The headlines painted the Dawsons as the perfect family—devoted husband and wife, accomplished children, a model of success among the elite.
"What a joke… My mother weighed barely ninety pounds when she died, her hands covered in bruised needle marks. She should have lived a long life.
"And the Dawsons? Their business is far from clean. After all the lives they’ve ruined, do they really deserve to be called a model family?"

I pressed a hand over my eyes, forcing back the flood of emotion threatening to break free.
"Liam, I used you. I knew you would never forgive betrayal, so I led her straight into breaking your trust.
"If that hurts you, if you hate me for it, I can live with that. But I need to be the one to drag her to hell myself."
I pushed everything else down, burying it beneath cold resolve as I met his gaze.
But then Liam reached for my hand, the one I had clenched behind my back.
He lifted it gently to his lips and pressed a kiss against my trembling fingers.

"Chloe, your hands are shaking."
His voice was quiet, almost soothing.
"Don’t be afraid. If you used me, that only means I still matter to you. And that makes me happy. I told you before that everything in the Hughes family, including me, belongs to you."
For three days, Linda’s arrest dominated the trending headlines.

Desperate to contain the damage, the Dawsons turned to Liam for help.
Seated behind his desk, he listened patiently as they pleaded their case.
Then, with a slow, amused smile, he said, "That was quite the touching speech. But I’m afraid the final decision isn’t mine to make. You’ll have to ask my fiancée."
At that, my father turned, his expression stiffening the moment he saw me standing there.
His wealthy socialite wife beside him paled.
I smiled politely.
"I’d start preparing if I were you."
Because soon enough, both of them would be joining Linda.
Liam held a press conference to clarify his relationship with Linda.
When faced with questions, he responded with a half-smile, his tone casual but sharp.
"Fiancée? I never once acknowledged her as such. The person I spoke about—the one who stayed by my side—was never her."
A reporter raised a question. "But wasn’t she only taking care of you because Linda paid her to?"
Liam’s smile remained, but his gaze darkened, turning ice-cold.
"I’d advise you to choose your words carefully. There are plenty of wealthy people in this world. So why would she only take money to look after me? Because she loved me."
Silence fell over the room.
The reporter didn’t press further.
And I, sitting beside him, said nothing either.
After the press conference ended, I released the recordings— the ones from years ago that would prove how Linda came to me in the first place.
"Who would be willing to take care of a blind man, who was abandoned by his own family.”
"She only raised me for a few days. Now that she’s dead, why the hell should I give you a cent?"
"What, did you actually think I’d be dumb enough to stay? You wanted me to end up like you? Broke and pathetic? You’re so poor you couldn’t even afford a proper grave for her!"
The backlash was immediate.
"Wait, wasn’t she supposed to be this elegant, classy actress?"
"So, she and Chloe Burns are real sisters? And she was the one who asked Chloe to take her place?"
"She drapes herself in designer brands worth hundreds of thousands but wouldn’t pay for her own mother’s burial? That’s disgusting…"
Riding the wave of outrage, I went live.
With an audience of over a million people watching, I finally spoke the truth buried for twenty years.
"The Dawsons' heiress, Rachel Dawson, set her sights on my father.
"They could have just divorced my mum, but instead, they schemed together, framing my mother—forcing her to carry that shame for the rest of her life."
Behind me stood a man, shifting nervously, his buzzed head damp with sweat.
During my years studying and interning, I had searched everywhere, pulling every string I could, and I finally tracked him down through an old colleague in the industry.