Linda clocked the shift instantly. Heads turning. Phones lifting. People doing that practiced little dance—eyes averted, attention glued.
She clamped a hand around Eric's arm and yanked hard. "You freak. You're coming home. I am not letting you make a spectacle of yourself out here."
Eric's knees nearly gave. The struggle had scraped him hollow; the sidewalk felt like it was tipping under him, like the ground had decided it was done holding him up. He dragged in a shallow breath and searched for the only face in this circus that hadn't looked at him with pure disgust since the swap.
"Sophia," he rasped. "Help me."
Sophia's gaze flicked—Linda's rage, Eric's wrecked frame, the crowd swelling at the edges. Her mind ran the math at speed. If he was telling the truth—if that really was Eric trapped in there—then every secret she'd shared, every favor she'd cashed, every late-night "arrangement" became a knife aimed at her throat.
But truth could wait.
Right now, she couldn't let his breakdown bloom into a full public spectacle. Not yet.
Sophia stepped in and slid a steadying hand under Eric's elbow. Her fingers bit his forearm once—quick, sharp—play along. Then she turned to Linda, voice low, controlled.
"There's a hotel around the corner. Private meeting rooms. We talk there."
"Talk to a lunatic?" Linda spat, but her feet were already shifting. Private. Shadowed. Away from witnesses. Away from the bright, hungry eyes.
They cut through a service entrance and nearly collided with a knot of employees returning from coffee. The group slowed on instinct. Their gazes skimmed over them—curious, amused, starving.
Sophia caught pieces of the whispers as they passed.
"…that's her, right? The one in the photos…"
"Jesus. And she's pregnant? That's cold."
"Look at her—she's actually showing up for work?"
Sophia's stomach dropped.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a phone rise, angle, click. Then her own phone began to vibrate violently in her hand.
CARLA JAMES.
Sophia answered without breaking stride.
"Who the hell did you piss off?" Carla screamed, her voice already shattered by panic. "Do you have any idea what's happening online? Your photos—your videos—they're everywhere. X, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok—everywhere. Get it taken down. Now. Call your lawyers. Get that video of me deleted!"
Sophia's grip faltered. The phone almost hit the pavement. "What video, Carla?"
"Don't play dumb with me." Carla's voice spiked, bordering on hysterical. "It's a montage—you with multiple men. If you're going down, don't you dare drag me with you. I swear to God, if this touches my career, I'll take you to the grave with me."
"I'm not dragging you anywhere," Sophia said, forcing her voice into the smooth mask she wore like a second skin. "I don't know what this is yet. But I'll handle it. It's a glitch. I'm on it."
She cut the call and opened X, fingers trembling so hard she nearly missed the icon. The trending banner loaded, and the blood drained from her face.
#AethelCorpScandal: Executive Assistant Sex Tape—Local Officials Implicated!
Her name was everywhere. Screenshots ripped from hotel hallways. Blurred, grainy footage. "Anonymous insider" captions dripping with certainty. Shares multiplying by the second, comments stacking into a digital wall of hate and delighted cruelty.
"What is it?" Linda snapped, voice sharp enough to draw blood. "What video?"
Before Sophia could move, Linda ripped the phone out of her hand.
Linda's expression shifted in real time—confusion, shock, then something hard and vicious settling in behind the eyes.
It was all Sophia.
Some shots showed Eric's silhouette tangled with hers. Others featured strangers—kissing in dim corridors, hands at waists, bodies vanishing into suite doors.
"So that's why they're staring," Linda hissed, eyes narrowing to slits. "You filthy little—"
Her voice detonated. "What did you do? How could you be this reckless behind my son's back, you shameless whore!"
Linda's hand swung.
Eric moved on pure instinct—no thought, no dignity, just reflex.
He threw himself between them, arms spread wide—thin, shaking, stubborn.
The slap landed flush on his face.
A sharp crack echoed through the corridor. His head snapped to the side. Heat flared across his cheekbone, bright and vicious, hot enough to sting tears out of him.
But he didn't drop his arms. He kept Sophia pinned behind him like a shield.
"Mom. Stop." His breath came in ragged saws. "She's pregnant. She's carrying my child."
"Shut your mouth, you psycho." Linda looked ready to peel the skin off his face with her nails. "I should've had you locked up on day one."
She jabbed a trembling finger at both of them. "The two of you are poison. You spend all day playing crazy, you turn Eric against his own mother, you get Kevin fired—"
She shoved the phone violently into Sophia's face. "And you—how many men? Who are they? And you expect me to believe for a second that baby is Eric's?" Linda's mouth twisted into a snarl. "You're carrying a mongrel. One lunatic, one slut. You make me sick."
Eric's eyes snagged on the screen.
Sophia. Another man. Another hallway. Another closed door.
Ice poured through his veins—slow, cruel, numbing.
Sophia barely heard Linda anymore.
Her world had already collapsed. The ambition, the careful image, the private trades stitched between powerful men—stripped bare. Dissected in public. Stamped into screenshots. Copied, backed up, and spread like a virus.
She scrolled for half a breath and saw the comparison posts—blurred faces stacked beside official press photos. People "identifying" men by hairlines, posture, a watch, a tie pin. Verified influencers analyzing clips like they were reading bones, turning speculation into certainty with a smile.
Every second it stayed online, she was bleeding out in front of the whole world.
She couldn't waste another second in this alley.
Company legal would protect the firm, not her. She needed a shark who worked for one client and one client only.
Sophia snatched the phone back from Linda. "I'm leaving." Her voice came out too high, too fast, skating close to hysteria. "This is fake. It's a frame job. Someone's trying to destroy me."
She latched onto the lie like a life raft. "It's AI. Deepfakes. That's all this is."
Linda made a sound—half laugh, half snarl—but Sophia was already backing away, heels clicking too quickly on the pavement.
Her eyes cut to Eric—Eleanor's face, Eric's voice, the living scandal she still didn't know how to name.
"Eleanor—" she started, then flinched, corrected herself. "No. Eric. You know where to find me."
She didn't wait for an answer.
She spun, strode to her red Ferrari Spider, and slammed the door hard enough to rattle the frame. The engine roared. The car lunged into traffic and vanished in a smear of red.
As the sound faded, a cold realization hit Eric.
With Sophia gone, the buffer was gone. There was no one left to restrain Linda.
While Linda was still screaming profanities at the street, he turned and bolted for the Aethel Corp entrance. He needed cameras. Guards. A public lobby. Anything that wasn't a bedroom, a car, a locked door.
The lobby guard recognized Eleanor instantly—rumpled clothes, hollow eyes, the look of someone who'd watched her life detonate in real time. He swiped her through without a question.
Linda charged after him, face purple with rage.
The guard stepped in front of her, a brick wall in a uniform. "Sorry, ma'am. No entry without authorization."
"Why does she get in?" Linda screeched, stabbing the air with a shaking finger. "I'm his mother. Let me through!"
"Company policy, ma'am," the guard said, polite and unmoved.
It was the final straw. The penthouse locks. The office lobby. The codes that used to open doors like magic—gone. Over and over again, she'd been shut out by her own son, by buildings she once ruled, by strangers who wouldn't even give her the dignity of eye contact.
Humiliation climbed up her throat until she could barely breathe.
All she had left was volume.
The heavy glass doors slid shut with a soft hiss.
Her reflection stared back at her—jaw clenched, features twisted, eyes wild and bloodshot.
The empire her son had built had become a fortress, and it was locking her out like she was nobody.
Behind her, all across the city, on millions of glowing screens, the same push notification landed in unison:
BREAKING: Aethel Corp Sex Scandal—The Falling Dominoes.
The blast wave had only just begun.
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Apologies for the irregular updates lately — I'm still traveling and having a great time, so my usual routine is out the window. That said, I'm doing my best to keep the story going, and I truly appreciate you sticking with me.
I'll try my best to make it work. Thank you for your patience and support 😄💖💕💗💘💝