The Lawyer They Tried to Destroy

Theater: NovelMaster  |  Language: English  |  NEW

Synopsis

I grew up with my neighbor, Chloe Bennett. When she got married, I took time off work and came back specifically to be her maid of honor.
At the wedding, the officiant asked Chloe how she felt after the groom kept glancing at me, and she suddenly pointed at me with tears streaming down her face.
“I want to expose my best friend!”
“She works as a hostess in the city, and she came back today specifically to seduce my husband!”
“Look how thick the gift envelope she gave us is. It’s all dirty money she earned by selling herself. What terrible luck!”
“A slut like her doesn’t deserve to stand here. Get her out of here before she taints my wedding!”
“I heard she has group sex at nightclubs!”
“She almost died on top of a man!”
As I listened to the guests whispering among themselves and watched the smug look on Chloe’s face, I laughed.
They probably didn’t know that I was a lawyer.
And my first case was going to make a woman who had committed defamation lose everything she owned and beg for mercy on her knees.
“Chloe, did you forget to take your medication today?”
I came back to myself while standing in the middle of the stage and asked coldly.
The gazes of more than three hundred guests below all pierced into me.
My parents were seated at the head table. I saw my mother’s face turn deathly pale as she sprang to her feet in shock.
Chloe’s performance continued. She raised the gift envelope I had given her that morning and slammed it onto the floor.
“You’re a prostitute!”
The groom, Ethan Cole, stood nearby with a pale face. He tried to pull her back, but she shook him off.
“Ethan, I saw everything. In the makeup room just now, she deliberately bent over in front of you.”
“Everyone, look at the dress she’s wearing. The neckline is so low.”
“She’s obviously a hostess. She seduces every man wherever she goes!”
“Chloe, are you done being crazy? You picked out this dress for me yourself!”
I lowered my eyes and looked at my bridesmaid dress.
Chloe had personally chosen it for me, saying it was custom-made.
The neckline was indeed lower than those of ordinary formal dresses.
Chloe’s mother, Barbara Bennett, immediately rushed onto the stage, wrapped her arms around her daughter, and shouted angrily at me:
“You shameless little slut! My daughter treated you like a friend, and this is how you hurt her!
“I could tell you were no good when you were little. Sure enough, you grew up to do this kind of filthy work!”
She turned toward the guests and wailed:
“Everyone, look at this! What did our family do to deserve this?”
“My son married a wife, and now some prostitute is clinging to him!”
The murmurs among the crowd grew louder.
“She looks so innocent. How could she be one of those women?”
“Ugh, women these days have no shame. They spread their legs and make money. What else do they need dignity for?”
“Get her off the stage. Just looking at her makes me sick.”
Even more vicious speculation began to spread.
“Listen, my cousin owns a company in the city, and he told me he’s seen her!
“She’s famous in those circles. They call her the ‘Thousand-Man Slayer’!”
“Seriously? That’s insane!”
“That’s not all! I also heard that some customers at a nightclub went too far with her and almost killed her!
“She must have come to this wedding looking for customers!”
“Then she must be good in bed, right? How much do you think someone like her charges for the night?”
The rumors spread like a virus. Every word stabbed into my parents’ hearts like a knife.
My father stood there with an ashen face, while my mother trembled with rage and pointed at the stage.
“You’re all lying! My daughter isn’t that kind of person! Chloe, why are you slandering her like this?”
“Slandering her?” Chloe sneered. “Ma’am, you’re still being kept in the dark. If you don’t believe me, ask her what kind of work she does in the city! Make her tell you the company name and her position. Let’s see if she can even say it out loud!”
“Chloe, I don’t know why you suddenly went crazy!”
Amid the accusations, I stared at Chloe and smiled.
“Every word you say today, I promise I’ll make you pay back twice over.”
Seeing that I was still smiling, Chloe’s mother, Barbara, pointed at the security guards by the door and screamed:
“This slut is still acting so arrogant! What are you waiting for? Throw this crazy woman out! Now!”
Two security guards immediately came forward and grabbed one of my arms each.I didn’t resist. I only gave Ethan, whose expression was complicated, and Chloe, who looked smug, a cold glance.
At the very last moment before I was dragged out of the banquet hall, I heard Chloe’s tearful voice.
“Guests, I’m sorry.”
“You had to witness this embarrassing scene.”
“I was just too heartbroken. I never thought she would sink this low.”
“I treated her as my best friend, but she tried to seduce my husband.”
The two security guards roughly shoved me out through the hotel doors.
My parents chased after me. My mother held me and sobbed so hard she could barely breathe.
“Lauren, what is going on? How could Chloe do this to you?”
“Let’s go. We’re going home. We’re not staying in this awful place!” My father took off his suit jacket and draped it over my shoulders, his voice trembling.
Just then, my phone began vibrating nonstop.
One text after another came from unfamiliar numbers.
I opened them, and my pupils suddenly contracted.
[So you’re a hostess? I saw you at the wedding. You’re hot. Name your price and come out tonight.]
[You look even better in your pictures. You must be good. How much for the night?]
[I heard you’ll do any position. Twenty thousand for one night. I’ll keep going until you cry and beg for mercy.]
Someone had spread my phone number along with the defamatory claims made at the wedding.
Then an unfamiliar number called me directly.
My mother snatched up the phone and shouted at the caller:
“Who are you? Stop harassing my daughter!”
A frivolous laugh came from the other end.
“Ma’am, don’t get so worked up. Your daughter doesn’t do business?
“She publicly advertised herself at the wedding. Why are you upset because customers like us want to show our support?”
“You animals! Get lost!” My mother’s lips turned purple with rage as she hung up.
But the moment the call ended, another number called.
Everyone walking past us cast strange looks in our direction.
When we got home, the atmosphere was so oppressive that it was hard to breathe.
My mother sat on the couch, constantly wiping away her tears. My father smoked one cigarette after another.
I sent Chloe a message: [Why?]
After a long time, she finally replied.
[Lauren, I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to do it today. I saw Ethan looking at you nonstop, and I got scared. I was afraid you would take him away from me.]
[I really love him. You know how much my family sacrificed so I could marry him.]
[You’re so beautiful and capable. I’ve always felt inferior to you.
[I just lost my head and said a bunch of nonsense. Please don’t take it to heart, okay?]
[We’re still best friends, right?]
I turned off my phone. I didn’t want to look at those disgusting messages anymore.
I got up to pour myself a glass of water, only to find my mother staring straight at me.
“Lauren,” she began hoarsely, “tell me the truth. What kind of work do you actually do in the city?”
Hearing my mother’s question felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart.
Even my own mother, the person closest to me, believed an outsider instead of me.
“Mom, I’m a lawyer. I specialize in civil litigation,” I answered calmly.
“A lawyer?” My father stubbed out his cigarette.
“Then why did Chloe say those things about you? Are you hiding something from us?”
At that moment, I felt ice spread through my entire body.
“If I tell you I haven’t done anything, and that she made everything up out of jealousy, will you believe me?”
My parents looked at each other and fell silent.The next day, the rumors spread throughout our small neighborhood.
When my mother went downstairs to take out the trash, the neighbors who used to greet her warmly now avoided her as if she carried a contagious disease.
Several elderly women gathered together, pointing toward our home and speaking just loudly enough for my mother to hear.
“That’s the daughter from that house. Tsk, tsk. She does that kind of business outside and still came back to be a bridesmaid. Shameless.”
“I heard she charges quite a lot, too. Tens of thousands a night!”
“No wonder they renovated their house last year. So that’s where the money came from. Disgusting!”
My mother stood frozen in place, holding the trash can, her face turning red and then white.
That evening, one of my father’s former military buddies called him and said the rumors had spread throughout his workplace.
People vividly described how I had supposedly been “caught cheating” at the wedding and how “customers” had come looking for me on the spot.
My father had always cared deeply about his reputation, and he was so furious that he didn’t even eat dinner.
Meanwhile, Chloe, the one who had started everything, acted as if nothing had happened and began constantly posting about her newlywed life on Instagram.
One day she showed off the designer bag Ethan had bought her. The next, she posted pictures of them dining at an upscale restaurant. The day after that, she bragged about how generous a wedding gift Ethan’s family had given her.
Under every post, our mutual friends liked and commented, saying she had married well and looked so happy.
No one remembered the vicious way she had destroyed another young woman’s life.
The harassing calls and messages continued. Some people even found our landline number.
I had no choice but to unplug the phone.
But that wasn’t the end.
That afternoon, Barbara arrived at our door with several relatives, looking furious.
“Lauren! Get out here!” Barbara pounded hard on the metal gate, making it boom.
My mother opened the door and stood in front of her.
“Barbara, what else do you want? Haven’t you and your daughter done enough to Lauren?”
“We hurt her?” Barbara looked as if she had heard the funniest joke in the world.
“She’s the one who brought this on herself and hurt my daughter! She’s a prostitute, and she ruined our wedding. How does she have the nerve to act innocent?”
“Now the entire Cole family is laughing at us! They’re saying our family lives next door to a hostess!”
“What am I supposed to do with my reputation?”
“You owe our family an explanation!”
I stepped out from behind my mother and looked at her coldly.
“What do you want?”
“First, you have to apologize to us in the family group chat, one household at a time!
“You’ll say that you were jealous of Chloe and deliberately caused a scene at her wedding!”
“Second”—she held up two fingers—“you’ll pay us two hundred thousand dollars for emotional damages!”
“You ruined the most important moment of my daughter’s life. This two hundred thousand is to teach you a lesson!”
“If you refuse, we’ll go make trouble at your father’s workplace!”
A sharp-faced relative behind her added:
“Let’s see if he still gets his annual award! We’ll make sure your entire family is humiliated with you!”
My father came out when he heard the commotion, shaking with rage.
“You… you’ve gone too far!”
“So what if we have?” Barbara looked triumphant. “You’re the ones who raised an immoral daughter!”
In the chaos, Barbara suddenly charged forward and raised her hand to slap me.
My father instinctively pulled me backward and stepped in front of me.
The slap landed squarely across his face.
The sound was crisp and loud.
My father staggered back two steps and hit his head against the doorframe with a dull thud.
He clutched his head and slowly crouched down, his face twisted with pain.
“Dad!” I screamed and hurried to support him.
Barbara was startled by what had happened, but she quickly stuck out her chin and shouted, “Stop pretending! I barely touched you, and you’re already down? Are you trying to extort money from us?”
Then she left with the others, cursing all the way.
As I looked at the blood by my father’s temple and the despair in my mother’s tears, something inside me finally snapped.
Chloe and Barbara, your good days are over.The harassment and threats soon spread from the internet into my real-life work.
Someone found the law firm where I worked and began flooding it with malicious online reviews.
[Attorney Lauren Reed at this firm is a hostess. Everyone stay away from her or you’ll get scammed!]
[What professional ethics can someone who sells her body possibly have? Any case she wins must be through disgraceful means!]
[Reported. Her law license should be revoked!]
The firm’s managing partner called me in for a talk. Although he chose his words carefully, his meaning was clear: my “personal affairs” were seriously damaging the firm’s reputation.
He gave me an extended leave of absence and told me to “take care of my personal problems” before returning.
I walked out of the firm carrying my things, only to find a bright-red sports car stopped in front of me.
The window rolled down, revealing Chloe and Ethan.
Chloe wore sunglasses, and a victorious smile curved her lips.
“Well, if it isn’t Attorney Lauren Reed. Leaving work so early—did you already get a client?”
I ignored her and turned to leave.
“Don’t go!” She opened the car door and ran after me, carrying a pink gift bag.
She shoved it into my arms.
“Lauren, Ethan and I picked this out especially for you. Congratulations!”
Inside was a huge, grotesque-looking sex toy.
“Do you like it? I know you haven’t had any business lately. You must be really desperate, right?”
“A small one probably isn’t enough for you, so I picked out the biggest one they had. It should satisfy you.”
Chloe laughed so hard her whole body shook.
“But don’t worry. Lots of our friends have been calling to ask for your ‘contact information.’ They said your price was negotiable. See? I’m helping you get your name out there. Shouldn’t you thank me?”
She leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Lauren, what do you think you can use to fight me? Did you think getting an education would let you rise above everyone else? Let me tell you something. All it takes is a few words from me to knock you from the sky straight into the mud.”
Ethan got out of the car and walked over to us.
I looked at the man I had once been attracted to, hoping he would say something fair.
He did speak.
“Lauren, Chloe just has a childish temper. She didn’t mean anything by it.” He frowned, impatience flickering in his voice.
“It’s all over now, so stop making a big deal out of it. For the sake of all the years we’ve known each other, do me a favor and apologize to her. Then we’ll consider this settled, okay?”
“Do you a favor?” I repeated, finding his words absurd and laughable.
“Exactly.” Chloe hugged Ethan’s arm and looked at me provocatively.
“You’re already known as a slut. What are you still pretending for?”
“Get on your knees and beg me now, and I’ll have Ethan find you a job serving drinks.”
“That has to be better than keeping your legs clamped together while begging strangers to sleep with you, right?”
Listening to Chloe’s vicious words and Ethan’s hypocritical advice, the last bit of affection I had for them was crushed completely.
I took out my phone. Chloe assumed I was calling someone to plead for help, and her smile grew wider.
I spoke calmly into the phone.
“Hello. My name is Lauren Reed, and I’m a lawyer.”
“I’d like to report a crime.”

Chapters (4)

Chapter 1   Chapter 2   Chapter 3   Chapter 4

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Watch & Promotions

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