Chapter 9 Beneath the Gilded Lies

Chapter 9

Beneath the Gilded Lies

The calm unraveled like silk in the wind. What Juliet once believed to be distance from the chaos was nothing but the quiet before another storm. The café meeting had only scratched the surface. Now the Williamson name was in headlines, and the media tore at their polished image with jagged teeth. Jones had vanished. Clarisse was under surveillance. Taylor's world of smoke and mirrors cracked under pressure. However, Juliet's discoveries were just getting started. Her foes no longer concealed behind politeness. The ones who claimed to protect her-family, friends, and even lovers-had been part of the manipulation all along.

Juliet stood in the middle of her apartment, her phone's screen still glowing with the encrypted message. They're watching Clarisse. Jones has vanished. It came from a burner number she hadn't used in over a year-one connected to a time she'd buried.

Her fingers trembled as she typed a reply. No response. She tried again. Nothing. She knew the silence was deliberate.

Juliet had grown used to the idea of half-truths. But this... this was a full-blown betrayal.

The article that exposed Taylor Williamson's web of offshore accounts, dummy charities, and laundering schemes wasn't just about money-it was about people. Lives used like pawns. Reputations destroyed. Juliet read it again, but now she saw the subtext. Hidden in the layers was a name-Mario Telly-a man she hadn't heard in months but one she could never forget.

She had been told about the Williamsons by him. proclaimed that they only desired her compliance rather than success. That they weren't helping her-they were owning her. She hadn't believed him then. She wanted to trust her mentors, her family.

But now the pieces were falling into place.

The calls from Patricia, always steering her away from certain events. The coldness from Clarisse when Juliet had asked too many questions. The strange warmth Taylor would show only when cameras were near. Juliet remembered the birthday gift from Sophia-the one she now realized had a listening device sewn into its base.

Her entire existence had been controlled, planned, and staged. The breaking point came when she reviewed her bank records and found a transaction-a deposit that she had never made. A scholarship fund, supposedly anonymous, that had paid her way through graduate school. It traced back to one of Taylor's dummy charities.

They'd funded her future so they could control it.

Juliet's breath hitched. She remembered the speech Taylor gave at her graduation, how proud he said he was. How he called her "the daughter he never had." The audience had clapped. She had cried. Now, she felt nothing but disgust.

She stormed into the storage closet and pulled out an old box-letters, keepsakes, photographs. In the back was a black notebook. Mario's.

He had left it with her the night he disappeared.

Read it when you feel like drowning in the truth, he'd said.

She flipped through the pages, heart hammering. Dates, names, transactions. Scans of legal documents. Cryptic messages in Italian. One page held her attention:

> "Their insurance policy is Juliet. If she walks away, everything burns. If she stays, they live."

She dropped the book.

Outside, rain lashed at the windows. Her phone vibrated again. A different message. This one from Sophia:

"I'm sorry. I couldn't say anything. I had to swear at him. You were never supposed to know."

Juliet clenched her jaw.

Clarisse had hosted family dinners and told stories about integrity. Patricia had promised Juliet she'd fight for her dreams. Taylor had given her every platform she needed-connections, wealth, visibility.

But none of it was real.

They had kept Mario Telly from her. When she had asked, they'd said he was unstable. They acted as though they had never met him. Patricia even claimed he was "some freelancer" they once hired.

But the truth?

Mario had been her first love. Her guide into investigative journalism. He had spoken the truth about how much he loved her and never once tried to own her. And they'd erased him.

Now she saw the pattern.

When they stopped serving Taylor, their reputations were destroyed. Jones, her trusted editor, had warned her before going dark. "Keep your spine straight. They bend people until they snap." Those were his last words.

Juliet sat at her desk, pulled out a voice recorder, and clicked it on.

"This is Juliet Johnson. If you're hearing this, I'm probably already exposed. What you've read in the media is only the beginning. Taylor Williamson is not just a manipulator. He's an architect of illusion, and I've been his centerpiece. But I've uncovered everything. And I won't stop until the truth burns down everything they've built."

She looked out the window at the Williamson Tower, a monolith of glass and power, rising above the city like a middle finger to justice.

She would bring it down.

Not for vengeance. Not even for Mario.

But because she deserved to own her life.

Sophia's knock was hesitant. She stepped inside Juliet's apartment without waiting for a reply.

"I shouldn't be here," she whispered.

Juliet didn't even look at her. "Then leave."

"I was protecting you-"

"No. You were in charge of me. as he instructed you. Sophia's mouth trembled. "It wasn't like that. Taylor said if you found out about Mario, you'd destroy yourself."

Juliet's laugh was bitter. "I destroyed myself the moment I trusted any of you."

Sophia stepped forward. "Clarisse is being followed. They think she's the leak."

"She's not," Juliet replied, voice like steel. "I am."

Sophia blinked. "You...?"

"I gave the reporter everything. I watched you all scramble, deny, pretend. I was done waiting for justice."

Sophia's voice cracked. "He'll come for you."

Juliet said, "Let him." "I'm not scared anymore."

They stared at each other-two women raised in shadows, now exposed in the raw light of consequence.

Then, Sophia reached into her coat and handed Juliet a key.

"What's this?"

"A storage locker. Mario left something behind. He told me only you could use it."

Juliet took it, encircling the icy metal with her hand. "This changes everything," Sophia said.

Juliet nodded, a fire rising behind her eyes.

"No," she whispered. "This demonstrates everything." That marked the end of the placid face mask.