Revenge11 min read
"Rip the Veil Off"
ButterPicks17 views
"I ripped the veil off and threw it at his polished shoes."
"I thought you loved me," I said, and my voice did not sound like mine.
"Forbes," I had called him that for years. Forbes West stood there in his wedding suit, flawless, and his eyes were clean of any warmth. "Why?" I asked again.
He looked at me like he was reading a script. "Therese, falling from heaven to hell hurts, doesn't it?"
I should have hit him. I should have run. Instead I let the world tilt and let the guards lead me away from the ruins of my wedding. I spent the night in a holding room while the guests whispered and filmed. By morning, the man who had been my husband for three years stood across from me in the lobby, still wearing the suit, still breathing like nothing had happened.
"You set me up," I said.
"For Lin?" He did not blink. "You should know her name."
My throat closed. Lin—no, Johanna Gonzalez—had been dead to everyone for seven years in the story they fed the press. She was not dead. She was the liar who had built a bridge straight to Forbes' arms. I felt the halo peel away. Every kiss, every soft word—fake.
"Everything you gave me had a price tag," I said. "You used me."
"For desire," he shrugged. "And for a debt."
I remember the night half a year earlier. My life then was another life. Married to Forbes, but married in name only to the man who shuffled his nights among other beds and polished his lies.
I had a plan. It began like a small flame and grew until it was a controlled burn. Step one: split from Forbes. Step two: make him look small and worthless in the place he loved most—his boardroom, among the people he thought he could buy. Step three: find who had put my father in the car that broke him three years ago.
"You're mad," Jenny Moreau said when I told her. "You can't fight them all alone."
"Watch me," I said. I had run through worse. A marriage that had never been mine. A father's breath that came from machines. A company that was supposed to be ours. I had practice in surviving.
Corbin Stephens appeared when I least wanted allies and most needed one. He arrived at my office doorway like a reckless draft of air. "Big mood," he said. "You look like war."
"You look like trouble," I shot back.
"You have me for trouble," he grinned. "Or for work."
I never trusted smooth smiles. Corbin was solid bone under a reckless grin. He had been my trainer, my sparring partner, the man in a gym who never quit. I hired him, then surprised myself by letting him in deeper. He saved me one night when Forbes' men tried to do to me what he had done to so many. He broke eight bodies in ten minutes and carried me out as if I were a fragile thing. After that, things changed.
"Sign these," I told him in the boardroom a week later. "You're getting five percent."
"That's a lot for a sparring partner," he said, flipping the page.
"Then work like you're hungry," I said. "And be ugly to anyone who tries to take what is mine."
He signed and sat down. Later that month I announced him as my new vice president.
"You're insane," Anna Carvalho hissed behind the glass—my stepmother—when I made the announcement in public. She was loud and cruel enough to be believed. "You can't just hand pieces of the company away."
"Oh, I can," I said. "And I will."
A month later the boardroom smelled like winter. Forbes sweated. Anna smiled like a hawk. Johanna sat there with a marble face and a soft dress. Phones were already up—everyone filmed everything.
"Let me speak," I said. I had brought one thing that no one expected—a folder of truth, and a plan that would not let them walk.
We played the tape at noon, in the full glass conference hall. "This is my father," I told them. "This is the truth."
I hit play. The screen showed a blue sedan. A night. A hand forcing the steering. A man in a mask. The video was grainy and cold. Then came names, messages, bank transfers. The proof of deals between Forbes and a shell company registered under Anna Carvalho’s cousin. The same shell company had hired the driver who had pushed my father’s car to the cliff. The messages read simple and cold: "Make it look like an accident."
Forbes' face whited. Johanna's lips tightened. Anna’s hand shook. Around us, the room hummed—phones, whispers.
"This is not proof," Forbes barked. "You can't show this—"
"Hold the call," I said. "Wait until you hear the next one."
I played the audio. A voice—his voice—talked in a hushed tone with Anna about "removing the problem." Another clip had Johanna arguing about timing: "Make sure it's late. Make sure the cameras are off." My fingers stayed steady on the player. Each tape was a javelin through their lies.
"These are forged!" Forbes shouted. He rose. "This is illegal in itself."
People in the room pulled their phones closer. "Wow," someone said. "They have the receipts."
"Fake!" Johanna spat. She was a queen of smiles. She had never cried. Now, her mascara ran because someone had filmed her in the parking garage signing a contract and placing cash in a courier's bag. There were the ledger entries, the transfer details—and a photograph stamped with a date two days before the crash. Her face changed. First pale. Then furious. Then a split-second hesitation—denial that turned to panic.
"I never—" she said, voice brittle.
"You did," I answered, quiet. "You used me to clean your trail, Johanna. You wanted power. You got men to hurt my father."
"Forbes, tell them it's not true," Anna gasped. "Tell them—"
He did not. His mouth opened and closed. He tried to smile and failed. He reached for the control panel to stop the playback. Someone filmed him making the move. "Don't touch the screen," I said. "Go ahead. Make this mess your own."
Forbes' face shifted from anger to confusion to raw panic in seconds. He lunged toward the stage but his legs folded. "It's a lie," he whispered. "You can't—"
The room was a hive of phones. Recordings spread faster than he could speak. "Forbes West, you are under investigation," Corbin said, his voice flat, now standing at my side. Corbin had already called the detective I quietly hired. "We have the lines to a private investigator," he added. "We have the bank screens. We have witnesses."
Forbes grabbed his head. His composed suit was suddenly ridiculous. "You son of a—" he flung a chair, and it hit the glass wall with a hard crack. The boardroom gasped. Phones kept filming.
"Forbes, get down," Anna shrieked. "This is—"
"This is where you fall," I said. "Publicly."
I gave them a choice: resign and surrender their shares, or stay and meet the press outside. They chose to stay. I chose to humiliate them.
We called the press. The charity gala that week turned into the scene.
—Punishment Scene (public)—
It was the evening of the charity gala, six days later. There were five hundred people in a chandeliered hall—bankers, lawyers, socialites—each paying to be seen giving. Forbes had thought the crowd would be his shield. Anna had coated her face in gold. Johanna had rehearsed her exit speech.
I walked on stage at the event as planned. "Good evening," I said. "Before we begin, I have a short video to show. It concerns charity, truth, and a failure of character."
The lights zapped to the screen. I felt Corbin's hand at the small of my back—steady as a pillar. The first clip was a file labeled: "Transfer_Anna_2019." The projection lit the hall with numbers. A hush fell heavier than any curtain.
"Forbes West," I said, loud enough for the ten cameras in front of us. "You said you loved me. You said you'd protect my family. You called our losses a tragedy."
They all froze. The first video showed Anna's hand counting money in a hotel room. The second showed Johanna handing an envelope to a courier in a downtown lot. The third was Forbes signing a indemnity letter for the driver—at the same motel.
"This is why my father crashed," I said. "Because you wanted control. Because you did not want a man like him to keep his voice."
Forbes’ face went ashen. "Therese—" he began. He tried to step forward.
"Stop," someone yelled near the back. People rose. Phones lifted like a field of small suns.
"Why are you doing this?" Anna cried. Her voice was sharp. "You can't—"
"I can," I said. "And I will."
Forbes held out his hands, trembling. "It's not true—my lawyer—"
"Your lawyer? Right now?" A dozen hands clutched at their phones. A woman near the front whispered, "Get a camera on him. He's panicking."
"Enough," I said. "We have legal queries in progress. I have the documents. I have the tapes. I have witnesses." I paused. "You wanted to buy everything. Tonight, you lose more than money."
I clicked. A slide came up: "Board Votes and Transfers." The crowd saw dates, emails, signatures. Lawyers in the back leaned forward. "Forbes, explain this wire transfer," someone said. He tried to deny, then he stammered. He turned to his mother—Anna—and mouthed something that looked like "help." Anna's mouth formed the word "forgery," then dissolved into a gasp as the projector showed her signature on a settlement form for "unforeseen expenses"—a euphemism for a payoff.
Hands jutted out, phones recorded. "You knew," someone in the crowd said. "You bought the silence."
Forbes' face crumpled. He sank to his knees in front of the dais. His suit knees folded like paper. "I'm sorry," he cried. "Please—please don't—"
"Get up," Corbin said. "No. Stay. Do not move."
He dragged a chair forward and put it before Forbes, but Forbes didn't sit. He only sobbed with his head in his hands, pleading to anyone who might still love him. "You're making a scene," Anna hissed. "This is a private event—"
"Private when you benefit," I said. "Public now."
"Security," Forbes begged, voice cracked. "I can pay—I'll give back everything."
"It is too late," someone yelled. A man at the back hissed, "Call the police."
"Therese," Johanna said, thin as paper. Her makeup was streaked. Her mascara striped her cheeks like war paint. She had tried to smile at cameras for years—now the cameras ate her. "You can't do this to me."
I clicked again. The next file showed Johanna meeting with a woman who later turned up as a logistics manager connected to the fake ambulance service. It's the kind of small, awful proof that shreds reputations: a shuttle invoice, a hotel receipt, a dated message that read, "Wednesday 10:30. He's ready." It hit Johanna like a slap.
She did not fall to crying. She began screaming. "It's a lie! I didn't—"
The hall pulsed with voices. Someone clapped—once, ironically. A woman near the front said, "Do you feel bad for them?"
Forbes slid from his knees to the floor. He curled into a small heap. People walked toward the exit, phones still recording. He looked up, saw the rows of faces and cameras and understood the scale. He reached for me with one shaking hand, mouthed "forgive me," and then—in the most human and humiliating way—he began to beg. "Please. Please—I will do anything. I'll give up the shares. I'll sign whatever. I will apologize. I will leave. Please, I beg you."
"Forgiveness doesn't erase what you chose," I said coldly. "But there are consequences."
Around us, people whispered, recorded, took screenshots. Someone live-streamed. The feed hit millions within an hour. The next morning the headline screamed: "Board Scandal: West, Carvalho, Gonzalez Fall." Netflix, the blogs—everyone had it.
Johanna turned from pleading to fuming to collapsing in a corner. She slid to her knees, then the floor, wailing into her hands. Anna's laugh turned into a thin cry. Forbes' face was wet with real fear. He crawled on his knees to the little stage and banged his head gently on the platform, pleading for an end he had not deserved.
They did not get arrested that night. That came later when the police, reporters, and a flood of investors demanded action. But that night they were punished where they had wanted applause—publicly shamed, filmed, begged, and watched. Their reputations cracked like cheap porcelain.
It lasted until midnight—hours of speechless live feeds and shouting and phones and the rustle of silk. They had wanted a stage to show how loved they were. They left with the world watching them collapse.
—End punishment scene—
After the fall came the cleanup. I walked the halls of our company with Corbin beside me and my father's hand in mine. I held his fingers, warm but weak. He opened his eyes like someone who had been underwater too long. "Therese," he said, like he had been waiting for me to grow up.
"I won't let them take us," I said.
"You already did," he whispered, and in his voice I heard both pride and warning.
The lawsuits followed. The board fired Forbes, and the police took statements. Forbes' mother, Anna Carvalho, vanished into a sea of civil suits and private press conferences where she tried to cry and buy pity. Johanna's career cratered in a week of social feed fury. They each had a fall that did not involve a courtroom. That was intentional. The proof did the work I could not before.
After the board cleaned house, I proposed a new plan. We would list. But we would do it right—no shell deals, no shortcuts. We built new contracts, restructured debt, and pulled in honest partners. Corbin handled security, investors, and, when needed, fist-sized obstacles. He fought our enemies in suits and on the street. When he smiled at me in the office, it felt like sunlight.
"Do you ever stop being reckless?" I asked him once as we closed a late deal.
"Only when you make me fall back," he said, and leaned down to kiss my forehead.
We had scars. I had watched a man beg on the floor and a woman dissolve in mascara. I had watched my stepmother try every trick and fail. "Who are the villains?" the papers asked. I answered them with facts. "They are people who chose money over a man's life." That was enough for some and not for others. The law took its toll.
Three months later, at a hearing that had become a small circus of cameras, the judge read the charges for the driver, the courier, and the shell company's controller. Forbes, Anna, and Johanna were listed as defendants in civil suits. They panicked and tried to buy silence. They tried the old moves. The judge refused. The truth had teeth.
In the last hearing, months later, Forbes stood to speak. He had lost his company standing. He had lost friends. "I made mistakes," he said. "I was wrong."
"I abused power," Anna added, her voice thin.
"And I was in the middle," Johanna sobbed, suddenly fragile. She tried to put on anger and failed: she had been seen kissing money, not love.
I watched them. My chest felt hollow and calm. I had wanted to see them fall. I had wanted it to hurt them. I had wanted them to beg. I had wanted them to see how empty their victories were. I let them have the consequences.
Forbes' final moment was small: a camera, a headline, and then silence. The city fed on scandal and then moved on.
As for me, I kept the company. We stabilized the stock, hired honest leaders, and prepared for the public offering. The bills for investigations and security ate into the accounts, but the public loved a comeback.
Corbin stayed. He never asked for a ring, just joy and a pair of hands to hold. He would start a foundation to support victims of corporate harm. "We will fix what they broke," he told me. "One step at a time."
We started with my father. He woke up slowly and said one word I had feared I would never hear: "Pride." He followed it with a small smile and fell asleep that night like a man who had returned from war.
The end came in a soft morning months later. I stood on the balcony of my office, the city below like a watchful eye. Corbin came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.
"Are we really done?" I asked.
"For now," he said. "But if they come for us again, we'll burn it down and build it better."
I leaned back into him, and for the first time in years, I felt like someone who could keep both hands steady.
"Keep the veil," I said, thinking of the wedding dress in a dark room. "I want the memory of it to be a lesson."
He laughed. "I will burn it for you."
"Don't," I said, and turned to face him. "Keep it. Let it remind us where we started."
We did not marry that week. We did not need a ceremony to vow. We had scars and a board and a father who breathed easier. We built a small life inside the glass box of the company and outside in the streets where people still whispered my name not as scandal but as survival.
At night, when the city was quieter, I would sit in my office and read emails from investors who believed. I would walk the halls and see men and women who had chosen to stand with me. I would reach for Corbin's hand and know that we were more than revenge. We were people who had been broken and had put ourselves back together.
"The world was set on fire," he said once, fingers tracing my knuckles. "We didn't lose ourselves."
"No," I said. "We rewrote the rules."
And somewhere far away, Forbes slept on a cot in a too-small apartment, and Anna phoned lawyers who could not buy her soul back. Johanna changed her name and left the city. They all paid in the only way the public would accept: exposure, followed by exile.
I stood by a window and watched the sun rise over the city. The veil was in a box beneath my bed. It was a small thing. It did not mean nothing. It meant I had survived the trick and found the truth.
"One last thing," I said to Corbin.
"Anything."
"Help my father plant a rose garden."
He kissed me, and we walked out into the light.
The End
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