Chapter 1

I was the hottest A-list actress in Hollywood, until a few deepfaked videos of me "abusing assistants" and malicious photos of my "rotting face" dragged me straight to hell.

In just one month, I became a monster despised by the entire internet.

Facing tens of thousands of death threats telling me to "die with a rotting face."

They wanted me to die crying. I didn't. Instead, I decided to express my deepest gratitude to the bullies who ruined my life.

And my "thank you" is going to cost a fortune.

But I never imagined the real monster wasn't hiding behind a screen—he was holding the syringe.

——

[Look at her melting plastic face. Hollywood's most arrogant trash.]

[I heard her skin is necrotizing from a severe STD.]

[Don't just take pills. Slit your wrists and make it hurt.]

For the first two weeks, their poison worked.

I fired my staff. I pulled every blackout curtain shut.

I spent nights shivering on the cold bathroom tiles, inches from the mirror. I scratched my healthy cheeks until my nails drew blood, convinced the digital "rot" was real.

But cowering in the dark didn't appease the mob. It only made them bolder.

They were securing brand deals and gaining millions of followers just by carving up my name.

So, I stopped hiding.

I didn't block the accounts. Instead, I carefully matched the most vicious ringleaders...

The doors of the master suite swung open.

Julian marched into the room.

He didn't bother taking off his suit jacket. He strode directly to my vanity and slammed my laptop shut.

"Stop looking at it," he demanded. "You are psychologically mutilating yourself by reading these comments."

I calmly pushed his hand off the silver lid and flipped the screen back open.

"I'm fine, Julian."

He let out a frustrated breath. My husband, one of Beverly Hills' top plastic surgeons, held up his tablet.

"The cyber-crimes unit is on line one," Julian said, tapping the screen abruptly. "I have three federal litigators sitting in my office. We are issuing subpoenas to the hosting platforms and suing these anonymous trolls into absolute bankruptcy. Log off right now."

"Tell the lawyers to stand down." I didn't look up from the screen.

Julian paused. "Excuse me?"

"I'm handling my own public relations." I pulled a heavy, black velvet box onto the table.

It was the absolute crown jewel of Julian’s heavily guarded medical laboratory: Porcelain. A proprietary, unreleased anti-aging serum worth millions in eventual patents.

I picked up a thick card and wrote a personalized note to Toxic Barbie, a beauty influencer who had spent three weeks mocking my "rotting" face to her ten million followers.

[Your skin looks exhausted. A gift, on me.]

I sealed the box and placed a FedEx overnight label on top.

Julian stared at the vial, stepping forward.

"That is a classified clinical prototype," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, disbelieving whisper. "The R&D on that single batch cost my investors eight million dollars. You are sending priceless medical IP to the bottom-feeders telling you to die?"

"I'm expressing my gratitude." I reached for the second velvet box.

Julian slapped his hand flat against the stack of shipping labels, pinning them down.

"This isn't a PR strategy, Serena. This is a psychotic break!" His composure finally fractured. "You don't even have biometric clearance for the laboratory vault. How the hell did you acquire a hundred units?"

I let out a slow, entirely humorless laugh.

"I bought off your Head of Internal Security." I pulled the labels out from under his hand with a sharp tug.

Julian’s eyes narrowed. "With what money? Your accounts are frozen by the studio's breach-of-contract lawsuit."

"I pulled the equity from our private Cayman trust," I said evenly. "I drained it."

Julian stopped breathing. The color drained completely from his face.

He looked at the towering stack of black boxes against the wall. He looked at me as if a total stranger had possessed his wife's body.

"You're deeply unwell," he muttered, taking a slow step backward toward the door. "I'm calling your psychiatrist."

I ignored him. I checked the second address and packed the next box.

By the following afternoon, my bizarre generosity broke the internet's algorithms.

My phone chimed with a live broadcast notification.

[Toxic Barbie is live.]

She sat in front of the camera in her bright pink studio. She held up the luxurious frosted vial, waving my handwritten card around for her audience.

"I am screaming, you guys!" She laughed so hard she had to wipe away a tear. "The rotting psycho actually sent me a gift!"

She aggressively unscrewed the glass dropper, holding the clear liquid up to her ring light.

"Put it on?" She read a comment aloud, tossing her blonde extensions with a sneer. "Are you crazy? I am not putting this psycho's bio-hazard trash on my million-dollar face. It probably gives you her rotting disease."

Suddenly, a massive digital diamond animation exploded across the screen. A five-hundred-dollar donation. Then another. And another.

'Ten grand and you use it as a primer tonight,' a top donator challenged in the chat.

Toxic Barbie's eyes locked onto the rapidly climbing donation counter. Her initial disgust and self-preservation instinct evaporated the exact second the bar hit ten thousand dollars.

Greed easily eclipsed her fear.

"Well, family, the internet has spoken," she purred, looking directly into the camera. She squeezed a heavy drop of the serum directly onto her cheekbone. "Let's see if desperation is contagious!"

The comment section fed off her arrogance instantly.

[LMAO she is literally begging for mercy!]

[Watch out Barbie, rubbing that on your face might give you her weird melting disease!]

[Serena! Send me a Gucci bag next and I’ll delete my hate tweets! What a total loser!]

I watched the screen, my expression totally blank.

The bedroom door clicked open again.

Julian walked in. He looked completely hollowed out. There was no anger left in his rigid posture, only a cold, calculated distance. He tossed a manila folder onto the mattress.

"I booked a suite at an exclusive rehabilitation clinic in Switzerland," Julian said. "The jet leaves at midnight. You need severe psychiatric intervention. We can eventually rebuild the finances, but you cannot remain in the public eye acting like a deranged martyr."

"Did you check the Cayman trust balance?" I asked, not bothering to open the folder.

He stiffened.

"I didn't just drain the investment portfolio," I continued, meeting his gaze perfectly. "I canceled the escrow for our surrogacy agency."

"You've really lost your mind, Serena," he said, his jaw tight as he strode toward the grand hallway. "You didn't just assassinate your career. You killed us."

"Call my assistant when you're ready to be institutionalized." The door slammed shut, the sound echoing through the empty house.