The night before sentencing.
New York City burned with light.
Neon signs, traffic streams, and towering skyscrapers illuminated the streets as if night itself had been banished. The city that never slept was wide awake—restless, hungry, waiting.
Inside the headquarters of The New York Herald, however, the editor-in-chief's office was deathly quiet.
Editor-in-Chief Liu Grant, a veteran journalist with over twenty years in investigative media, sat rigidly at his desk, headphones clamped over his ears, eyes fixed on the waveform dancing across his screen.
Around him stood senior editors and investigative reporters.
No one spoke.
No one even dared to breathe loudly.
Half an hour earlier, an anonymous email had arrived in the paper's public inbox.
Subject:
[A Gift for Everyone]
The attachment contained only a single audio file.
Grant had listened for less than five minutes before abruptly standing up, his face draining of color—then flushing red.
"Madman…" he muttered hoarsely.
"He's a real madman…"
Now, the one-hour recording was reaching its end.
The woman's voice on the audio was nothing like the fragile, tearful persona she had displayed in court.
It was sharp.
Cruel.
Filled with naked contempt and absolute control.
"Ryan, I'll say this one more time—you're trash. Absolute trash. Without me, you're not even worth a stray dog. Do you understand?"
"I told you to extort that programmer, and you were shaking so badly you couldn't even squeeze out thirty grand. What use are you?"
"Now that everything's gone to hell, I'm giving you the solution—call the police and accuse him. Just do what I say. Is your brain just for decoration?"
"You're taking the fall this time. All of it. If you dare betray me, I promise you won't survive prison—and your parents won't live peacefully either. Doesn't your sick mother still need her pension?"
"Crying? You still have the nerve to cry? You're just a dog I keep. I tell you who to bite, and you bite. I tell you to die, and you die. Got it?"
The recording ended with a man's broken sobbing—desperate, suffocated.
Then the woman sighed impatiently.
"Stop crying. It's annoying. I'll stay with you after you get out. It's only a few years. You can handle it."
"Remember—you did all this because you loved me. It has nothing to do with anyone else."
Click.
Grant ripped off the headphones and slammed them onto the desk, his chest heaving violently.
The office was silent.
Utterly silent.
Everyone present felt a chill crawl up their spine.
"Editor-in-Chief…" a young reporter whispered, voice shaking.
"Is… is this real?"
Grant's eyes were bloodshot.
"Authentication team," he barked, "I want confirmation in thirty minutes."
Then he turned, voice hoarse but blazing.
"Everyone else—start writing. Now."
"The headline," he said coldly,
'PUA Predator Veronica Weiss: How I Turned My Boyfriend into a Disposable Tool.'
"I want the most vicious quotes. Every rotten word."
"No one leaves tonight."
"Push it everywhere. Website. App. Social feeds."
"Drop it before dawn."
Midnight.While most of the city slept, the internet detonated.
The Herald's exposé spread like wildfire, igniting every platform within minutes.
The full audio—edited, timestamped, analyzed—was dissected by bloggers, psychologists, and legal commentators alike.
Public opinion, already hostile, erupted into a full-scale inferno.
— I woke up shaking. This isn't a person—this is a monster.
— I actually felt sorry for her before. Turns out I'm the clown. She's a psychological butcher.
— My hands went numb listening to this. Ryan didn't have a girlfriend—he was under a curse.
— Remember everyone defending her? Come out. Apologize.
— Now I get it. Carter wasn't cruel—he was merciful. People like this don't deserve sympathy.
— This isn't a false accusation case. This is prolonged psychological torture.
The narrative flipped—completely.
Not a shred of pity remained for Veronica Weiss.
She was nailed to the pillar of public disgrace, never to be pulled down.
Donovan & Pierce LLP.Lily yawned, rubbing her eyes as she habitually reached for her phone.
The moment she saw the headlines, she froze.
She tapped the audio.
Three sentences in, her face drained of color.
She shot up from her desk and ran straight to the corner office, pushing the door open without knocking.
"Boss!"
Lucas sat behind his desk, eyes closed, resting.
He opened them slowly.
Lily rushed forward, thrusting her phone toward him. Her breathing was rapid from running.
"You released this, didn't you?" she blurted out.
"This recording—you leaked it!"
"Why now? Why not use it in court? This could've locked her in as the mastermind!"
Lucas didn't look at the screen.
His gaze drifted instead to her flushed cheeks, her parted lips, the faint rise and fall of her breath.
He leaned back, fingers tapping softly against the desk.
"Slow down," he said lazily.
"Sit."
Then he glanced downward.
"If you lean any closer, I'll assume you're trying to feed me breakfast with your phone."
"…Huh?"
Lily followed his gaze.
Her face turned crimson.
Sometime during her sprint, the top button of her blouse had come undone.
She yelped, stepped back, and clutched her collar, glaring at him with a mix of embarrassment and indignation.
"Lucas! This is serious!"
She buttoned up quickly and sat—though she couldn't quite stay still.
Lucas smiled faintly.
"Using it in court would help," he admitted.
"But its legal impact is limited."
"Why?" Lily frowned.
"It strengthens motive and dominance," he explained calmly.
"But the crimes—extortion, false accusation—are already established. At best, it adds a year or two."
He lifted his mug.
"But public opinion?"
"That's a different court entirely."
His eyes darkened.
"A sentence ends when the term ends. Public judgment doesn't."
"I don't just want her imprisoned," Lucas said quietly.
"I want her socially erased."
"Even after she's released, she'll never escape what she did."
"That's the punishment she earned."
Lily stared at him, heart pounding.
The trial… was only one layer.
This was the real strategy.
"…Boss," she whispered,
"Is this the fourth lesson?"
Lucas shook his head and flicked her forehead lightly.
"These are just the answer keys."
"Ah—!"
She covered her forehead, cheeks burning again.