Chapter 4

I never expected their PR machine to move this fast.

Paparazzi were already staking out my apartment building, their lenses aimed directly at the entrance. My front door had been splashed with red paint, the exterior walls defaced with derogatory slurs.

Standing on the street corner looking at the wreckage, I found it utterly absurd. The betrayed wife was being smeared as the cheater. The actual homewrecker was resting comfortably in my ex-husband's arms.

I pulled out my phone and texted Lucas: Are your people behind the vandalism downstairs?

He didn't reply.

A few minutes later, my offshore account received a massive wire transfer. The memo line contained only two words: Hush money.

I stared at the transaction receipt and laughed out loud. Money was always his first line of defense. He genuinely believed that cold, hard numbers on a screen could erase the trauma he inflicted.

I remembered the first time I received his so-called hush money. I had come home early from a business trip to Milan and found Ivy’s lace lingerie on our bed. Lucas had walked out of the master bathroom, his hair still dripping wet.

When I confronted him, his face held zero remorse. "What you see is what it is."

I had smashed every bottle of perfume on my vanity, screaming, demanding answers. He stayed completely silent. Finally, he called his finance department to wire me money and said:

"Take the money, or we divorce."

But why should I have been the one thrown away so easily? "I built Sterling Group with you!" I had yelled.

He had stared at me for a long time before delivering the cruelest blow.

"Given your... history, Serena, I'm the only man who would look past it and give you the title of Mrs. Sterling."

The room had gone dead silent.

The sexual assault in college was never my fault. But in his eyes, it was a permanent stain, a piece of leverage that meant I had to tolerate his infidelity. He apologized later, claiming he only said it in the heat of the moment. But I knew the truth. That sentence exposed the sheer arrogance in his bones. He had never respected me.

Pulling my thoughts back to the present, I looked at the "hush money" on my screen. I didn't return it. I took a screenshot. Every single wire transfer would become a blade aimed right at his throat.

By the next day, tabloids and social media platforms were flooded with hit pieces: Serena's Promiscuous Past; Severe Mental Instability. My photos, my full name, and the agonizing trauma of my youth were plastered all over the internet.

I couldn't believe he would stoop this low, weaponizing my deepest scars for his crisis PR. What was I to him? A lightning rod for public anger? A sacrificial lamb to please his new mistress?

I scrolled through the vicious comments. It was so incredibly unfair. The perpetrators were living the high life in Manhattan society, while the victim was being publicly crucified.

Just then, a message popped up from Samantha. "Serena, we have all the evidence prepped."

"Good."

Another notification flashed on my screen. In three days, Lucas and Ivy were hosting a massive, star-studded engagement charity gala at his Hamptons estate.

I called Samantha. "Get me an invitation to that Hamptons party."

Three days later, dressed in a severe, razor-sharp black haute couture gown, I walked into the main hall of the estate.

Ivy was clinging to Lucas’s arm. She was wearing a custom white gown flown in from Paris that looked suspiciously like a wedding dress. She was beaming, looking like the whole world owed her a congratulations.

I pulled out my phone and went live on Instagram.

"Good evening. Serena Sterling here."

I marched straight toward the main stage, my heels clicking sharply against the marble floor. Lucas spotted me. His sapphire eyes widened in sheer shock.

"Tonight," I announced to the camera, "I invite you all to witness the engagement party of my ex-husband and my adopted sister."