Chapter 99: Countdown
“Sienna!” Damian burst into the apartment bedroom, completely soaked, with rain dripping from his hair.
Seeing her on the bed, the fear that had been lodged in his throat finally subsided. He rushed to the bedside, kneeling, and carefully took her bandaged hand.
“Why would you do something so foolish… so reckless?”
Sienna slowly opened her eyes, her voice a fragile whisper. “Damian… you came… forget about me… just let me die… the entire internet is calling me a mistress, a bully… I can’t face anyone…”
“Who dares to say that!” Damian gripped her hand, kissing it. “Those are all Evelyn’s fabricated lies! You are the kindest person. I know it, I know everything!”
“But… everyone believes them… they call me a whore, a plagiarist… Damian, I’m so scared. I really don’t want to live…”
“Don’t be afraid. I’ve got you.” Damian stood up, pulled out his phone, and called the head of the PR department.
“This is Damian Green,” he stated. “I don’t care how much it costs or what connections you use, I want all negative news about Sienna wiped from the internet within the hour! Contact the platforms, ban every account that shared that audio! Even if we have to buy out the servers, you will suppress this fire!”
He hung up and called a grey-market hacker team. “Also, hire a troll army. Spin the narrative. Say the audio was AI-generated, malicious defamation by a competitor!”
In this city where capital is king, the truth is sometimes expensive, but lies are often more costly. And Damian was willing to pay that high price for Sienna.
Sienna lay on the pillow, watching the man frantically mobilizing every resource to fight the public for her. A flash of triumph crossed her eyes. She had won. With just a little blood and an act of weakness, Evelyn's hard evidence was nothing but waste paper against the power of capital.
Damian stayed by Sienna’s side all night. He fed her water, wiped her face, and gently held and soothed her when she woke from “nightmares.”
“Damian…” Sienna drew circles on his chest. “If I really died, would you be sad for me?”
“Don’t say that.” Damian kissed her forehead. “We’re going to be together for a long time.” Sienna smiled a silent, victorious smile in his arms.
In the mansion, it was pitch black. Evelyn hadn’t turned on the lights. She sat alone on the floor by the window, looking at the distant city lights. The faint glow of her phone lit her expressionless face.
On social media, the explosive exposé post now read, “Content unavailable due to violation of terms.” The trending topics condemning Sienna were rapidly vanishing, replaced by a stern statement from Omni Group, claiming the audio was fake and threatening legal action against the perpetrators. A massive wave of paid trolls flooded the comments, shifting the blame back to “commercial rivals.”
This was the power of money. This was Damian’s “answer” to her. Evelyn closed the page, finding it bitterly amusing.
Buzz. Her phone vibrated with a new text message. Sender: Sienna.
Evelyn opened the message. The first thing she saw was a photo. In the dimly lit bedroom, Damian’s sleeping profile was visible, and a bandaged hand rested on his chest, a massive pink diamond ring on its ring finger. It was the ring Damian had promised Evelyn for their tenth anniversary.
The second text arrived immediately:
[See? This is the man you destroyed your name for and still couldn’t have.]
[He just held me and said he only wants to sleep with me now. He said touching you is like touching a corpse, it utterly disgusts him.]
[I even asked him what if you were pregnant. He reassured me that he would take the child and give it to me to raise, to call me Mommy. It would be my compensation for the ‘miscarriage’ you caused!]
[Evelyn, be smart and leave now, before you end up without even someone to bury your body.]
Evelyn stared at the text. Every word was a needle piercing her already fractured heart. The phone screen went dark.
[…take the child and give it to me to raise, to call me Mommy.]
Evelyn’s hands began to tremble. The shaking spread through her body, making her teeth clench. Damian and Sienna not only wanted to ruin her but wanted to steal her child, turning her flesh and blood into a trophy of their twisted love.
“No, absolutely not…” Evelyn curled up on the floor, clinging fiercely to her flat abdomen.
“Baby, no one can take you. No one.”
She knew that if her pregnancy was revealed, Damian would seize the child. Sienna would certainly not treat her child kindly—she might even end its life! And Evelyn herself would likely be discarded in the basement after giving birth, left to die alone.
Evelyn forced herself up, stumbling to the wall calendar. She grabbed a red marker and violently crossed out the previous day. The marker tore the paper.
She had one month and twenty days until her pregnancy would become noticeable. She had to escape Damian’s control completely within those fifty days and disappear somewhere they could never find her. Otherwise, she and her baby would become Sienna’s playthings.
“There’s still time. There’s still a chance.” Evelyn whispered to the empty room.