Chapter 3
The next morning, the hashtag [EleanorVanceChildAbuse] didn't just trend; it exploded to the number one spot without a single warning.
Inside the tag was a maliciously edited GIF.
In the frame, five-year-old Hudson held a peeled shrimp, carefully offering it to my mouth.
Meanwhile, I was lounging on a lawn chair with my eyes shut, looking like a total pampered princess.
The caption was pure fuel for the fire: [Trophy Stepmom Eleanor Vance Plays Queen on Reality Set: Five-Year-Old Stepson Treated Like a Personal Slave!].
The comment section was a total war zone.
[The 1% are actually demonic. Why is she not canceled yet?]
[That poor kid. Being stuck with a stepmother like that is a literal nightmare.]
[Eleanor Vance, get out of the industry and stay out!]
At that exact moment, I was sitting under an old oak tree near the town square, playing bridge with a group of local ladies.
Hudson was perched right beside me, acting as my tiny, hyper-focused strategist.
"Play the Queen."
"Go all in! Crush her!"
"Wait, don't take that one. Let her have it. I bet the next person has a better hand!"
That was when Killian arrived like some misplaced god from a corporate skyscraper.
He was wearing a bespoke suit and handcrafted leather shoes that were far too shiny for the dusty road, with two massive bodyguards trailing behind him.
He looked completely out of place in this quiet, rustic town.
His arrival sucked the life right out of the game.
The local ladies, intimidated by his sheer intensity, went dead silent.
He cut through the crowd and stood over me, looking down with a cold, judgmental stare.
I honestly thought he was there to serve me divorce papers or a lecture.
Instead, he just frowned, pulled a wet wipe from his pocket, and started scrubbing a crude mustache Hudson had drawn on my face earlier.
"Filthy," he muttered, sounding genuinely annoyed.
I just stared at him, confused. "What?"
While we were stuck in that weird standoff, Iris came sprinting over with the film crew in tow, sobbing her eyes out.
"I found it! It's right here!" She pointed at my Hermès bag sitting on a plastic stool, shouting to an older woman dressed in a floral housecoat.
The woman lunged forward, snatched my bag, and pulled out an antique-looking emerald necklace.
"My family heirloom! You thief. Why would you steal from a poor woman like me?" She wailed, clutching the necklace to her chest as if her life depended on it.
Iris rushed to hold her up, looking at me with a face full of practiced disappointment. "Eleanor, I never thought you'd sink this low.
"This was Mrs. Miller's only legacy for her son's future! How could you do this?"
The live chat went absolutely nuclear.
[Are you kidding me? She's a thief?]
[The mask is off. First the kid, now this? Eleanor is a sociopath.]
[What a disgrace. How did the Meyer family ever let her in?]
Hudson panicked. Even if he didn't like me, he knew I wasn't a thief.
"My stepmom didn't take it!" He tried to step forward, but Iris was faster.
She covered his mouth with her hand. "Don't be scared, sweetie. I'll protect you. I won't let the bad people hurt you anymore."
Her performance was Oscar-level fake.
Killian's face went stone-cold.
Everyone was staring, waiting for me to break, waiting for my reputation to shatter into a million pieces.
I looked at that "emerald" necklace, which looked like it was made of green bottle glass.
I just started laughing. "That piece of junk isn't worth two bucks. Only you would be dumb enough to call that a treasure."
Iris sobbed even harder. "Eleanor, how can you be so heartless? This is Mrs. Miller's entire life!"
"Entire life, right?" I smirked and pulled out my phone.
In front of everyone, I dialed 911. "Yes, I'd like to report a crime. We have a massive fraud case here involving an item of 'immeasurable value.'"
Iris turned white.
She lunged for my phone, looking desperate. "Eleanor, don't be impulsive. Let's just talk about this privately."
I slapped her hand away with enough force to make her stumble. "Get back. Don't get in the way of me sending you to a holding cell."
*****
The police didn't take long to arrive.
In a tiny town like this, a call involving billionaires and grand larceny was the event of the century.
They even brought in a local jewelry appraiser to settle it on the spot.
The verdict? The necklace was high-grade glass. Market value: maybe twenty dollars at a gift shop.
More importantly, the only fingerprints on it belonged to Iris Delgado and Mrs. Mary Miller.
My hands were as clean as the necklace was fake.
Mary's legs gave out, and she confessed everything right there.
Iris had paid her 700 dollars to stage the whole scene.
The truth was out, and Iris was humiliated in front of millions of live viewers.
She tried to pull a "damsel in distress" fainting routine, but her acting was so bad she just ended up hitting the dirt for real.
The medics eventually hauled her away on a stretcher.
I looked directly into the lens and gave a cold smile. "Next time you try to frame me, at least buy the real thing. The Meyer family name is worth more than 20 bucks."
I turned to Killian, whose face looked like a brewing storm.
Was he next on my list?