Chapter 5

"Claire, are you just jealous of Chloe?"

Lily’s voice note finally came through the next morning. Her tone carried that distinct, arrogant snobbishness of someone who had just secured a powerful new backer.

"Ever since you left, our livestream sales have tripled. Chloe was even interviewed on local TV last night. Did you see it at your new company? Haha."

I opened my old company’s official page.

The pinned video was indeed Chloe's TV interview. Dressed in a sharp white suit, she spoke confidently to the camera: "Our brand's stance can be summed up in two words: no compromise. People who think they can extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from us with a fake social media post won't get a single cent."

The host nodded in agreement.

The top comment with forty-three thousand likes read: "This is what brand backbone looks like! The old PR director only knew how to kneel and beg. Now that we have new talent, we finally see real strength."

The second comment: "Chloe is so cool! I just ordered three skincare sets."

I closed the video.

The post was tagged with #ZeroToleranceForScammers.

Sarah’s original YouTube video had been shadowbanned by the platform, with only a few hundred comments left fighting for her. People were telling her to "go back to the slums" and threatening to report her for fraud.

Her profile picture had gone gray.

Her last update from eleven o'clock last night read: "I just wanted justice for my daughter."

Zero shares. Three comments, all of them abusive.

I turned off my phone, sat in my office, and watched the second hand of the clock spin.

Our intern knocked on the door again. "Claire, their livestream just hit number one in the beauty category. Our marketing department is asking if we should launch a counter-campaign."

"No need."

"But—"

"Just wait."

He left, looking thoroughly confused.

Wait for what?

Wait for those five hundred and three mothers to realize their group admin was no longer there to hold them back.

Wait for Chloe to realize that what she had thrown into the fire wasn’t a "professional scammer," but a live grenade.

On the third day after the statement, everything seemed peaceful. The company's daily livestream sales broke five million dollars. Chloe signed two major endorsement deals, and Raymond sent out a massive bonus in the company group chat with the caption: "A New Era."

Then came the fourth day, at two in the morning.

I was awakened by my phone buzzing furiously.

It was a message from Ashley. No greeting, no introduction, just a link and four words:

"We're done for, Claire."

I clicked the link.

It was a live stream. The viewer count was jumping by hundreds of people per second, already hitting four hundred thousand.

A woman was sitting in front of the camera.

Her hair was cut short, and the dark circles under her eyes looked like they had been painted on with ink.

The wall behind her was plastered with printed medical certificates, diagnostic reports, and photos of her daughter’s face. She was holding a little girl in her arms, whose face was wrapped in thick medical gauze, leaving only her eyes visible.

It was Sarah Jenkins.

Her voice was raspy, sounding far older than I remembered.

"They said I'm a liar. They said my baby is an actor."

She held up a thick stack of papers.

"These are hospital records. Eight hospitalizations, fourteen outpatient visits. All with the exact same diagnosis—extensive skin ulceration caused by severe contact dermatitis from their baby cream."

The camera zoomed in. The official seals on the medical reports were crystal clear.

The live chat exploded.

"If I'm a scammer, are these official hospital records fake too?"

She picked up an old leather folder and opened it.

Inside were page after page of bank transfer records.

— Recipient: Sarah Jenkins. Sender: Claire Vance.

— Memo: Kiki's Medical Subsidies.

— Timeframe: Three years. Amounts ranging from two thousand to twenty thousand dollars.

The chat was moving so fast it became a blur:

"Who the hell is Claire Vance?!"

"I think she’s the former PR Director—the one they accused of 'kneeling to work'!"

"The company refused to pay, so she paid out of her own pocket?!"

Sarah closed the folder and stared at the camera for a long, silent moment.

"The only person who actually helped us was forced out of the company. Her replacement doxxed me, leaked my social security number, and let the internet tear me apart."

She looked down at the child in her arms, her voice breaking for a second.

When she spoke again, she sounded like she was addressing five hundred invisible allies:

"Mothers, it's time."

I stared at the screen, my palms sweating.

In that single second, the viewer count jumped from four hundred thousand to nearly a million.

Because five hundred and three mothers had shared the link at the exact same moment.