Chapter 101
I Choose Loyalty
There's a saying that people with knowledge or wealth command more respect.
Perhaps it's true.
The neighbors and journalists who had crowded like hungry wolves earlier now stood in stiff, uncomfortable silence like schoolchildren caught red-handed. They retreated, though not out of sudden conscience or moral awakening. They retreated because the calculation had changed.
What they had done was no longer gossip or reckless reporting. It was structured slander. Deliberate hoaxes. And that crossed into territory the law did not forgive.
That was what Mr. Lee had prepared for with precise calculation.
While I was still standing on the porch, my body trembling faintly as the adrenaline ebbed, a few people stepped forward hesitantly. Not reporters this time. The Neighbors.
Their faces that had twisted with scorn only minutes earlier were now flushed with fear and shame.
