They Cheated, I Sold Their Video For $200

My best friend loved me deeply that she wore the silk pajamas I'd bought her as a birthday gift while sleeping with my husband in our bed. When it was over, she sent me a shared clip. Vanessa: Good, right? I didn't reply. I watched the masterpiece from start to finish, then turned around and sold it to TrashHub for two hundred dollars. Why keep the fun to myself? I switched on airplane mode and headed into the mountains with my colleagues to collect field data. A week later, I turned my signal back on. Hundreds of unread messages flooded my screen, and before I could process any of them, my best friend was already calling. She screamed like she'd been driven to the edge of sanity. "Please, you have to delete that video!" Vanessa Blake's voice came through the receiver raw and shredded, soaked in hysteria. "Olivia, please—just delete it!" I was leaning back in a bamboo chair at the lodge, one finger tracing idly along the rim of my cup. "Why would I do that? The footage was excellent. Good lighting, solid angles—it'd be a shame to waste it. Besides, you sent it to me, and I never throw away anything that has value." Two seconds of silence. Then the line erupted. Her voice was sharp enough to split my eardrum. "Do you have any idea this is illegal? How can you be this cruel? You know Ethan and I are serious about each other, and you want to destroy us? I must have been blind—I gave you everything and called you my best friend for seven years!" I couldn't help it. A quiet laugh escaped me. Serious. On our third wedding anniversary, she had put on the silk pajamas I'd given her for my own birthday the year before, climbed into the marital bed in our master bedroom with my husband, recorded the whole thing, and sent it to me with a breezy little "Good, right?" And that was supposed to be serious? She came at me first with that filthy betrayal, and somehow I was the one trying to destroy her? "Olivia? Are you even listening? Say something!" I tightened my grip on the phone, just slightly, and asked quietly, "Sending me a private clip of my husband to rub it in my face—is that not illegal? Want me to call the police right now and let them decide whether that counts as distributing obscene material, or violating someone's privacy?" The cursing on the other end cut off. A busy tone followed. She'd hung up. I set the phone down and looked out at the rolling green hills in the distance. The wind moved through the treetops, carrying a faint smell of grass and leaves, but no amount of fresh air could settle what was churning underneath. It didn't matter. This was only the beginning. The screen had barely gone dark before it lit up again. Ethan. I swiped to answer. His voice came through tired, but underneath the exhaustion was something tightly coiled—barely suppressed anger. "You've gone too far. Do you have any idea what this video getting out could do to me?" "Do to you?" I settled back against the chair, my tone unhurried, almost indifferent. "Be specific. Did your company's shares drop, or is the board moving to remove you?" The words landed like a blade finding its mark. A few seconds of silence, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone cold and dark. "I'm giving you one last chance. Take the clip down, then post a public apology saying you made it with AI face-swapping, that it was a twisted act of revenge and a malicious lie. Do that, and I might consider forgiving you—and I'll let you keep your place as Mrs. Whitmore." 'Forgive me. Let me keep my place?' A laugh came out of me, and there was nothing warm in it. "Don't bother. You can keep your forgiveness. Let's just get a divorce." "What did you say?" His voice shot up, disbelief cracking through it. "Don't push your luck, Olivia. Without me, you're nothing." "That's not for you to decide." I hung up. The phone had barely hit the table when the team chat started going off, message after message—the group that was usually dead quiet suddenly buzzing with life. Someone carefully tagged me. "Olivia, is everything okay at home? We saw something online and got a little worried." A few others sent private messages, each one dancing around the point—fishing for gossip dressed up as concern. I glanced through them and typed two words into the group. "I'm fine." Then I packed my things, checked out of the lodge, and started the drive back. The scenery outside the window rushed past in reverse. I rested my head against the glass, a cold smile settling at the corner of my lips. How could I not be fine? I was about to tear the masks off every last one of these people and grind them into the dirt. Things couldn't be better.