A dull, insistent throb pulsed behind Bella's eyes when she tried to sit up. She cupped her temples and tasted metal in her mouth.
"Good morning," she croaked.
Lillian leaned over the bed with a small tray. "Here this will help." She set down coffee, bottled water and two ibuprofen tablets. Bella accepted the pills gratefully and swallowed them, then took a cautious sip of coffee.
"Did I drink a lot?" Bella asked, her voice raw.
"Yeah," Lillian said with an apologetic tilt of her head. "I didn't know your tolerance was that low. I should've been more careful."
Bella smiled weakly. "It's okay. I'm glad I could... keep you company."
"How are you feeling now?" she asked, sincere.
"Better." Lillian returned the smile. But it was too small, too practiced.
Bella reached for her phone. It wasn't where she expected. She patted the bed, scanned the nightstand and then the room.
"Looking for something?" Lillian asked.
"My phone's missing," Bella said, frowning.
Lilian moved fast, too casual. "Maybe you left it in the living room. I'll get it." She disappeared down the hall. In the living room, the phone lay hidden beneath a throw pillow exactly where Lillian had tucked it when she'd switched it off.
As she padded back to the bedroom, Lillian's phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and answered with a bright, controlled voice.
"Hey sis."
On the other end, Thelma's voice came through clipped, triumphant. "Have you seen the breaking news this morning?"
"No...what news?" Lilian asked, feigning ignorance.
"The videos are up. You did a great job last night. Well done." Thelma's tone was cold and satisfied.
"Anything for you, big sis," Lilian returned, letting a smile spread that didn't reach her eyes.
She hung up and handed Bella back her phone. "Here," she said, calm as if nothing had happened.
Bella powered it up. A flood of notifications hit the screen. Messages, missed calls, dozens of alerts all urgent. Her thumb hovered, then she opened her messages. Chris' name appeared first: long strings of missed calls and frantic voice notes. Then Alexia: worried texts. Then a short message from Bianca.
Before she could read further Bianca's voice filled the line. "Where are you? What happened? Your phone...I've been trying to reach you forever!"
"What's wrong?" Bella asked, panic rising.
"Have you seen the news?" Bianca's voice was sharp. "It's worse than the last time the evidence is brutal."
Bella scrolled the headlines. Her stomach turned. There, across multiple outlets and social feeds, were photographs and clips: the paparazzi shot of her and Chris at the car, arms wrapped around each other; close-ups of their faces mid-kiss; a still from a grainy video that implied more. The posts were merciless and instantly viral.
"How did they...?" Bella whispered, looking up at Lillian. "We were in a private estate. How did someone get those photos? The timing... it's like they were waiting."
Lilian's composure flickered. She hadn't expected Bella to figure it out so quickly; panic nicked the smoothness of her face. "Must be coincidence," she said too fast. "Someone walking by, a car... just bad luck."
At Romero, Elliot burst into the bedroom where Chris had been trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep. He wore a suit but his tie was loose and his face was pale from the urgency.
"Sir, you need to get up," Elliot said, voice taut.
Chris blinked awake. "Again? What now?"
"It's Bella." The name snapped him fully alert. Elliot pushed the iPad across the bed. "You need to see this."
Chris skimmed the feeds. The posts multiplied like a brushfire: screenshots, paparazzi sites, entertainment blogs. Thelma's people had already seeded the content the same pictures Thelma had sent the night before and a doctored compilation that hinted at intimacy and consent where none existed. Frederick's money and contacts had guaranteed reach: many of the biggest bloggers had been paid to keep the posts up and to amplify them for at least a week.
Chris felt the room shrink. His phone lit with messages, but he barely registered them. The comments scrolled on the screen and made his skin crawl venomous, obscene, cruel:
"You slut, burn."
"Gold digger."
"She deserved everything."
The language was vicious, personal, and relentless. Those attacks on Bella were worse than the theft of their privacy; they were a direct assault on her humanity.
"How did this get started?" Chris demanded. "Who put this out?"
Elliot's jaw tightened. "Frederick paid to push it. He's using his contacts. We're working on tracing the origin, but it's moving fast."
Chris didn't wait. He passed the iPad back to Elliot with a white intensity in his eyes. "Get legal. Crisis team now. Contact Cyrus. Track every upload. Every blogger. Freeze it where you can. And find the original files the ones Frederick paid for. I want names, timestamps, everything."
Elliot nodded and left to execute orders. Chris sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled a slow, cold breath. The attacks were personal. The war was not just with tabloids and talk shows this was engineered. He thought of Bella in a stranger's apartment, of the images that cast her as complicit, and fury flared, hot and controlling.
He picked up his phone and started calling lawyers, media managers, his security chief already cataloguing the damages and planning the counters. But beneath every tactical move was a more human response: protect Bella, find the people who'd set this trap, and make sure he kept her whole.
Outside, the world buzzed on but for Chris and for Bella, the next hours would be about cleaning up a public lie that had been made very, very loud.