Called a bastard and branded a slut, Lara Mikhaylov’s life implodes when a ten‑second video ruins her reputation and her adoptive father kills himself to prove her innocence. Expelled, betrayed by lovers and classmates, and forced into survival, Lara makes a vow: she will not die — she will study, win, and make every liar pay. With a gifted, unassuming school doctor by her side, she claws from failing schools to the top of the city rankings, exposing a fabricated smear, igniting a corruption scandal, and turning the town that crushed her into the theater of their own downfall. But exposure brings new predators: fake relatives who want her kidney, arsonists who burn her home, and the ghosts of the man she loved but lost. This is a fast, ruthless ascent from humiliation to vindication, and from desperate survival to a life she actually chooses — a life with a man who learns to love every scar.

16 Chapters