Chapter 5
The conference room was packed.
Cameras flashed the second we walked through the door.
Reporters shouted questions over each other, their voices a deafening roar.
Elena’s hand tightened in mine.
I felt her tremble.
But she didn’t stop.
She didn’t look down.
She walked straight to the podium with her head held high.
David stood beside us, ready to step in if things got out of hand.
I squeezed Elena’s hand once.
Let go.
And stepped back.
This was her moment.
She leaned into the microphone.
The room went quiet.
Every eye in the room was on her.
Every camera was rolling.
“My name is Elena Hale,” she said, her voice clear and steady.
“Three years ago, I disappeared. Everyone thought I’d left my husband. Everyone thought I’d run away with another man, or started a new life somewhere else, or… or worse.”
She paused, swallowing hard.
“The truth is… I never left this city. I never left my home. The woman I thought was my best friend—Vivian Moretti—drugged me. She locked me in the basement of my own house for six months. She told me my husband had forgotten me. She told me no one was looking. And then… she made me her servant.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Elena lifted her hands to the microphone.
She pulled back the sleeves of her blouse.
The bruises on her wrists were still dark, still fresh.
The cameras zoomed in.
Flashes exploded like lightning.
“These are from last week,” she said, her voice shaking now, but she kept going.
“She didn’t just lock me away. She hit me. She starved me. She humiliated me in front of the other servants. For three years, I scrubbed floors and made beds and served dinner while my husband sat at the table and never knew I was there. Vivian made sure of it. She planned every detail. She spent my husband’s money. She ran his company. She lived in my house… and all the while, I was right under everyone’s nose.”
Tears spilled over, but she didn’t wipe them.
She let them fall.
“For three years, I thought I’d die there. I thought no one would ever find me. But my husband never stopped looking. He searched the whole world for me… and finally, he came home. And he saw me. He really saw me.”
She turned and looked at me.
Our eyes met across the room.
“And now I’m here. I’m free. And I’m not going to let Vivian Moretti get away with this. She’s going to pay for every day she stole from me. For every bruise. For every tear. For every night I cried myself to sleep wondering if my husband still loved me.”
She turned back to the microphones.
“I’m ready to answer your questions. But I want you all to remember one thing. Vivian Moretti is a liar. A manipulator. And a monster. Whatever she says in her press conference today… it’s not the truth. The truth is right here. In these bruises. In these scars. In three years of hell that no one should ever have to go through.”
The room erupted.
Questions flew at her from every direction.
David stepped in, fielding the worst of them, guiding her through the answers.
I watched my wife.
My brave, beautiful wife.
She answered every question honestly.
She didn’t flinch.
She didn’t back down.
When the conference ended forty minutes later, the reporters were on her side.
I could see it in their faces.
In the way they looked at her with sympathy and respect instead of judgment.
We left the building through a side door, security surrounding us.
The car was waiting.
As we climbed inside, Elena collapsed against me, all the strength draining out of her.
“I did it,” she whispered.
“I really did it.”
“You were amazing,” I said, kissing her hair.
“The whole world just saw what she did to you. There’s no way she can talk her way out of this.”
But I was wrong.
Vivian’s press conference was an hour later.
We watched it in the car on the way back to the penthouse.
She stood in front of the cameras, looking like the picture of innocence.
Designer dress.
Perfect hair.
Tears glistening in her eyes as she spoke in that soft, trembling voice she used so well.
“I’m heartbroken,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.
“Truly heartbroken. Elena was my best friend. I loved her like a sister. When she disappeared three years ago, I was the one who stayed by Ethan’s side. I was the one who helped him search. I was the one who kept his life from falling apart.”
She paused, letting the tears fall.
“And now… now she’s doing this. Making up these terrible lies about me. I don’t know what happened to her in those three years she was gone. I don’t know who hurt her. But it wasn’t me. I’ve never hurt anyone in my life. Ethan… he’s been so distraught. So desperate to believe she’s the same woman he lost. He’ll believe anything she tells him. Even these horrible, horrible lies.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“Elena, if you’re watching this… please. Get the help you need. I forgive you. I’ll always be here for you. No matter what you say about me.”
The screen cut to a panel of experts debating what they’d just seen.
“Vivian Moretti is very convincing,” one said.
“Those bruises could have happened anywhere. At this point, it’s her word against Elena’s.”
I turned the screen off.
Elena was staring at her hands.
“She’s good,” she said quietly.
“Really good.”
“She’s a liar,” I said.
“And we’re going to prove it.”
But even as I said the words, I knew it wouldn’t be easy.
Vivian had covered her tracks well.
There was no physical evidence of the drugs she’d used.
The basement had been cleaned out—my security team had found nothing but an empty room.
Most of the servants had scattered after Vivian was fired, disappearing to parts unknown.
And the ones we’d found were too scared to testify.
We had Elena’s word.
We had the bruises.
But in a court of law, against the Moretti family fortune and the best team of lawyers money could buy… it might not be enough.
I pulled Elena close.
“We’re going to find Mrs. Chen,” I said.
“We’re going to find every servant who ever worked in that house. We’re going to find the doctors who wrote those fake prescriptions. And when we’re done… Vivian’s going to spend the rest of her life in a cell where she can never hurt anyone again.”
Elena nodded against my chest.
But I could feel her doubt.
May you like
Vivian had started the war.
And she wasn’t playing by the rules.
