The Day My Mom Was Buried

: The Big Gift

2

I had even prepared a Plan B: a video of my father and my aunt having an affair while they were supposed to be taking care of my mom in the hospital.

But I never expected Ella Shaw and Julian Thorne to come through for me like that, hooking up the very first time they met.

Then again, I can't blame Ella Shaw entirely. After all, I'd spent three months laying the groundwork for this, flaunting Julian Thorne's status as a rich heir from a prominent family. He was handsome, gentle—tailor-made to be her perfect type.

The only thing she didn't know was that Julian Thorne's family was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Back at my villa of over 6,500 square feet in the city center, I edited the video I'd just shot. I blurred what needed to be blurred, added some background music, and a video destined to blow up the internet was born.

Add to that the emotionally charged essay I'd paid a fortune to have written, and a spot on the trending list was guaranteed.

Sure enough, within half a day, the entire internet was denouncing my father and my aunt's side of the family.

[WTF? Is this the melodrama of the year? Her dad marries her aunt on the day her mom is buried, and her cousin sleeps with her fiancé??? Then she gets kicked out by her own father!]

[For real? What century are we living in? How can something this absurd still happen?]

[OMG, I'm so angry just reading this I think I'm getting an aneurysm.]

[This is the first time I've ever hoped a video was just for clout. It's fine, we'd forgive you.]

[Sobbing. Please tell me this is fake!]

And with a little fuel added to the fire from my burner account, people quickly dug up my aunt's and Ella Shaw's ConnectSphere profiles.

One was a classic manipulative schemer, the other a pure-as-the-driven-snow type. Their latest ConnectSphere posts were flooded with seventy or eighty thousand hate comments each.

My father was lucky—he doesn't use ConnectSphere. But his identity was exposed anyway. A company chairman, no less.

The power of netizens is immense. They even managed to tank the company's stock.

The company's official ConnectSphere page was completely flooded with scathing comments.

[Did you know your boss is sleeping with his wife's sister?]

[A fish rots from the head down. With a boss like that, the products have to be garbage.]

[Just bought something so I could leave a one-star review. You get the money, I get to trash you!]

My father was furious. He called to scream at me.

"Jasmine Sterling, you posted that video. Delete it right now! Then issue a public apology and say you fabricated the entire thing!"

"Do you have any idea how much damage your selfish tantrum has done to my company? Why would you blow such a trivial matter this far out of proportion?"

"Come home tonight. You're going to get on your knees and apologize to your aunt and Ella in person."

I looked down at the paternity test results for my father and Ella Shaw sitting on the table and let out a cold laugh.

I hadn't suspected anything more, but then a follower sent me a private message. They said that no normal father would ever do something like that, and I should probably get a paternity test for him and my cousin.

'Who would have thought... I'd still underestimated just how disgusting my father and my aunt could be.'

My cousin is only a month younger than me.

I curled my lip into a smirk. "Sure thing. I'll be back tonight, and I'll even bring another big gift for you all."

'I just wonder what the looks on their faces will be when they see this particular gift.'