9
A flicker of panic crossed Laura’s eyes, but she quickly masked it. “Sharon, I think you’ve lost your mind. How could Mandy possibly be my daughter? Your mother found her on the side of the road!”
My father, recovering from the shock, blustered, “Don’t talk nonsense! I won’t believe you!” He turned back to my mom. “Sign the papers!”
My mother looked at me, her eyes blank. I patted her hand. “Don’t sign yet. Trust me. I’ll get us justice.”
I took out my phone and called my boyfriend. “Ethan, can you bring me my laptop and that file?”
My mom was shocked. “When did you get a boyfriend?”
I gave her a small smile. “We’ll talk about that later.”
My dad kept pressuring my mom to sign. But when my boyfriend, Ethan, arrived with my things, both my dad and Mandy froze.
“When did you two get together?” Mandy demanded, her voice full of disbelief. “Why didn’t I know?”
She had a massive crush on Ethan, had been chasing him for ages. She had no idea we’d been together for three years, keeping it quiet because of college applications.
I looked at her with a smirk. “You really are clueless. You didn’t learn a single thing from your mother about how to steal a man.”
I opened the laptop, plugged in a USB drive, and a video popped up. A man and a woman, locked in a passi- onate embrace.
The man was my father. The woman was my “aunt.”
They both panicked. My dad lunged for the laptop, but my 6’3” boyfriend blocked his path.
My mom, her face a storm of disbelief, slapped Laura hard. ‘And I treated you so well! You two are the real bastards!”
Laura, utterly humiliated, still tried to lie. “We were drunk that day! We just kissed, nothing else happened! Sharon, that’s enough! If you had a shred of decency, you wouldn’t do this to your own father!”
My dad was livid. “Turn it off! Do you hear me? That’s a deepfake! That’s illegal! Don’t make me call the cops. on you!”
I just smiled. “You don’t have to. I’ll do it myself.”
And right in front of him, I dialed 911. “Hello, 911? I’d like to report my father for his involvement in two mur- ders.
Chapter 2
The moment the words left my mouth, my mother crumpled to the floor.
My father stared at me, his face a picture of disbelief. My own gaze was unwavering.
15-45 )
My grandfather rushed over. “Sharon, what are you saying? You can’t just throw words like that around!”
I met the shocked eyes of everyone in the room. “I am not throwing words around. Everything I am saying is
the truth, and I will take full legal responsibility for every single word.”
