Chapter 6 - The Smear Campaign
If there is one thing a desperate family knows how to do, it's play the victim.
By the weekend, Vanessa had taken to Facebook. She posted a long, tear-stained manifesto detailing how her "evil, narcissistic sister-in-law" had mentally abused her brother, thrown their elderly mother onto the street in the dead of night, and stolen all of Daniel's hard-earned money.
Friends we shared started texting me, expressing concern. Some of Daniel's extended family left nasty voicemails, calling me a gold digger. It was a calculated smear campaign designed to pressure me into dropping the divorce and the fraud charges to save my reputation.
They thought I cared about society gossip. They were wrong.
I didn't reply to a single comment. Instead, I took a screenshot of Vanessa's post and forwarded it to Evelyn.
"Add defamation to the civil suit," I typed.
May you like
Meanwhile, Daniel's world was collapsing. Without my income, the illusion of his success vanished. The luxury SUV he drove was leased under my company's name. I had it repossessed from the motel parking lot at 3:00 AM on a Tuesday. I canceled his company cell phone plan. I even logged into the streaming services and changed all the passwords. If he wanted to watch Netflix in his dingy motel room, he could pay for it himself.
The absolute silence from my end was driving them insane. They wanted a fight. They wanted me to scream and yell so they could record it and prove I was crazy. But I gave them nothing. I gave them a ghost, and the ghost was taking everything they had.
