Chapter 6
718 Words
A few casually tossed-off lines from Gabe, combined with the Sterling family dumping loads of cash on paid internet trolls, flipped the entire narrative overnight.
Old, damaging articles got scrubbed and deleted, and every original, damaging trending topic was wiped clean from the platform.
In their place popped new trending topics, including #ClaraHasPostpartumDelusions and #HowCrazyCanARichSocialite'sJealousyGet?
The public immediately shifted its stance.
A: [Oh, that makes sense! I always said CEO Sterling wasn't that kind of guy.]
B: [Everyone who called him out earlier ones him an apology! We almost got played!]
C: [CEO Sterling is such a stand-up guy, he's still protecting his wife even when she's like this!]
Weirdly enough, a whole faction of shippers even sprang up out of nowhere, gushing over the forbidden pair.
D: [Billionaire CEO plus his widowed sister-in-law? The forbidden tension is off the charts! Why do I low-key love this?]
E: [Not to be thirsty, but CEO Sterling is so handsome and manly, his boyfriend's energy is through the roof!]
Meanwhile, while all this was going on online, Clara was being pinned down by a handful of burly men and dragged toward a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of the city.
They stripped off her clothes and forced a hospital patient gown on her. No matter how she screamed, explained, or fought back, nothing she did changed a thing.
On the first day, they strapped her to a bed, slapped electrode pads to her temples, and zapped her with electricity until her body thrashed and convulsed uncontrollably.
"Mister Sterling gave the order himself, said we need to let you try every treatment we've got to cure that 'illness' of yours!" the orderly sneered.
On the second day, they held her down and forced a massive dose of sedatives into her veins, then tossed her into a ward for violent, manic patients. They left her there until the other patients beat her within an inch of her life.
By the seventh day, the once proud, glowing beauty had been tortured until she was barely recognizable. She did not even dare make a sound when someone pressed their boot onto her head and ground her face into the dirty floor.
Seven days had not just broken her body. It had crushed every last scrap of her dignity into dust.
Eventually, just when Clara had been tormented until she was almost unrecognizable as a human being, Gabe arrived. Rose was right on his heels.
Rose glided gracefully into the room. Her tailored peacock-blue dress clung to her like liquid silk, tracing every curve and sway of her hips with every step she took.
"I heard how terrible your treatment here has been. I just couldn't bear to stay away, so I came to check on you," she simpered.
Gabe paused for a beat, then dropped his words, "Rose is pregnant."
The words crashed into Clara like a second bolt of lightning. She snapped her head up, staring at Gabe like she could not believe what she had just heard.
The man looked away, and a heavy silence stretched out between them.
That thick, suffocating silence crushed Clara completely.
She flashed back to the early days of their marriage, when he had told her he was allergic to women and could not have a normal intimate relationship.
She had believed him without a single doubt. That was why she had willingly, again and again, endured the pain of IVF just to give him a child.
So that whole lie about being allergic, that whole excuse about not being intimate, it was all just a lie because the woman he was with was her, Clara.
Everything between them, from start to finish, had been nothing but one giant, rotten scam.
"We can't let anyone know this child is mine and Rose's," Gabe said. "If you agree to legally adopt Rose's child and register it as yours, I'll get you out of here."
Clara lifted her head and stared at the man she had loved for five long years, and not a single spark of affection remained for him in her chest.
She tugged one cold, sharp corner of her mouth up in a bitter smirk.
"Fine. But I have one condition." She looked him dead in the eye and ground out, "Give me my baby's ashes."
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