“If you refuse, I’ll post every dirty secret online. Let’s see how you earn another cent. And you’ll pay me seven hundred million, every month. Half your profits must be transferred to my account, on time, from now on.”

“Shannon,” I said, voice hollow, “you haven’t changed, shameless to the end.” I looked at her face, once familiar, now a picture of everything I despised. “You know the truth better than anyone.”

“Does the truth matter?” Shannon asked, voice sharp with contempt. “What matters is whether the public will believe you once I put it online. One upload and the image you built over years collapses. Your company could go under. Seven hundred million a month or total ruin; which should I choose for you?”

Her words dragged up the old nightmare, that incident that had nearly destroyed me, the memory that had almost killed my parents. Now she used it like a blade, pressing the old wound until it bled again. She wanted me small and helpless once more. But, not this time. Being victimized once before taught me a lesson and I learned to put away my kindness. I would not be played twice.

Ice replaced whatever warmth I’d kept. “I’d rather go bankrupt than pay a single cent to a vicious woman like you.”

Shannon’s smile widened, predatory. “You’ve grown braver,” she said, appraising me. “Good. But I have other ways. We’ll switch to Plan B.”

Before I could react, she ripped open her shirt and hurled herself into my arms, a frantic, practiced performance. “Jerome, stop!” she screamed and then, piercing, “We’re divorced! No matter how much you try, I won’t let you touch me. Help… I’m being assaulted…”

I shoved her off, watching the act with cold distance as she collapsed to the floor and scrambled backward. “Mr. Madron, stop!” she cried, flailing. “Somebody, help me!”

Henry already had his phone up, recording. When Shannon regained her feet, he waved the screen at me. “I’ll edit this later,” he said with giggles. “If this video goes online… imagine the fallout.”

Shannon wiped at her tears, reapplied a perfect stroke of makeup and spoke casually. “Jerome, regret is the heaviest loss. You owe me for what you did. Do you think the netizens will sympathize with you? If that old footage goes public, your company won’t survive. Seven hundred million a month isn’t much. Half your profits, just what an ex-wife deserves.”

She leveled me with a stare as cold as ice. “Last chance. One minute.”

One minute passed and Henry’s face was grim. “You idiot! How dare you molest my sister? Beat him to death!”

At his signal, a pack of faces surged in from outside, relatives, allies of Shannon’s clan. They moved with the certainty of people who’d rehearsed violence. There was no escape.

Shannon’s voice sharpened. “You nearly went blind and lost an ear then, but still didn’t learn a thing? One more minute. If you don’t pay, I’ll make you truly blind and deaf today. Then I’ll call it self-defense.”

I backed into a corner. Their shadows pressed in from both sides. The minute ran out. Shannon gave the order like a verdict. “Beat him.”

They lunged and for a heartbeat, the room exploded in motion. Then, at the sight of me, the attackers froze. Where fury had burned a moment before, terror now flickered in their eyes.

I opened my mouth and spat out a wet piece of flesh. “I’ll commit suicide,” I said, voice low and hollow. “And, I’ll drag you all into hell with me.”

I moved like a man who had nothing left to lose. Two of them hit the floor beneath my hands, helpless and groaning.

From my pocket, I produced a small mechanical key and I slammed it into Henry’s eye. He screamed; blood poured hot and bright from the wound. He staggered, faltering, life draining fast.

“Don’t come any closer!” Shannon’s panic cut through the chaos, this time for real. She stumbled backward, terror flattening her features as she scrambled and fell. “I’m calling the police!” she yelled, phone already in hand.

I folded the car key away with slow, automatic motions, poured a glass of water as if nothing unusual had happened and sat down. Patient. Waiting.

They packed Henry and the others out between them. Henry was bleeding into his collar. A few minutes later, I heard her voice carrying through the door as she told the police about the incident.

Her version was neat, practiced: I had tried to assault her. She and her brother were house-hunting; relatives heard her screams and rushed in to save her. In her telling, I gouged Henry’s eyes and bit a man to death.

“Officer, Jerome is dangerous. You should shoot him. He’s armed,” Shannon lied smoothly.

“Jerome, come out with your hands up!” a voice outside called.

I walked out, hands on my head. The truth had no witness, no cameras in the room, only their coordinated testimony. One man dead, another blinded; the evidence pointed to me. I was taken away while Shannon and her clan were led off for questioning and then released, triumphant.

Hours later, I sat in a detention cell as a criminal suspect, while they went free. The next day, Shannon returned. If looks could kill, she would have sliced me where I sat.

“You killed my uncle and blinded my brother,” she said, voice cold as ice. “But I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself.”

She laid out her terms like a dealer: one billion dollars, transfer your company to mine, a signed apology and her uncle’s family’s sworn statement that they wouldn’t pursue the murder charge. “Do that,” she said, “and you won’t face execution.”

I rose without wasting breath or time. Her jaw tightened. “Jerome, this is your last chance,” she warned. “Refuse and I’ll make sure you die with a scandal that haunts your name forever. I’ll expose what happened back then and the staged assault yesterday. Think of your daughter. If she knew the truth about her father—”

My daughter. She used that word to threaten me. She was truly evil. She was the mother, too and now she used our child as a weapon. I laughed at the thought; let her play her theater for a few days. I left while she raged, letting her words hang worthless in the air.

She tried again the next day with a letter slipped to me through an outside party. The handwriting was neat, the message colder still.

[I will not forgive you. I almost forgot I am your daughter’s mother. She’s the legal heir to your estate; if you’re executed, custody falls to me. Before you die, I will fulfill my promise and I will make you a villain for the ages. By the time you read this, all your sins will be online. If your parents learn the truth again, they may not survive this time. You deserve it.]

I opened my phone. The internet was already alive with their version: [A heartless husband, consumed by his wife’s friend’s beauty, descends into criminality.]

The story had been written and the world was ready to read.

The title burned across every major platform. Within minutes, millions had clicked. The post contained photos, videos and words that ruin through my life.

In just a few years, I had built a name in the new media world. People knew me; my face, my voice, my brand. Now, that recognition became my curse.

The first video opened with Shannon’s best friend lying on a bed, her eyes swollen from crying, staring blankly at the ceiling, despair etched into every line of her face.

Next to her was me, asleep, bare, exposed. Two naked bodies under the cruel light of a camera.

A familiar voice narrated over the footage, Shannon’s voice. She claimed I had installed hidden cameras to blackmail her best friend, drugged her drink and lured her into my home under the pretense of caring for my daughter.

Shannon said she’d released the footage with her best friend’s consent, in pursuit of “justice.” That word alone became the dagger. The internet erupted.

“Scum.”

“Beast.”

“Rot in prison.”

Each comment struck like a stone. Then came the second video, filmed in my office, showing me signing a house purchase agreement.

The caption read: [Divorced for years, ex-husband plots criminally, using the idea of gifting his wife a house to clear his name.]

Shannon was pictured as a calm, flawless victim. The narrative had been sealed: I was the predator, while she was the saint.

And when the third post dropped, a text claiming I’d gouged out Henry’s eye and murdered Shannon’s uncle, it was over.

Within hours, I was a trending headline. Employees resigned in large numbers. Protesters appeared outside my company gates, shouting curses I couldn’t hear.

Competitors joined the feeding frenzy, spreading fabricated “evidence.” My PR team was silent. Meanwhile, Shannon was out there, visiting my parents, fighting for custody of my daughter, saying she only wanted to protect the child.

But I was not done. Inside the detention center, things shifted. Several inmates suddenly requested transfers to my cell.

When the guards left, they surrounded me. I smiled. “So, her influence reaches even here. Good. That means it’s almost time.”

“You filthy bastard! How can you still smile?” one spat.

“What else should I do?” I lay down on my bed, utterly at ease. Behind me, the men I’d placed here in advance stood, silent walls of muscle.

The newcomers froze. A voice came from the corner. “Mr. Madron, there’s chaos outside. They say your name’s topping every chart.”

I nodded, eyes sharp. “Then it’s time to turn the tide. Set a meeting with Shannon.”