Chapter 2

I woke up in a hospital room, just in time to see my mother-in-law, Martha, walk in holding a stack of billing slips.

Seeing my eyes open, she slammed the papers down onto my chest.

"Finally decided to wake up, have you? Squeezing money out of us over nothing! Abandoning your family, dragging our name through the mud—my son had the worst luck in the world the day he married you!"

"He moved all the way back to this backwater town just to make you happy, and not only are you not grateful, you go around sleeping with other men until the whole town knows! If I were you, I’d just crawl into a hole and die instead of dragging everyone else down with you!"

I frowned, pushing myself up. "Martha, what are you talking about? When did I ever cheat on him? Get your facts straight—the one having an affair is your son, Tyler!"

Martha’s face darkened. She whipped out her phone, swiped aggressively, and shoved the screen in my face.

"You shameless tramp! The chat logs have made the rounds everywhere, and you still have the nerve to blame my son?"

I took the phone, my blood turning to ice as I saw the screenshots circulating in a massive neighborhood group chat.

The screens displayed vulgar, explicit, and flirtatious exchanges between a man and a woman.

My profile picture. My name. Even photos of me that had been maliciously edited...

If it weren't my own identity stamped all over it, even I would have believed it was undeniable proof of an illicit affair.

I scrambled to explain. "Martha, this isn't me! I have no idea where this came from. The pictures are fake! People use Photoshop and deepfakes to frame people all the time!"

Between desperately looking for a job and adjusting to work, I had been completely blind to the smear campaign waged against me.

Thinking back to the icy stares from the locals this morning, the truth hit me with sickening clarity: these vile fabricated images had spread across the entire town, reaching all the way to my mother-in-law's remote country home.

Chills ran down my spine. I threw off the blanket, determined to head to the police station.

"Martha, my conscience is clear. Believe it or not, I haven't done a single thing against my morals."

At the precinct.

The officers tracked down several people who had forwarded the messages in the local chats. Every single one gave the exact same excuse: "I don't know who posted it first. I just saw it and forwarded it."

The final verdict was that because the messages had gone viral across countless groups, tracing the original source was impossible.

Watching those people smirk without a trace of remorse, I trembled with rage and insisted on pressing charges.

They were just as guilty as the person who started the lie!

"Whether it's a smear or not, you know the truth, lady. You sneaking around with other men and your husband divorcing you—your own son told mine all about it. Stop playing the victim,"

sneered one of the men who had shared the post, the father of one of Leo's classmates. He laughed right in my face when I mentioned suing.

The others joined in, chuckling along.

"Quiet down, all of you!" the officer barked, stepping between us.

My mind completely shut down. I felt utterly helpless.

Even after they signed their statements and strolled out, I remained frozen in place.

I suffered from severe PTSD and emotional trauma. Back during my first year in the entertainment industry, a car accident had left my face scarred, shattering the career I had fought so hard to build. I had spent years in therapy.

I thought I had stabilized; I hadn't had an episode in years.

Yet everything crashing down on me recently had completely overwhelmed my defenses.