His Gentle Cruelty

Chapter 2 The Video That Ruined Everything

Wesley posted the video using Zoe's account. His tone was light but cutting as he set the phone down.

"You should have been this obedient from the start," he remarked casually. "Then Lyra wouldn't have cried herself sick over all this stress."

With that, he walked out without a backward glance.

Her phone immediately blew up. Panicked messages flooded in from her team, worried texts from friends, but mostly, a relentless torrent of online hate.

Zoe knew her career was finished. No one hired a star tainted by a scandal like this.

Standing alone in the empty living room, the realization gutted her completely. Wesley had not loved her in a very long time.

She first heard the name Lyra Raine when the rookie showed up at an awards show wearing a gown identical to the one Zoe had worn to the same event the previous year. The headlines the next morning screamed, "Rising Star Lyra: A Dead Ringer for Zoe Shaw."

At the time, Zoe had dismissed it as another newbie's cheap publicity stunt. It was the same old industry playbook.

That night, Wesley had brought it up himself over dinner. He was slicing into his steak as he spoke.

"Want me to have our PR team squash this?" he had asked with a scoff. "She's clearly riding your coattails. It's desperate."

She had just shrugged and twirled her pasta around her fork. "Ignore it. Newbies have to hustle to get noticed. Real talent doesn't need my spotlight to shine."

He had reached across the table and ruffled her hair affectionately. "You're always so generous."

But her generosity bought her no peace.

Weeks later, Lyra pulled a masterful PR move during an interview. She looked directly into the camera and said, "Ms. Shaw is amazing, and I respect her so much. But I'm here to be Lyra Raine, not the next anyone."

Overnight, the narrative twisted completely. She transformed from a copycat into a misunderstood talent finally breaking free.

Then came the announcement from Cirrus Entertainment's official page. The post read, "Mr. Cirrus's personal discovery, the rising star Lyra Raine, officially joins the Cirrus family." The attached photo showed Lyra grinning at Wesley's side, her eyes practically sparkling with ambition.

When Zoe had asked him about it, Wesley just continued with his meal, completely unfazed.

"She aced the audition," he had explained calmly. "The studio needs fresh blood. She's a hardworking kid. Honestly, she reminds me of you when we first met."

She had been so sure of their love back then. She had missed every single red flag.

Now, the man who had promised her forever was fawning over a younger lookalike.

Her phone lit up with an incoming call. The screen displayed St. Jude's University Medical Center. Her heart stopped.

"Ms. Shaw?" A nurse's tense voice cut through the line. "Is Vivian Grant your mother?"

Her knuckles turned white as she gripped the phone. "Yes, she is. What's wrong? What happened?"

A beat of heavy silence filled the line. Then the nurse spoke again.

"Can you come to the hospital right now? We need... we need someone to identify the body."

Zoe's vision darkened. She staggered blindly toward the door, her mind utterly empty. Only those three crushing words hammered through her skull like a death knell. 'Identify the body.'

In the cold, sterile air of the hospital morgue, the sight of Vivian's lifeless face made her choke back a raw, guttural whimper. Her knees buckled beneath her, and she would have collapsed completely if the nurse had not grabbed her elbow to steady her.

"Your mother still had vital signs this morning," the nurse said softly, her voice tight with regret. "But she needed emergency surgery for internal bleeding. The blood loss was severe."

She hesitated, then continued. "But the ER team... they were suddenly called away from her case."

She looked at Zoe with troubled eyes. "They said Mr. Cirrus personally ordered the attending physicians to check on one of his artists. An artist named Raine. She complained of a headache after drinking last night."

Then the nurse added, her voice trembling slightly. "The driver who hit your mother... was a Cirrus Group artist. It was a DUI hit and run. They fled the scene."

Those words, Raine and DUI, slammed into Zoe's consciousness like a physical blow.

Her own furious accusation to Wesley flashed back into her mind with horrifying clarity. She had screamed it at him just hours ago.

"Lyra was drunk driving! She hit someone and fled while the victim was left dying."

Now she understood.

That unknown victim hovering between life and death, the person Lyra Raine had left bleeding on the pavement.

It was her mother, Vivian.

And that last thread of hope, the chance for the surgeons to save her, had been severed by Wesley's phone call.