"I've already talked to Angelica. She won't post anything reckless again."

"This ends here. Stop dragging it out."

My fingers tightened around the phone, and the irony sat bitter in my chest.

To him, every insult to my name could be settled with a number.

I was ready to refuse on the spot.

But the next second, the hospital called.

"Ms. Harding, several of the burn survivors in the project have a serious funding gap for their second-stage reconstructive surgeries."

"If we can't pull the money together, the surgeries scheduled for next week will have to be postponed."

"Miss the ideal treatment window and the scarring will only worsen."

The way those children looked into the camera, shy and uncertain, surfaced in my mind.

My throat went tight.

I stayed silent for a long time, and in the end I gave in.

I sent Edgar one line back.

"Last time."

On the day of the surgery, the little girl lay in her hospital bed, tilted her head up, and asked me,

"When I'm all better, can I wear pretty dresses?"

I looked at her small, young face, and something ached in me.

A fire had left Minnow Abbott with severe burns.

Eight years old, her face unrecognizable, her arm and back badly scarred and fused.

The pain of reconstructive surgery was more than most adults could bear.

But she was afraid of worrying me, so she endured it and never once cried out.

At least this was the last surgery. After today, Minnow could finally step into her new life.

I stroked her hair and answered, "Of course you can."

"When you're better, we'll buy you a Snow White dress. How's that?"

Minnow smiled so sweetly, showing two little canines.

Her eyes were full of hope.

But moments before the surgery, the attending surgeon hurried over to me.

"Ms. Harding, the system shows insufficient funds in your account. We can't proceed with the second-stage reconstruction."

My heart dropped. I logged into my online banking at once to check.

The two million Edgar had transferred had already been intercepted and reversed back to the source.

The doctor panicked too.

"Ms. Harding, if we miss today's window, a full recovery for Minnow will be almost impossible."

I fumbled to open our chat, wanting to demand an answer from Edgar.

But the message bounced back with a red exclamation mark. He'd blocked me already.

In desperation, I logged into my account.

I edited a post, attaching the children's pre-op reports and the hospital's payment notices.

Just hoping someone kind would step in.

Just hoping to save the one chance that little girl had left.

But not long after the post went up, Angelica was trending right behind me.

She played the victim with her pregnant belly, every word accusing me of trying and failing to seduce her fiancé.

And now, she said, I was hiding behind a charity banner to fake a fundraiser and swindle money.

Those buddies of Edgar's took turns reposting it as proof.

Saying I had a history of using someone's gratitude for saving their life to extort them.

I wouldn't accept it. I tagged Edgar directly on social media.

【Tell them the truth.】

He replied: 【It's all in the past.】

That one line, "It's all in the past," sounded light as air.

But it left no doubt: it backed up everything they'd said.

Netizens swarmed into my comments.

【Wow, lady, you're not even famous but you love the clout. You think our Mr. Simmons would ever give you the time of day?】

【Ugly face, uglier heart. If I looked like that I'd just tie a rope around my neck and be done with it.】

They fixed on the scars on my face and hurled whatever they wanted.

The fundraiser link was reported out of pure spite.

Before the surgery even began, it had already failed.

That vicious mark was left on Minnow's young face forever.

She wouldn't look in a mirror anymore, hiding in the corner of the ward, covering her face, crying without a sound.

But when she saw me, she forced up a smile anyway.

"It's okay, Dessie."

"Minnow knows you did everything you could."

Watching the girl force that brittle smile, guilt clamped down hard on my heart.

Late that night, Edgar called.

"Desiree, don't blame me."

"Angelica's pregnant. She's been sick with worry all day that you and I still have something between us. Her mood's been terrible."

"The only way to give her enough peace of mind was to reverse the transfer and block you."

I gripped the phone, my fingertips shaking and refusing to stop.

"Edgar, do you have any idea what those two million dollars you clawed back cost?"

"A little girl's surgery failed. She'll live the rest of her life with those thick scars."

On the other end, his voice was flat.

"Scar-removal surgery was just the hospital's cover story to begin with."

"If that surgery were real, if your face could be restored the way it was, would I have gone looking for Angelica?"

"And anyway, what does her face have to do with me?"

Three years ago, he broke his bones saving a child who'd jumped from a building, and spent three months laid up in the hospital.

Eyes red, I asked him, "Was it worth it?"

Back then his face was gentle.

He said a few broken bones in exchange for one living, breathing life was worth it, and then some.

Now he'd ruined a little girl's future.

And all he said was, "What does that have to do with me?"

The pure, untouchable light I'd craved in my girlhood shattered completely in that instant.

He dropped one last line. "I'll get the trending topic taken down. This ends here."

Then he hung up.

But the storm was nowhere near over. Angelica rode the attention that belonged to me and turned herself into an internet celebrity.

"Want to know why Desiree Harding knew she was the other woman and did it anyway?"

On camera, she covered her mouth and laughed softly.

"Because she's the daughter of a mistress. Her mother clawed her way up by sleeping around, and Desiree learned the whole playbook from the time she was little."

The comment feed exploded.

Some cursed me as shameless. Some asked if it was really true.

"Of course it's true. My husband told me himself."

"Back when she was trying to pull my husband out of the shadow of being bullied at school, she said it herself. It's honestly laughable."

To back it up, she turned her head and looked off-camera.

"Honey, isn't that right?"

Edgar's figure appeared at the edge of the frame. He paused for a beat.

He didn't contradict her. He just pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Then he took her phone from her hand, his voice mild.

"There's a good girl. Turn off the stream."

"Why bring up a woman like that?"

The feed cut out and the screen went black, but everything that was meant to spread had already spread.

Off-camera, my fingernails were buried deep in my palm.

Edgar knew perfectly well that my mother had been deceived back then.

Even after she jumped to her death to prove her innocence,

the mistress label still followed her for the rest of her life.

Once, I'd torn open my own scars to pull Edgar out of the dark.

Now he'd ripped my wound open again, raw and bleeding, just to give Angelica a moment of comfort.

The comments scrolled wildly.

【So she's a mistress's daughter. No wonder she's so good at seducing men.】

【It's in her blood. Some filth doesn't wash out.】

【Ugly as that, cheap trash like her, I wouldn't take her even for free.】

The pain tore through my chest all at once.

I faced the mirror and looked at the vicious scars on my face.

I thought of the call the doctor had made three seconds earlier.

"Miss Harding, there's hope for Minnow's face."

"There's an expert team overseas that can do an artificial skin graft. Seventy percent success rate, but the cost… at least three million."

I looked at myself again, and my eyes held a resolve I'd never had before.

I picked up the makeup remover and stripped away the disguise.

A stunning face appeared in the mirror.

Then I drew a deep breath.

I set up my phone, opened the livestream, and typed out the title.

【One Dollar to Unlock: The Cheap Chicken and Three Years of Love and Hate With L.A.'s New Money Elite】