sell the ravaged apartment at a low price.

After all that was done, I took a cab to the airport.

Sitting in the departure lounge, with ten minutes until boarding, I took out my laptop. I sent the evidence I had spent a fortune to dig up overnight—the real list of substandard ingredients from Bianca's adoptive father's restaurant, along with my parents' death certificates from ten years ago—to every social media platform on the internet.

I tagged the Volkov Group and Hudson's personal account.

The caption was a single, sharp sentence: "Hey, Godfather. Care to explain how dead people crawl out of their graves to open a restaurant? Maybe the signature on this invoice will give you and your fiancée the answer you're looking for."

Less than five minutes after I sent the proof, news sites exploded. My phone started ringing off the hook.