Chapter 5
Yuna’s face turned deathly pale, her whole body shaking, yet she still forced an awkward smile. “Officers… you must have mistaken me for someone else, right?”
The policemen chuckled at her words. “In all our years on the job, this is the wildest thing we’ve ever seen. Hard to forget, even if we wanted to.”
I couldn’t hide the flicker of surprise in my eyes. She had always claimed to love Jason, yet here she was, cheating on him behind his back.
She threw herself into Jason’s arms, eyes shimmering with tears. “Jason, they’re lying. I didn’t do any of this. Someone must be trying to frame me.”
Jason tightened his arm around her shoulders, his expression soft and steady. “Yuna, you don’t need to explain. I’ve always believed you. There’s no girl in this world kinder and purer than you. I know you’d never do something like this.”
At his words, the officers and I looked at him like he was a man determined to be fooled. Well, if Jason himself wanted to play the willing victim, who was I to stop him?
I turned to the officers instead, urging them to investigate how the photos had been uploaded. Their report came back quickly. The hotel’s surveillance footage had been deliberately wiped and the data couldn’t be recovered. In short, the uploader remained untraceable.
The moment the words left the officer’s mouth, Jason’s eyes snapped to mine, blazing with anger. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“You set this up, bribed the police and dragged them into ruining Yuna’s name!”
Seeing his blind trust, Yuna’s shoulders relaxed. She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, sobbing harder. In one swift motion, she snatched a fruit knife from the table and pressed it to
her throat.
“My reputation is completely ruined now. How can I ever face anyone again?”
“Better to die than live in humiliation. Jason, please just let me die.”
She made to slash her neck. Jason lunged forward, tearing the knife from her hand and gathering her into his arms, his voice thick with pity. “Yuna, what are you doing? Don’t be foolish.”
“None of that matters. The only thing that matters is that you’re here with me. Did you hear me?” At that moment, Gideon slammed his cane to the floor with a thunderous crack. His voice cut through the chaos. “Enough. All of you, stop this nonsense! Has the Gardner Family not lost enough face tonight?”
At once, the hall fell silent. Not a single guest dared to move an inch.
His gaze swept the room, cold and commanding, as he spoke, “Tonight ends here. Whoever spreads another word will be an enemy of the entire Gardner Group!”
And just like that, under the old man’s iron will, the spectacle collapsed into uneasy silence.
By the time the banquet broke up, the night felt heavy and still. No one dared stir up more trouble. I followed Gideon back to the old house to rest.
Before I went to bed, my phone lit up. It was a message from Yuna. [Recognize who this is?]
2/2
20 0%
1:47 pm p p pp.
Attached to it was a photo of me in bed, Al-generated, face-swapped.
My face perfectly pasted onto Yuna’s naked body. The image was vulgar. Her text dripped with cruel delight and I could almost see her twisted smile behind the screen.
[When these photos hit the internet, do you think my brother will believe you the way he believes me?]
I gave a soft laugh and typed three short words: [Go ahead. Try.]
A moment later, Yuna spread the photos across the major social sites.
[My dear sister-in-law, prepare to lose everything.]
But the instant her upload went live, my countermeasure program triggered. Pixel by pixel, the image began to reconstruct itself.
An Al deep-reversion algorithm deployed, stripping my face from her body and restoring the original pictures. Within seconds, the real images of Yuna Gardner flooded the internet.
I was, after all, an elite field agent. I knew as much about hacking as I did about fieldwork. By contrast, Yuna was clueless, yet still dreaming of my ruin.
1:47 pm P p pp.
- ་།
