The article went live at six a.m., and by the time Ivy's alarm went off two hours later, it had already been shared, reposted, and picked up by three larger outlets, her phone lighting up with notifications faster than she could process them.
THE PRICE OF A GOLD MEDAL: How a Fencing Scandal Fifteen Years Ago Built an American Empire, the headline read, Sarah Chen's byline beneath it, and Ivy sat frozen on the edge of her bed for a long moment, scrolling through the piece with a strange, dislocated feeling — her family's private grief, laid out now in careful, sourced, undeniable prose for anyone in the world to read.
Chen had done exactly what she'd promised. The piece was thorough, meticulous, every claim backed by documentation — Marchenko's notarized statement quoted at length, the wi
