Chapter 29 Her dark past

Chapter 29 Her dark past
Sonia’s POV

Angela’s gasp made my stomach twist into knots.
“What is it?” I asked, already dreading the answer.

She didn’t reply at first. Her face turned pale, her eyes scanning her phone screen with disbelief. The room went dead quiet, save for the hum of the air conditioner. Even the young intern who’d run in was frozen, guilt flickering in his eyes for being the messenger. He probably didn't know I was in the office when he ran in.

“Sonia…” Angela whispered finally, and when she looked at me, her eyes glistened. “You need to see this.”

I hurriedly took her phone.

The headline burned into my brain before the words even made sense.

> ‘The Smithfield Corporation’s Acting CEO Married to an Abused Bar Girl — Shocking Past Revealed!’

Beneath the headline were pictures. Photos I thought I had hidden at the bottom of the ocean. My face. My body. The scars on my back, the burns on my thigh, the crooked line across my shoulder blade that I had spent years hiding. All of them lay bare for the world to see. My hands began to shake, this was the real me. A broken piece of shit.

My breath caught in my throat. “No… no, no, no…” I stuttered, unable to talk.

Angela reached for me, but my hand trembled so hard I almost dropped the phone. My mind was spinning. It was like the whole world was out to get me and humiliate me.

There it was again… the pictures of me. Twelve-year-old Sonia, crying behind the bar counter because a man had tried to molest her. Another one, from the shelter I stayed in when I first came to the city. And another… from a few weeks ago, when Michael was forcefully squeezing my breasts as a condition for our marriage.

“How did they get these?” I managed to ask, though my voice sounded strangled.

Angela clenched her jaw, her eyes burning with fury. “Michael. It has to be him. Who else would have access to these? You confided in him, but he leaked it all?!”

My chest ached. I could almost feel my past clawing back, trying to drag me under. The shame, the humiliation, the pain of those years, it was all being replayed in the cruelest, most public way possible.

The door burst open, and noises poured in. Reporters were outside, and they were shouting, as they tried to capture my pictures. My coworkers were whispering to themselves, some pretending to pity me, others failing to hide their disgust.

“Mrs. Smithfield…or should I say Sonia!” Lena, one of the company's janitors, called out. “Is it true you were a prostitute before your marriage?”

Angela lost it. “Shut your damn mouth! Who the fuck are you to talk!” she yelled, slamming the door shut. “Vultures!”

I couldn’t move. I just stood there, gripping the table for balance. My heart felt like it was bleeding.

Angela grabbed her phone. “I’m calling Mr. Lucian.”

\---

Lucian’s POV

I was in a meeting when my phone buzzed for the third time. Daniel’s face appeared on the caller ID, followed by Angela’s frantic voice through the receiver.

“Sir, the news….have you seen it?!”

I was surprised to receive her call. The fact that she was talking about the news intrigued me. I didn’t need to ask which news. One glance at my laptop screen told me everything. Sonia’s face was all over the country’s gossip columns like blood on a wall.

My expression turned to stone, and the conference meeting turned gloomy. “Who leaked this?”

“We’re tracing the source,” Daniel replied. “But it’s coming from multiple platforms. Someone spread it deliberately.”

My hand tightened around the pen until it snapped. I stood abruptly, my chair skidding back. “The meeting is over,” I announced coldly.

“What?”
“Come on, we are your company's investors, you can't do this!”
“This is not Smithfield's Corporation, you're in our zone.”

The men protested, and I looked at them in disdain.

“Fine, my secretary will attend to you,” I deadpanned, and left.

\---

Back at the Office

When the elevator doors opened, silence followed me like a shadow. My presence filled the room. I always had a dark aura, because of my black suit, cold stare, and dangerous energy. Reporters who had been crowding the hallway froze as security cleared them out.

I didn’t speak to anyone. I just walked straight into Sonia’s office.

She was sitting on the couch, her head bowed, her hands trembling in her lap. Angela stood nearby, arms crossed like a lioness guarding her cub.

“Sonia,” I called her name softly.

Her head snapped up, eyes glistening with unshed tears. “They know,” she whispered. “Everything.”

I knelt in front of her, ignoring the others. “No,” I said firmly. “They know what they were told, not the truth.”

“I can’t face them,” she muttered. “Lucian, I worked so hard to bury all this. I didn’t want anyone to see me like that.”

I gently took her hands, my voice low but steady. “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You're stronger than all of them.”

Angela sniffled. “You should’ve seen the way people looked at her, Mr. Lucian. Like she’s some kind of… thing.”

At the mention of that, my jaw tightened, and I stood up. “They’ll regret it.”

I turned to Daniel, who had just walked in with a grim expression. “Pull every file we have on Michael and Georgia. Bank records, social media, every email. I want to know who funded the leak and who approved the publication.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the company’s PR team?”

“Already preparing a counter-statement. But the story’s spreading fast. Hashtags are trending.”

My gaze darkened. “Then we’ll make a bigger story.” 

I hadn't really read the news, all I saw was Sonia's face making headlines. The look on Daniel's face was wrong, and he kept staring at Sonia like he had just seen a ghost.

“Give that to me,” I demanded, and collected the news tablet. “Twelve years old? Hostel bar?” My eyes widened as I read.

“She's the one, sir,” Daniel said in a whisper.