I stood up from the guest chair.

The stage lights beat down on my neck. The skin over my collarbone still throbbed where I had pulled my collar open, but I didn't care. Zane stood by his easel, watching me with that familiar, smug tilt of his chin. He thought a sweeping landscape on canvas could erase eight years of hell. He thought the audience would melt.

I took three steps toward the easel.

"Macie?" Zane said softly, playing the wounded gentleman. "What are you doing?"

I didn't answer him. I grabbed the top edge of the canvas with both hands. I planted my heels and pulled down with all my weight.

*Riiip.*

The heavy linen split straight down the center. The sound cracked through my lapel mic like a gunshot.

The studio audience gasped in unison. A woman in the front row pressed her hands over her mouth.

Zane went completely still. His mouth hung open. "Are you out of your mind? That's a masterwork! I tracked that down in Paris for you!"

"No, you didn't," I said.

My voice was quiet, but the studio was so silent it carried to the back row.

I reached into my handbag. I pulled out a thick envelope stamped with a red corporate seal and set it on the glass table.

"This is a forensic authentication report," I said, looking right into Camera One. "From the Manhattan Art Appraisal Bureau. It took me three months to track the real canvas. You sold the original painting thirteen months ago at a private auction in Hong Kong. You netted one point eight million dollars."

Zane’s eyes widened. The color drained from his lips.

"This thing on the easel?" I nudged the torn canvas with my shoe. "It’s a cheap copy. Oil over a digital print. Cost you about four hundred bucks in Chinatown."

Above us, the live chat began to stutter.

*Wait, what?*

*The painting is fake?!*

*Did she say Hong Kong?!*

"And as for your romantic Paris trip," I continued, pulling three folded sheets of paper from my bag. "Here are the Air France flight manifests. And here are the booking receipts from the Hôtel de Crillon."

I held the papers up to the lens so the high-definition camera could catch every single line.

"Suite 402," I said calmly. "One king bed. Six consecutive nights. Registered guests: Zane Morrison and Kenna Hoffman."

The camera swiveled sharply toward Kenna.

Her sweet, girl-next-door smile had stopped moving. It was frozen on her face like cheap wax. Her pink-manicured hands gripped the edge of the moderator desk so tightly her knuckles were white. She didn't look at the camera. She didn't look at me. Her eyes darted wildly toward the control booth.

Zane forgot the cameras entirely. He broke the show's format, stepped around the broken easel, and leaned over the table toward me. His neck turned an ugly, mottled red.

"You fabricated that!" Zane snarled. His voice shook with pure fury. His smooth charm was completely gone. "You paid someone to print fake receipts! You're performing for sympathy, Macie! That's all you ever do!"

"Zane, please," Kenna muttered, trying to catch his eye, but he ignored her.

"I built an empire from the ground up!" Zane yelled, pointing a stiff finger in my face. "I gave you everything! You lived in my penthouse! You rode in my cars! I gave you eight years of my life, and you repay me with lies? You were just jealous of Kenna from day one! You hated that she had real talent and drive, while you sat at home crying over your pathetic sister!"

The room went dead cold.

A collective breath caught in three hundred throats.

Zane didn't even realize what he had just said. But the audience did.

On the giant overhead monitor, the live chat went into freefall. The messages blurred together into a raging river of text.

*Did he just bring up her dead sister?!*

*He looks like a psychopath.*

*The receipts have the Crillon seal on them, you idiot!*

*THE PAINTING WAS FAKE.*

Kenna tapped her earpiece in a panic. She stood up, forcing her sugary moderator voice back into her throat.

"Okay! Let's take a breath, everyone," Kenna said, her voice high and tight. "Clearly, our guest has come with rehearsed talking points. Macie is weaponizing victimhood to derail an honest conversation about accountability—"

She was cut off by a sharp chime.

Under the glass surface of the desk, Kenna’s phone was lighting up like a Christmas tree.

I looked down through the glass. The notifications popped up in rapid succession.

*Aura Beauty has tagged you: We are formally terminating our brand partnership effective immediately.*

*Luxe Living PR: All scheduled holiday campaigns have been cancelled.*

Kenna looked down. Her jaw went slack. The blood vanished from her cheeks, leaving her skin grayish under the heavy foundation.

Her sponsors were dumping her. Right here. Live on the air.

She reached for the phone with trembling fingers, but the glass reflected everything straight into the overhead studio feed.

I stood there, calm and still, watching her empire begin to crumble.

Above our heads, the viewer counter ticked past ten million, eleven million, twelve million.

And I wasn't even close to finished.