The digital assassination was swift and merciless. By morning, my name was no longer a name; it was a diagnosis. *Scorned. Unstable. Hysterical.* Julian’s media machine, a hydra of cable news pundits, anonymous sources, and paid op-ed columnists, had stripped me of my professional identity and replaced it with a well-worn cliché. They weren't just attacking my credibility; they were erasing my existence as a strategist and recasting me as a purely emotional, and therefore dismissible, actress in a domestic drama.
The war room at Arthur’s headquarters felt like a pressurized cabin losing air. Every screen glowed with my face, juxtaposed with flattering, statesmanlike photos of Julian. The narrative was poisonously simple, and lethally effective.
“We have to issue a statement,” Eleanor sai
