It was 3:17 a.m. when my phone started buzzing like it was trying to dig its way off the nightstand.
I answered on the third vibration, still half in a dream where I was winning arguments without opening my mouth. "This had better be a billion-dollar emergency," I said.
"It's worse," Damien's voice came through, clipped, already in full daylight mode. "Turn on your TV. Channel six."
I didn't ask why. I padded barefoot to the living room, hair a mess, robe half tied. The screen blinked on to a headline in red: ISLA VOSS: THE OTHER WOMAN?
Below it, a grainy, shaky video played on a loop. It looked like hotel hallway security footage—me, in a black dress, stepping out of a door at the Ravenwood Club. A man—blurred just enough to dodge libel—followed a second later. The clip cut before we reached the elevator, then jumped to footage of Adrian's fiancée storming out of a different doorway down the hall. Over it, the voiceover dripped scandal: …raising questions about Ms. Voss's role in the breakup…
They'd stitched together two completely separate nights and made it look like one.
"You're trending," Damien said, flat. "Not in the good way."
I muted the TV. "This is cut to hell."
"Of course it is."
"Who leaked it?"
"Doesn't matter for the next twelve hours. What matters is controlling the story before it calcifies."
I pressed my fingers into my temples. "And how do you suggest I do that? Record a hostage video saying I'm not a homewrecker?"
"No," he said. "We do it live."
By 4:15 a.m., Hazel was at my door with two coffees, three outfits, and an expression that said she was ready to burn a newsroom down.
"They're saying you broke up the golden couple," she said, dumping the clothes on the couch. "We can't kill it fast enough online. We have to make the audience watch you instead."
"Damien's idea?" I asked.
"Obviously. He's already on the phone with the Morning Ledger. National live segment, one-on-one with Claire Halverson."
I blinked. "The Claire Halverson? The one who eats CEOs for breakfast?"
Hazel handed me the black suit. "That's the one. You're going to feed her and make her say thank you."
By 6:30 a.m., we were in the Ledger's greenroom. My hair was pulled into a sleek knot, my makeup minimal but camera-proof. Hazel paced with her tablet while Damien stood in the corner, phone to his ear, the embodiment of control.
Claire Halverson herself walked in five minutes before airtime. She had the same presence on and off camera—tall, sharp-eyed, dressed in a way that said she didn't care about fashion but somehow defined it anyway.
"I don't do puff pieces," she told me by way of greeting.
"Good," I said. "I don't do victim speeches."
Something flickered in her eyes—approval, or maybe just interest. "We'll see."
The lights were hot. The camera's red dot blinked on. Claire's voice went from conversational to broadcast in a breath.
"Our guest this morning is Isla Voss, rising executive at RavenCorp and, according to some, the woman behind one of the year's biggest breakups. Ms. Voss, let's start with the video everyone's seen."
I leaned forward, hands loose, gaze steady. "Let's start with the truth: that video is an edited fabrication. The man in the hallway isn't Adrian Blackwell. The two clips were taken on different dates and at different locations. Whoever put them together had an agenda."
Claire arched an eyebrow. "And what agenda would that be?"
"To discredit me professionally by painting me as a personal threat. If you look at the timing, the leak came forty-eight hours after RavenCorp secured exclusive negotiations for a multi-billion-euro contract over Blackwell Industries."
"That's a serious accusation," she said.
"It's a serious pattern," I countered. "Smear the competition when you can't beat them in the boardroom."
She shifted gears. "Do you have proof the video was doctored?"
"Yes," I said. "And I'm happy to make it public. But I'd like to do something first."
Claire tilted her head. "Which is?"
"Call the one person who can confirm exactly where I was that night."
Before she could object, Hazel signaled the control booth. A producer's voice in Claire's earpiece must have said the right thing, because a moment later, the screen behind us lit up with the face of Sofia Blackwell—Adrian's ex-fiancée.
Her expression was unreadable, but her voice was calm. "Isla."
"Sofia," I said. "Can you tell the viewers where you were the night that hallway footage claims to show you leaving your hotel room?"
Her gaze slid to Claire, then back to me. "In Milan. At a gallery opening. There are photos."
"And can you confirm," I said evenly, "that you and I have never been in the same hallway in the Ravenwood Club, or anywhere else, at the same time?"
She hesitated just long enough to make the moment land. "Confirmed."
A low murmur rippled through the studio crew. Claire sat back, eyes glittering. "That's… unexpected."
"It's also the truth," I said.
The clip of Sofia's statement hit social media before we were off air. Within twenty minutes, the trending hashtag shifted from #OtherWoman to #VossVindicated. News sites updated their headlines mid-sentence. The live segment's ratings were already breaking records for the Ledger.
But even as I walked out of the studio, adrenaline high, I knew one thing: whoever had spliced that footage together wasn't finished.
Because the smear hadn't been about romance. It had been about control.
And I had just told them I wouldn't be controlled.
The car door shut behind me, muting the city's noise. Hazel slid in first, tablet already open to a grid of social feeds, analytics bars rising like fever charts. Damien took the other side, one leg crossed, phone in hand.
"Ledger's segment is in syndication," Hazel said. "Clips are running on three networks, plus every gossip blog that doesn't want to get left behind."
"Sentiment shift?" Damien asked.
She turned the screen so we could both see. My name in green, a surge that had tripled in the past forty minutes. #VossVindicated outranking every scandal tag by noon.
I buckled in and exhaled. "So we win?"
"In the public round," Damien said. "Not in the game."
Hazel gave him a look. "Can we give her five minutes to feel good before we talk about the next attack?"
"There won't be a next attack," I said, half-hope, half-dare.
Damien's gaze flicked to mine. "There's always a next attack. Especially when you humiliate someone on live TV."
The car slid into traffic. I stared out at the morning rush, the city shimmering from rain earlier. "You think Adrian's behind the video?"
"I think Adrian's name is on the check that paid for it," Damien said. "But he didn't cut the footage himself. Too clean for his style. Someone in his orbit with tech chops and a personal grudge."
"Any names?"
"One," he said, "but I'm not giving it to you yet."
Hazel snorted. "Translation: he doesn't want you hunting them down before lunch."
I leaned back, crossing my arms. "Maybe hunting's the point. If they keep coming at me sideways, I'd rather see them up close."
"That's the difference between you and most people," Damien said. "Most people avoid the knife. You'd rather grab it."
"Only if I can use it," I said.
By the time we reached RavenCorp, the building lobby felt different—more eyes, more half-smiles. A few employees actually stopped to say, "Good job this morning," like we'd just closed a quarter ahead of forecast. It was strange, but not unwelcome.
Upstairs, Mariah from comms was already waiting in my office, laptop open. "The Sofia call is everywhere," she said. "Half the headlines are about you clearing your name, half are about her finally speaking after the breakup."
I slid into my chair. "What's her angle? She didn't have to take that call."
"That's what I'm wondering," Hazel said from the doorway. "Her tone was clean, but not warm."
Damien stepped in. "She didn't do it for you. She did it to signal to someone else."
"Adrian?" I guessed.
"Or whoever's bankrolling him now," Damien said. "This isn't just his bruised ego. He's not smart enough to run a layered media hit on his own."
We spent the next two hours in "war room" mode. Hazel monitored the feeds, Mariah crafted a statement thanking Claire Halverson for "integrity in journalism," and Damien scheduled a dinner with two Valmont board members "to reinforce confidence."
Every few minutes, another update came in:
— A rival gossip site pulled the video entirely, citing "verification issues."
— A European business paper ran a piece on "The RavenCorp Heiress Who Outsmarted a Smear Campaign."
— An influencer with three million followers posted: She just destroyed him in ten minutes. Queen behavior.
It was a high I'd never gotten from numbers alone.
At lunch, Damien called me into his office. The blinds were drawn, the air cooler.
"There's something you need to see," he said, sliding a file across the desk.
It was a transcript of an internal email chain from a boutique PR firm in Paris—time-stamped two days before the leak. The subject line: Package for A.B. The body: Delivery confirmed. Footage edit approved. Payment upon distribution.
I read it twice. "So Adrian didn't just sign the check. He ordered the meal."
"He also cc'd someone else," Damien said, tapping the page. The initials were M.C.
It took me a second. "Marcus Crowe," I said. "Valmont's junior director."
Damien nodded. "Now you see why I didn't tell you in the car. Crowe's been a quiet Adrian ally for months. If we go public with this, it forces Valmont to choose between us and one of their own."
"That's a risk."
"That's leverage," Damien said. "But it only works if we time it right."
By mid-afternoon, the phones were quieter, but the storm online hadn't completely blown over. Hazel dropped into my chair across from my desk, kicking off her heels.
"You know what bothers me?" she said. "They didn't care if the video was believable to everyone. They only needed it believable to enough people to make you defensive."
"Well, now I'm offensive," I said.
She grinned. "And dangerous. Don't forget dangerous."
At 6:00 p.m., I got a text from an unknown number: You won the round. The game's bigger than you think. Ask Damien about 2017.
I stared at it for a long moment before sliding the phone across my desk to Damien.
He read it, jaw tightening, then set it down without comment.
"What happened in 2017?" I asked.
He met my eyes, expression locked. "Not tonight."
That was the thing about Damien—he could make you feel like the most trusted person in the room and the most dangerous person to tell the truth to, all in the same breath.
That night, as I poured a glass of wine in my kitchen, Hazel called one last time.
"They'll try again," she said. "You know that, right?"
"Good," I said, watching the city lights blink against the glass. "I'm just getting warmed up."