The Alpha CEO's Ultimate Vengeance

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The Alpha CEO's Ultimate Vengeance

NovelMaster new Completed
现实主义-Realistic重生-Reborn

The department head I promoted with my own hands sued me the second she got pregnant. While Linda was threatening suicide on a TikTok livestream, I was in the middle of signing an eight-figure contract. On video, holding her ultrasound report, she wept inconsolably. "Sue is jealous because I'm pregnant! She told me the company isn't a charity and won't support useless freeloaders like us!" In the background played an audio clip of my voice from an old meeting. "This company isn't a charity." It was edited completely out of context, but within hours, the video hit over a million likes. Overnight, I became the internet's public enemy number one—the ultimate toxic female boss. Yet beneath the anger, a deep, chilling numbness settled over me. I had personally mentored her, taking her from an intern to department head, granting her bonuses and stock options far beyond what anyone her age could dream of. Me? Jealous of her? What did she have that I could possibly envy? Getting to hog the executive bathroom during morning sickness? That night, our corporate website was hacked. Bold, black lettering covered the entire homepage. "Sue drove a pregnant woman to suicide! Give us back our hard-earned money!" If she wanted to bite the hand that fed her, fine. I would gladly give her spot to someone truly in need. At four in the morning, my CTO banged on my door, his face pale as a ghost. "Sue, this is a coordinated attack. We... we can't hold them off." Almost simultaneously, Linda started another livestream. She was lying in a hospital bed, wearing an oversized patient gown, looking utterly drained. Holding up a document to the camera with trembling hands, she displayed the company's official corporate seal stamped in red ink. "This is the 'Voluntary Waiver of Maternity Leave' that Sue forced me to sign. She told me if I didn't, she’d blackball me from the industry forever." "She said that if a woman wants to climb the corporate ladder, having babies is out of the question." The comments section lost its mind. "What a monster!" "Forging or forcing a legal agreement is a crime! Sue her!" "Sue her? She practically owns the city, how could anyone sue her?" I stared intently at that red seal. It was real. The official administrative seal was locked inside the safe in my office. The only person besides me who had a key was my executive assistant, Lily. I called Lily immediately, but the line just rang out. With no other choice, I went live myself to address the allegations. I held up our company’s maternity benefit policies, our paid leave structure, and the special healthcare stipends we provided for pregnant employees, displaying them line by line to the camera. "Our company has one of the most comprehensive maternity programs in the tech sector. Every single employee..." Before I could finish, my livestream was flooded and frozen by bots. "Die, you vile bitch!" "Capitalist scum has no heart!" "You don't deserve to ever be a mother!" My tech lead shouted from the side, "Sue, they're paid bots! Every single IP address traces back to a server farm overseas!" Amid the chaos, Linda posted a comment that immediately got pinned to the top. It was a photo. In it, I was having coffee with our lead venture capital investor, Richard. The angle was deliberately angled to make it look like I was throwing myself into Richard's arms. Her caption read: "Look, they're already plotting behind closed doors on how to push me out!" Looking at that picture, my blood turned to ice. Three days later, our stock price went into freefall. Richard’s phone was ringing off the hook, and our corporate partners scrambled to terminate their contracts. While I was drowning in damage control, Linda marched into our corporate headquarters, accompanied by three strangers. They claimed to be volunteers from a "Women's Rights Defense Coalition," shoving phones into my face as they livestreamed. "We received an anonymous tip about systemic pregnancy discrimination at your firm! We demand to collect evidence right here, right now!" The man leading the pack shouted at the top of his lungs, his camera lens inches from my nose. I blocked their path, my voice dead and cold. "Show me your credentials and a legal warrant, or I will have security escort you out." Linda pushed her way forward from behind them, cradling her belly with tears welling in her eyes. "Are you feeling guilty, Sue? Did you already destroy the evidence?" The moment the words left her mouth, one of the men behind her violently shoved over a six-foot-tall filing cabinet. CRASH. Documents, binders, and financial spreadsheets scattered across the floor like confetti. Screams erupted throughout the office. In the pandemonium, I dialed 911. "Hello, 911? We have trespassers vandalizing our office—" Before I could finish, Linda let out a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed onto the floor. She clutched her stomach, writhing in agony. "Ow! She hit me! Sue shoved a pregnant woman!" Her accomplice immediately panned the camera down onto her. "Look at this, everyone! Absolute savagery! This is the true face of corporate greed!" When the police finally arrived, that was the scene that greeted them. Nothing I said could clear my name. In the end, citing "disturbing the peace," the police escorted the trespassers out. After this stunt, my company's reputation was completely in the gutter.That night, dragging my exhausted body back home, I got a call from the hospital. My grandmother had suffered a massive heart attack and was in the ICU. I drove to the hospital like a maniac. The red surgery light was glaring. The doctor told me the episode was triggered by severe emotional trauma. When I finally got into the ward, my eighty-year-old grandmother was lying unconscious under an oxygen mask, completely pale. Her live-in caregiver was sobbing. "A bunch of thugs banged on the door, claiming they worked for your company and wanted justice. They cornered your grandmother in the hallway, and she just... collapsed on the spot..." Hearing that, I felt my veins turn to liquid nitrogen. Lily finally called me back. She sobbed hysterically over the phone, claiming she had been coerced—that Linda had threatened her family's safety. I believed her. I chose to believe there was still a shred of decency left in human nature. Facing massive public pressure, Lily posted internal memos and statements on her personal social media, clarifying parts of the truth and standing by me. Yet that very evening, Linda leaked a string of fabricated email threads online. The fake emails showed conversations between Lily and various vendors, titled "Kickbacks and Embezzlement." The timeline was crisp, the details seemingly bulletproof. Public outrage exploded all over again. "Birds of a feather flock together! No wonder she defended her boss!" "Turns out they just had a falling out over the loot!" That night, someone threw a brick through Lily's front window, shattering the glass. Lily had a total nervous breakdown. The board of directors officially ousted me as CEO. They replaced me with an outside interim VP. And Linda was appointed as the new Chief Marketing Officer. She didn't even wait for me to clear my things before she brought her entire streaming crew to take over my corner office. I saw her livestream while sitting in the back of an Uber on my way home. She sat behind my mahogany desk, stroking the leather armrests with a glowing, triumphant smile. Looking straight into the lens, she said: "This seat should have gone to someone who truly needed it a long time ago." "Someone like me. A mother who is about to bring new life into this world." Watching that, any warmth left inside me died. I sold my downtown penthouse and moved into a gated apartment complex with private security. I thought I could lay low for a while, waiting for the storm to blow over. I was dead wrong. Three days after I moved in, my new address was leaked online. Someone had drawn up a detailed map of the complex, highlighting my exact building and unit number. In the dead of night, my doorbell would ring aggressively. Whenever I checked the peephole, there was no one there. I couldn't sleep. I spent every night huddled on the couch with my knees to my chest until dawn. On the fourth night, an anonymous package arrived at my door. No return address. My trembling hands tore the box open. Inside was a tiny fabric doll dressed in a white funeral shroud, its face painted with a grotesque, eerie grin. Underneath the doll lay a handwritten note. "A funeral gift for your unborn child." I slapped both hands over my mouth to stifle my scream. I had been trying to conceive. Aside from my family and my OB-GYN, not a single living soul knew about it. How did she know? The walls felt like they were closing in on me. Yet the final, fatal blow came from my own blood relatives. My cousin blocked me on everything, then dropped a screenshot into our family group chat. It showed the moderator list for Linda’s online fan club—and my cousin's name was right there at the top. The group chat blew up instantly. My aunt was the first to tag my mom: "Sister, what kind of unforgivable sin did your daughter commit out there?" My great-aunt chimed in: "She has dragged our entire family name through the mud!" Then came a voice memo from my cousin. "I told you guys years ago, my cousin is a psycho. She could never stand seeing anyone else do well. Now karma's finally catching up to her." "She's just a soulless, cold-blooded cash cow. She deserves to die alone." My mother handed me her phone, her eyes swollen and red, unable to utter a single word. Looking at the endless stream of vitriol and condemnation from my own family, an absolute, bone-deep cold washed over me.I vanished from public view for three full months. Everyone assumed I was broken, cowering in some dark corner, waiting to die. Meanwhile, Linda's star rose to astronomical heights. She was hailed as the "Heroic Working Mom Who Stood Up to Corporate Tyranny." She landed brand deals, appeared on daytime talk shows, and racked up tens of millions of followers. Her growing baby bump had become her ultimate armor. Today, she was hosting a lavish hundred-day baby shower and blessing gala for her unborn child. The venue was the grand ballroom of the most luxurious hotel in the city, fully broadcasted via livestream. A-listers and influencers packed the room as media flashes popped without pause. Linda was draped in a bespoke couture maternity gown, her makeup flawless. Clutching Richard's arm, her smile practically radiated bliss. She took the microphone and addressed the cameras and guests, her voice catching with emotion. "Thank you, everyone. Thank you to every champion of justice who stood by me. My baby gets to be born into a world filled with love, and that is all thanks to you." "As for the person who once tried to destroy me... I choose forgiveness. Because I am a mother now." The live chat overflowed with adoration and praise. Right at that moment, I shoved open the heavy double doors. Dressed in a sharp, tailored black suit, I stood framed by the blinding light of the hallway. Every pair of eyes in the ballroom snapped directly to me. The smile on Linda's face froze solid. Instinctively, she shielded her stomach and shrieked toward the streaming camera: "Sue! What are you doing here?! Are you trying to hurt my baby?!" Two massive security guards immediately rushed forward, attempting to block me. "Ma'am, you need to leave right now!" I didn't even spare them a glance. My eyes were locked entirely on Linda up on the stage. Calmly, I pulled a crisp legal document from my bag and snapped it open in front of their faces. "Move." The guards froze, reading the bold header, and exchanged uneasy glances. "Court Subpoena and Judicial Search Warrant." Inch by inch, the color drained from Linda's face. "What... what is that garbage? It's fake! You forged that!" I walked right up to the stage, thrusting the warrant right in front of her eyes—and straight into the camera lens. "Haven't you put on this show long enough, Linda?" I turned toward the live feed, my voice cutting like broken glass. "Defamation, corporate forgery, cyberstalking, commercial fraud, aggravated harassment, terroristic threats..." With every single word I uttered, Linda's body shook violently. "Did you honestly think that hiding behind a baby bump made you immune to the law?" "Did you think that by manipulating public opinion, you could rewrite reality?" Two uniformed detectives stepped out from behind me, taking their positions on either side of Linda. The livestream chat went utterly haywire, an endless wall of question marks and exclamation points flooding the screen. Linda stared at the badges, and the last shred of hope in her eyes evaporated. She collapsed onto the floor, her tears smearing her expensive makeup into a pathetic, muddy mess. "No... it wasn't me! You can't touch me! I'm pregnant!" I looked down at her coldly. "The law does not bow to special status. It answers to criminals." "I haven't been idle these past three months." "Your bot farm, your document-forging ring, your phony 'Women's Rights' front, and Richard over there, who helped orchestrate the cyberattacks against my servers..." My gaze drifted over to Richard, who was standing beside her, looking like a walking corpse. "Not a single one of you is getting away with this."The cameras went into a frenzy. Linda lay crumpled on the marble floor, her face twisting like a demon's as she screeched at the top of her lungs. "Sue! You psycho! You're going to rot in hell!" I stepped up to her and leaned down slightly. "A psycho?" "Compared to you, I'm practically a saint." One of the detectives stepped forward. "Ms. Wang, please calm down and cooperate with our investigation." Linda lunged forward, grabbing the detective's trouser leg in desperation. "I'm pregnant! You can't arrest me! The law protects pregnant women!" I let out a soft laugh. "The law protects pregnant women, Linda. It doesn't protect felons." I straightened my back and looked past her, fixing my eyes on Richard, who was already slinking toward the exit. "Leaving so soon, Richard?" His entire body locked up. He turned around, forcing a stiff, pathetic smile onto his face. "Sue, this is clearly a personal vendetta between the two of you. I'm... I'm just an invited guest." "A guest?" I paced slowly toward him. "Fabricating internal financial metrics, orchestrating a predatory short-selling campaign against my company, directing Linda to forge legal seals and fake communications..." With every charge I laid out, his face turned a shade paler. "Your playbook was far more sophisticated than hers, Richard." Cornered, he completely lost his composure. Pointing violently at Linda on the floor, his voice cracked in a panic. "Don't listen to her! It was all Linda! This bitch seduced me and cooked up the whole damn scheme from start to finish!" He threw her under the bus without a second thought. Linda stared up at him in sheer disbelief, her lips trembling. "Richard... what did you just say?" What Richard spat out next sent a shockwave through the entire room. "I don't even know if that bastard in your belly is actually mine! Don't you dare try to pin your mess on me!" The last drop of color drained from her face. Right then, the grand ballroom doors swung open once more. Two more officers walked in, escorting a man in handcuffs with a buzz cut and a hollow, defeated stare. He wore the standard gray inmate jumpsuit—the very same "volunteer" who had barged into my office and smashed my filing cabinets. I turned back to Linda with a brilliant, radiant smile. "Oh, by the way, Linda, I almost forgot to introduce you." "An old friend of yours." The moment Linda saw the man, her pupils contracted into pinpricks. The man didn't dare meet her eyes, keeping his head hung low. Richard looked totally bewildered. Whispers broke out among the guests. The livestream chat had become an unreadable blur of shocked reactions. I reached into my bag and pulled out a second document. Stepping up to Richard, I shoved it into his hands. "Richard, weren't you just questioning whether that child belongs to you?" "Let me give you a definitive answer." With shaking hands, Richard looked down at the paper. "Court-Admissible Paternity Test Results." The conclusion was printed in bold, unambiguous text: Subject 1: Unborn Child (Fetal DNA). Subject 2: Mark Zhang. Result: Biological Paternity Confirmed (99.99%). Richard's face snapped instantly from chalk-white to a deep, furious crimson. Like an idiot, he looked back and forth between Linda and Mark. "Well played, Linda! You played me for a fool!" The room erupted into absolute pandemonium. I turned to the camera, addressing every single viewer watching. "This gentleman, Mark Zhang, happens to be Linda's college sweetheart. He is also the founder of her so-called 'Women's Rights Defense Coalition.'" "And their motive from day one was remarkably simple."

Chapters (4)

第1章

The department head I promoted with my own hands sued me the second she got pregnant. While Linda was threatening suicide on a TikTok livestream, I was in the middle of signing an eight-figure contract. On video, holding her ultrasound report, she wept inconsolably. "Sue is jealous because I'm pregnant! She told me the company isn't a charity and won't support useless freeloaders like us!" In the background played an audio clip of my voice from an old meeting. "This company isn't a charity." It was edited completely out of context, but within hours, the video hit over a million likes. Overnight, I became the internet's public enemy number one—the ultimate toxic female boss. Yet beneath the anger, a deep, chilling numbness settled over me. I had personally mentored her, taking her from an intern to department head, granting her bonuses and stock options far beyond what anyone her age could dream of. Me? Jealous of her? What did she have that I could possibly envy? Getting to hog the executive bathroom during morning sickness? That night, our corporate website was hacked. Bold, black lettering covered the entire homepage. "Sue drove a pregnant woman to suicide! Give us back our hard-earned money!" If she wanted to bite the hand that fed her, fine. I would gladly give her spot to someone truly in need. At four in the morning, my CTO banged on my door, his face pale as a ghost. "Sue, this is a coordinated attack. We... we can't hold them off." Almost simultaneously, Linda started another livestream. She was lying in a hospital bed, wearing an oversized patient gown, looking utterly drained. Holding up a document to the camera with trembling hands, she displayed the company's official corporate seal stamped in red ink. "This is the 'Voluntary Waiver of Maternity Leave' that Sue forced me to sign. She told me if I didn't, she’d blackball me from the industry forever." "She said that if a woman wants to climb the corporate ladder, having babies is out of the question." The comments section lost its mind. "What a monster!" "Forging or forcing a legal agreement is a crime! Sue her!" "Sue her? She practically owns the city, how could anyone sue her?" I stared intently at that red seal. It was real. The official administrative seal was locked inside the safe in my office. The only person besides me who had a key was my executive assistant, Lily. I called Lily immediately, but the line just rang out. With no other choice, I went live myself to address the allegations. I held up our company’s maternity benefit policies, our paid leave structure, and the special healthcare stipends we provided for pregnant employees, displaying them line by line to the camera. "Our company has one of the most comprehensive maternity programs in the tech sector. Every single employee..." Before I could finish, my livestream was flooded and frozen by bots. "Die, you vile bitch!" "Capitalist scum has no heart!" "You don't deserve to ever be a mother!" My tech lead shouted from the side, "Sue, they're paid bots! Every single IP address traces back to a server farm overseas!" Amid the chaos, Linda posted a comment that immediately got pinned to the top. It was a photo. In it, I was having coffee with our lead venture capital investor, Richard. The angle was deliberately angled to make it look like I was throwing myself into Richard's arms. Her caption read: "Look, they're already plotting behind closed doors on how to push me out!" Looking at that picture, my blood turned to ice. Three days later, our stock price went into freefall. Richard’s phone was ringing off the hook, and our corporate partners scrambled to terminate their contracts. While I was drowning in damage control, Linda marched into our corporate headquarters, accompanied by three strangers. They claimed to be volunteers from a "Women's Rights Defense Coalition," shoving phones into my face as they livestreamed. "We received an anonymous tip about systemic pregnancy discrimination at your firm! We demand to collect evidence right here, right now!" The man leading the pack shouted at the top of his lungs, his camera lens inches from my nose. I blocked their path, my voice dead and cold. "Show me your credentials and a legal warrant, or I will have security escort you out." Linda pushed her way forward from behind them, cradling her belly with tears welling in her eyes. "Are you feeling guilty, Sue? Did you already destroy the evidence?" The moment the words left her mouth, one of the men behind her violently shoved over a six-foot-tall filing cabinet. CRASH. Documents, binders, and financial spreadsheets scattered across the floor like confetti. Screams erupted throughout the office. In the pandemonium, I dialed 911. "Hello, 911? We have trespassers vandalizing our office—" Before I could finish, Linda let out a bloodcurdling scream and collapsed onto the floor. She clutched her stomach, writhing in agony. "Ow! She hit me! Sue shoved a pregnant woman!" Her accomplice immediately panned the camera down onto her. "Look at this, everyone! Absolute savagery! This is the true face of corporate greed!" When the police finally arrived, that was the scene that greeted them. Nothing I said could clear my name. In the end, citing "disturbing the peace," the police escorted the trespassers out. After this stunt, my company's reputation was completely in the gutter.

第2章

That night, dragging my exhausted body back home, I got a call from the hospital. My grandmother had suffered a massive heart attack and was in the ICU. I drove to the hospital like a maniac. The red surgery light was glaring. The doctor told me the episode was triggered by severe emotional trauma. When I finally got into the ward, my eighty-year-old grandmother was lying unconscious under an oxygen mask, completely pale. Her live-in caregiver was sobbing. "A bunch of thugs banged on the door, claiming they worked for your company and wanted justice. They cornered your grandmother in the hallway, and she just... collapsed on the spot..." Hearing that, I felt my veins turn to liquid nitrogen. Lily finally called me back. She sobbed hysterically over the phone, claiming she had been coerced—that Linda had threatened her family's safety. I believed her. I chose to believe there was still a shred of decency left in human nature. Facing massive public pressure, Lily posted internal memos and statements on her personal social media, clarifying parts of the truth and standing by me. Yet that very evening, Linda leaked a string of fabricated email threads online. The fake emails showed conversations between Lily and various vendors, titled "Kickbacks and Embezzlement." The timeline was crisp, the details seemingly bulletproof. Public outrage exploded all over again. "Birds of a feather flock together! No wonder she defended her boss!" "Turns out they just had a falling out over the loot!" That night, someone threw a brick through Lily's front window, shattering the glass. Lily had a total nervous breakdown. The board of directors officially ousted me as CEO. They replaced me with an outside interim VP. And Linda was appointed as the new Chief Marketing Officer. She didn't even wait for me to clear my things before she brought her entire streaming crew to take over my corner office. I saw her livestream while sitting in the back of an Uber on my way home. She sat behind my mahogany desk, stroking the leather armrests with a glowing, triumphant smile. Looking straight into the lens, she said: "This seat should have gone to someone who truly needed it a long time ago." "Someone like me. A mother who is about to bring new life into this world." Watching that, any warmth left inside me died. I sold my downtown penthouse and moved into a gated apartment complex with private security. I thought I could lay low for a while, waiting for the storm to blow over. I was dead wrong. Three days after I moved in, my new address was leaked online. Someone had drawn up a detailed map of the complex, highlighting my exact building and unit number. In the dead of night, my doorbell would ring aggressively. Whenever I checked the peephole, there was no one there. I couldn't sleep. I spent every night huddled on the couch with my knees to my chest until dawn. On the fourth night, an anonymous package arrived at my door. No return address. My trembling hands tore the box open. Inside was a tiny fabric doll dressed in a white funeral shroud, its face painted with a grotesque, eerie grin. Underneath the doll lay a handwritten note. "A funeral gift for your unborn child." I slapped both hands over my mouth to stifle my scream. I had been trying to conceive. Aside from my family and my OB-GYN, not a single living soul knew about it. How did she know? The walls felt like they were closing in on me. Yet the final, fatal blow came from my own blood relatives. My cousin blocked me on everything, then dropped a screenshot into our family group chat. It showed the moderator list for Linda’s online fan club—and my cousin's name was right there at the top. The group chat blew up instantly. My aunt was the first to tag my mom: "Sister, what kind of unforgivable sin did your daughter commit out there?" My great-aunt chimed in: "She has dragged our entire family name through the mud!" Then came a voice memo from my cousin. "I told you guys years ago, my cousin is a psycho. She could never stand seeing anyone else do well. Now karma's finally catching up to her." "She's just a soulless, cold-blooded cash cow. She deserves to die alone." My mother handed me her phone, her eyes swollen and red, unable to utter a single word. Looking at the endless stream of vitriol and condemnation from my own family, an absolute, bone-deep cold washed over me.

第3章

I vanished from public view for three full months. Everyone assumed I was broken, cowering in some dark corner, waiting to die. Meanwhile, Linda's star rose to astronomical heights. She was hailed as the "Heroic Working Mom Who Stood Up to Corporate Tyranny." She landed brand deals, appeared on daytime talk shows, and racked up tens of millions of followers. Her growing baby bump had become her ultimate armor. Today, she was hosting a lavish hundred-day baby shower and blessing gala for her unborn child. The venue was the grand ballroom of the most luxurious hotel in the city, fully broadcasted via livestream. A-listers and influencers packed the room as media flashes popped without pause. Linda was draped in a bespoke couture maternity gown, her makeup flawless. Clutching Richard's arm, her smile practically radiated bliss. She took the microphone and addressed the cameras and guests, her voice catching with emotion. "Thank you, everyone. Thank you to every champion of justice who stood by me. My baby gets to be born into a world filled with love, and that is all thanks to you." "As for the person who once tried to destroy me... I choose forgiveness. Because I am a mother now." The live chat overflowed with adoration and praise. Right at that moment, I shoved open the heavy double doors. Dressed in a sharp, tailored black suit, I stood framed by the blinding light of the hallway. Every pair of eyes in the ballroom snapped directly to me. The smile on Linda's face froze solid. Instinctively, she shielded her stomach and shrieked toward the streaming camera: "Sue! What are you doing here?! Are you trying to hurt my baby?!" Two massive security guards immediately rushed forward, attempting to block me. "Ma'am, you need to leave right now!" I didn't even spare them a glance. My eyes were locked entirely on Linda up on the stage. Calmly, I pulled a crisp legal document from my bag and snapped it open in front of their faces. "Move." The guards froze, reading the bold header, and exchanged uneasy glances. "Court Subpoena and Judicial Search Warrant." Inch by inch, the color drained from Linda's face. "What... what is that garbage? It's fake! You forged that!" I walked right up to the stage, thrusting the warrant right in front of her eyes—and straight into the camera lens. "Haven't you put on this show long enough, Linda?" I turned toward the live feed, my voice cutting like broken glass. "Defamation, corporate forgery, cyberstalking, commercial fraud, aggravated harassment, terroristic threats..." With every single word I uttered, Linda's body shook violently. "Did you honestly think that hiding behind a baby bump made you immune to the law?" "Did you think that by manipulating public opinion, you could rewrite reality?" Two uniformed detectives stepped out from behind me, taking their positions on either side of Linda. The livestream chat went utterly haywire, an endless wall of question marks and exclamation points flooding the screen. Linda stared at the badges, and the last shred of hope in her eyes evaporated. She collapsed onto the floor, her tears smearing her expensive makeup into a pathetic, muddy mess. "No... it wasn't me! You can't touch me! I'm pregnant!" I looked down at her coldly. "The law does not bow to special status. It answers to criminals." "I haven't been idle these past three months." "Your bot farm, your document-forging ring, your phony 'Women's Rights' front, and Richard over there, who helped orchestrate the cyberattacks against my servers..." My gaze drifted over to Richard, who was standing beside her, looking like a walking corpse. "Not a single one of you is getting away with this."

第4章

The cameras went into a frenzy. Linda lay crumpled on the marble floor, her face twisting like a demon's as she screeched at the top of her lungs. "Sue! You psycho! You're going to rot in hell!" I stepped up to her and leaned down slightly. "A psycho?" "Compared to you, I'm practically a saint." One of the detectives stepped forward. "Ms. Wang, please calm down and cooperate with our investigation." Linda lunged forward, grabbing the detective's trouser leg in desperation. "I'm pregnant! You can't arrest me! The law protects pregnant women!" I let out a soft laugh. "The law protects pregnant women, Linda. It doesn't protect felons." I straightened my back and looked past her, fixing my eyes on Richard, who was already slinking toward the exit. "Leaving so soon, Richard?" His entire body locked up. He turned around, forcing a stiff, pathetic smile onto his face. "Sue, this is clearly a personal vendetta between the two of you. I'm... I'm just an invited guest." "A guest?" I paced slowly toward him. "Fabricating internal financial metrics, orchestrating a predatory short-selling campaign against my company, directing Linda to forge legal seals and fake communications..." With every charge I laid out, his face turned a shade paler. "Your playbook was far more sophisticated than hers, Richard." Cornered, he completely lost his composure. Pointing violently at Linda on the floor, his voice cracked in a panic. "Don't listen to her! It was all Linda! This bitch seduced me and cooked up the whole damn scheme from start to finish!" He threw her under the bus without a second thought. Linda stared up at him in sheer disbelief, her lips trembling. "Richard... what did you just say?" What Richard spat out next sent a shockwave through the entire room. "I don't even know if that bastard in your belly is actually mine! Don't you dare try to pin your mess on me!" The last drop of color drained from her face. Right then, the grand ballroom doors swung open once more. Two more officers walked in, escorting a man in handcuffs with a buzz cut and a hollow, defeated stare. He wore the standard gray inmate jumpsuit—the very same "volunteer" who had barged into my office and smashed my filing cabinets. I turned back to Linda with a brilliant, radiant smile. "Oh, by the way, Linda, I almost forgot to introduce you." "An old friend of yours." The moment Linda saw the man, her pupils contracted into pinpricks. The man didn't dare meet her eyes, keeping his head hung low. Richard looked totally bewildered. Whispers broke out among the guests. The livestream chat had become an unreadable blur of shocked reactions. I reached into my bag and pulled out a second document. Stepping up to Richard, I shoved it into his hands. "Richard, weren't you just questioning whether that child belongs to you?" "Let me give you a definitive answer." With shaking hands, Richard looked down at the paper. "Court-Admissible Paternity Test Results." The conclusion was printed in bold, unambiguous text: Subject 1: Unborn Child (Fetal DNA). Subject 2: Mark Zhang. Result: Biological Paternity Confirmed (99.99%). Richard's face snapped instantly from chalk-white to a deep, furious crimson. Like an idiot, he looked back and forth between Linda and Mark. "Well played, Linda! You played me for a fool!" The room erupted into absolute pandemonium. I turned to the camera, addressing every single viewer watching. "This gentleman, Mark Zhang, happens to be Linda's college sweetheart. He is also the founder of her so-called 'Women's Rights Defense Coalition.'" "And their motive from day one was remarkably simple."