Inside the VIP lounge at Logan International Airport, a massive LCD screen was playing a CNN special report.

On the screen, Olivia stood in an immaculate white lab coat, giving an interview. Behind her was the logo of Falcone Pharmaceutical Group.

"Dr. Ricci, you’re only twenty-eight, yet you’ve already published more than a dozen papers in top-tier medical journals. You’ve even been called the ‘Joan of Arc of the pharmaceutical world’. What’s your secret to success?" The host looked at her with open admiration.

Facing the camera, Olivia offered a modest smile, one clearly crafted by an expert PR team.

"There’s no secret," she said gently. "I’m just more persistent than most people. Medical research requires sacrifice. I often stay in the lab until four in the morning.

"But when I think about how these new drugs can ease patients’ suffering, everything feels worth it. This is the mission God gave me."

The host’s eyes reddened with emotion. "You’re truly America’s pride."

On the screen, Olivia’s saintly expression made me want to throw up.

Slowly, it overlapped with the memory of the woman who used to bare her fangs at me, who strutted around arrogantly, backed by the family’s power.

Dante had been right about one thing.

Olivia had become the family’s new golden child.

The so-called "evidence of academic fraud" I had exposed not only failed to destroy her. Instead, the family’s PR department repackaged it as "smear attacks by jealous rivals".

She was transformed into a warrior "bravely standing up to online harassment," a "true angel in white."

The Boston Globe and The New York Times ran feature after feature praising her perseverance in the face of malicious attacks, celebrating her devotion to science.

On the other hand, I was rewritten into the narrative as a gold-digging socialite consumed by jealousy, a mentally unstable madwoman.

The first time I discovered Dante’s affair had started with Olivia’s own provocation.

Three years ago, I came home from my lab at Harvard Medical School and found a black lace La Perla lingerie set tossed casually onto the Italian-import sofa in our living room. It wasn’t my size.

I confronted Dante on the spot.

He loosened his tie impatiently. "Olivia left it behind. She came over today to discuss a new drug formula. That was legitimate business. We worked late. Sofia, don’t act like some unsophisticated housewife. Olivia’s contributions to Falcone Pharmaceutical are contributions to the family. You know that."

I didn’t believe him.

So I started tracking his movements.

Then I discovered that they were frequently seen entering and leaving members-only elite clubs late at night. They even checked in and out of the presidential suite at the Four Seasons together.

Back then, I turned the entire Falcone family upside down.

During that time, all the socialite wives who did business with the family—the women living inside their own gilded cages—came to persuade me.

"Sofia, men are men. Especially men with Dante’s status. A little fun on the side is normal."

"As long as he comes home every night, as long as you’re still the legitimate Donna, you need to learn to look the other way."

"Dr. Ricci is one of us. Dante’s dealings with her are for the family’s business."

"Making a scene like this only makes you look like you don’t understand the rules."

Nonetheless, I hated him. I hated that Dante had betrayed the vows he swore before God.

Until the day TMZ and Page Six splashed photos of the two of them stumbling out of the Ritz-Carlton late at night, their clothes disheveled.

To protect Olivia’s reputation and to stabilize Falcone Pharmaceutical’s stock price on NASDAQ, Dante publicly admitted their relationship in a Forbes interview.

To the outside world, he claimed that he and I had been separated for two years and that our marriage had long existed in name only. He said Olivia was the soulmate he met during his "emotional hiatus".

It was a complete lie.

At the time, Twitter’s trending topics were flooded with praise for the fairy-tale love story between a pharmaceutical tycoon and a genius doctor. Netizens celebrated them as a power couple.

I lost my mind.

I stormed into Falcone Pharmaceutical’s headquarters and charged straight into the boardroom filled with the family’s senior leadership.

Dante was presiding over the board meeting. I burst in and hurled the coffee cup in my hand straight at him, in front of everyone.

Blood ran down from his temple. Even the mob elders—men who normally wouldn’t blink at killing—froze in shock.

Security rushed in to drag me away.

In the end, Dante finally tore off his gentleman’s mask. He shouted coldly, "Yes! I slept with her! And yes, I like her! If you can’t take it, then get out! The divorce papers are ready whenever you want to sign them, Sofia!"

The boardroom fell into a deathly silence.

I stared at this stranger and screamed back hysterically, "Why should I divorce you?! Why should I make it easy for you and that hypocritical bitch?!

"Dante, I want you and her to carry the stigma of adultery for the rest of your lives! You will never be forgiven in the eyes of God!"

After that, we were completely severed.

Dante almost never returned to the house that was once called home.

The only window I had into his life was Olivia’s Instagram.

She often posted photos of hospital rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital, her captions filled with words like "mercy" and "healing" which were meaningless platitudes. In the background, Dante was always there. Sometimes it was his silhouette, sometimes just his hand, sometimes the Patek Philippe watch I had given him.

The comments underneath were always the same.

"This is truly God’s perfect arrangement!"

"Dante and Olivia are the epitome of true love!"

"Bless you both!"

Every time I saw them, it felt like a knife twisting in my heart. Under the weight of blow after blow, I decided to go down in flames with them.

I uploaded our marriage certificate and the evidence of Dante’s affair to the internet. Along with it, I attached irrefutable proof that Olivia had stolen my notes on cancer gene therapy, including timestamps, experimental data, and even the original spelling errors; all of it was identical.

That wasn’t all.

I also discovered that Olivia had hacked into my private cloud server and downloaded a massive amount of raw data.

I was ready to rip the veil off completely, but I had underestimated the Falcones.

Dante struck harder than I ever imagined.

He bribed Dr. Matthew Caldwell, my mother’s attending physician and cardiac specialist the family had paid heavily to recruit from a top East Coast medical institution. Dr. Caldwell suddenly claimed he needed to return to the coast and halted my mother’s treatment.

My mother, Elena Rossi, suffered from severe heart failure. Without Dr. Caldwell's proprietary treatment, she could die at any moment.

Dante called me. His voice was as cold as January in Boston.

"Sofia, post a clarification video immediately. Say the marriage certificate was photoshopped. Say the academic fraud was something you fabricated. Otherwise, your mother’s oxygen supply at the hospital might be ‘accidentally’ cut off."

The moment I heard that, my phone slipped from my hand.

I collapsed to my knees and screamed into the line, "Dante, that’s a human life! She once paid for your education! How can you be this ruthless?!"

Dante did not waver.

I could even hear the sound of whiskey being poured on his end.

"Sofia, don’t expect mercy for enemies. Since you chose to stand against the family, you bear the consequences. Go clarify. Don’t destroy Olivia. She’s the family’s future cash cow."

In that moment, I finally understood that the man I loved was already dead.

Or perhaps, he had never existed at all.

What reduced me to disgrace did not stop there.

My mother’s condition could not wait. I had no choice but to compromise.

Facing my phone camera, I uploaded a clarification video to YouTube. I personally admitted that the marriage certificate was photoshopped.

I claimed that I had maliciously fabricated the so-called evidence of academic fraud and that everything I had done stemmed from jealousy of Olivia’s talent and achievements.

I said that I did that because I had foolishly loved Dante, yet could never have his heart, so I committed those insane acts.

Even now, the comment section under that video was still flooded with filth, most of it from bots hired by the family and from people who never knew the truth.

"Girl, have you gone crazy over a man?! You even faked a marriage certificate!"

"What a lunatic. And you dared to slander a good woman like Dr. Ricci as a mistress. Pathetic."

"Women like this shouldn't be allowed online! Smearing doctors is unforgivable!"

"Dr. Ricci saved so many people. Who do you think you are to ruin her?"

"Let’s crowdfund it. I’ll put up a hundred. Who’s going to slap her awake?"

"I’ll do two hundred."

"Count me in! A vicious bitch like this deserves to be taught a lesson!"

…

During that time, I drifted through each day like a walking corpse. I lived under overwhelming humiliation and pain.

All I could do was hide in my apartment in the Cambridge district, staying by my mother’s hospital bed.

Perhaps my condition was too obvious. Even though I never let her near the internet, my mother sensed that something was wrong.

Lying in her hospital bed, she reached out with her frail hand and held mine.

"Sofia, I'm sorry. If it weren’t for my illness, you wouldn’t have had to suffer so much."

I shook my head, tears spilling uncontrollably. "Mom, don’t say that. This is because I’m useless."

She sighed and began talking about the past, about Dante and me.

Young love is always the purest.

Ten years ago, Dante was three years ahead of me. Though he was Italian-American, he had not yet been formally acknowledged by the Falcone family. At the time, he was still an illegitimate son, a graduate student at a top technical institute in Boston.

He first saw me at a medical symposium.

Back then, I had just started my freshman year at a prestigious Ivy League university, yet I had already presented a paper on cancer treatment at the conference.

Dante was drawn to my talent and began approaching me on his own. He helped me organize experimental data and saved seats for me at the main campus library.

When I stayed up late doing research, he brought me coffee and donuts.

Until that day in a public park near Cambridge, when a group of street punks started following me. They were small-time thugs from a nearby Irish gang, known for harassing female students.

Dante tried to protect me. He was beaten so badly that he was hospitalized at St. Catherine’s Medical Center.

He had three broken ribs, and a scar was left on his face.

After that, we naturally ended up together.

Back then, Dante's family had not reclaimed him yet. He was still that poor graduate student working late shifts at a cafe just to pay his tuition fees.

It was my mother who helped him all along. She even funded him so he could finish his education. She borrowed money for him, allowing him to continue his studies at that institute.

Alas, now, the kindness my mother once gave had become the blade stabbing straight back at her.

She had no idea what her daughter was facing. She also had no idea that the child she once treated as her own was now using the most ruthless methods against us.

I watched my mother’s face grow thinner by the day.

My heart felt like it was being cut apart.

I thought, 'Maybe this is enough. At least, I still have my mother. At least, I’m not completely alone. As long as she’s alive, I still have a reason to keep living.'

Unfortunately, God seemed to enjoy tormenting the miserable. He was unwilling to leave me even this last sliver of hope.