I’d finally landed a teaching job, but during my maternity leave, the school decided to let me go.

The department head’s wife, Dora, accused me of having an affair with her husband and barged into the principal’s office with a mob of her relatives.

When I arrived at the school to get some answers, I was dragged by the hair and thrown in front of the principal.

“This tramp seduced my husband! Now he’s spending our child’s college fund on her!”

“And you think firing her is enough? If I don’t teach her a lesson today, I’m no mother!” Dora shouted.

She yanked me out to the school playground, pulling up my maternity dress in front of everyone.

She kept screaming that my unborn baby should pay for what I’d done.

A soccer ball slammed into my stomach, and cameras zoomed in on my face, capturing every bit of my pain.

Just before I blacked out, the investigation team, who had just received the evidence, finally showed up.

***

I was on maternity leave when I opened our work group chat and found out I’d been fired.

The announcement accused me of having an inappropriate relationship with the department head and claimed I had serious moral failings.

I quickly messaged the group, asking what was going on, only to see a notification that I’d been removed from the chat.

For a moment, I was so angry it felt like my blood had turned to ice.

How could they blame the victim?

I packed up my things and rushed to the school.

My husband, Alexander, was swamped at work and didn’t respond to my messages.

On the taxi ride over, I pulled up the evidence I’d gathered over the past three years of the department head’s harassment of his subordinates. I planned to report it on the education website under my real name.

I’d intended to organize everything during my leave before filing the report, but it looked like I couldn’t wait any longer.

As I walked towards the principal’s office, I could feel the judgmental stares from everyone I passed.

Just as I reached the door, the shouting inside was so loud it felt like the roof might blow off.

Dora Evans, the department head’s wife, had a voice that could cut glass. “Don’t think I’m here making trouble for no reason! That tramp spent my son’s college fund!”

“I’ve shown you the proof, and you think just firing her is enough? What’s stopping her from getting another teaching job somewhere else?”

“Is the teaching profession really this disgusting now? If I don’t get answers today, your school’s reputation is finished!”

“I’m going live right now to expose all of this! Let’s see which parents are brave enough to send their kids to your school after this!”

Hearing this, my anger flared.

Why should the whole school pay for the department head David Evans’s sins? I wasn’t about to let that happen.

As I reached into my bag for my phone, I heard the principal trying to calm Dora down.

Moments later, I heard the sound of a scuffle.

Dora’s relatives shouted at the principal, “What do you think you’re doing? How dare you lay a hand on us! Want us to post this online too? You’ll go down in flames right along with that tramp!”

Sensing things were about to spiral out of control, I quickly opened the private group chat I’d set up with my colleagues, firing off a message, and begging them to come help me. The women in this chat were all teachers who had been harassed by David.

Before I went on leave, we’d agreed to take him down together and destroy his reputation. But to my shock, minutes ticked by with no response.

Panic started to set in as I switched to the phone app, dialing each one of them, but all I got were voicemail boxes or abrupt hang-ups.

Running out of time, I was just about to push the door open when my phone buzzed with a new message. [Elena, I’m so sorry, but I can’t afford to lose my job. If even you got fired, I’m terrified. I’ve already left the group. Please forgive me.]

I cursed under my breath, locked my screen, and was about to step inside when the office door suddenly burst open from the inside.

I came face-to-face with Dora, her expression twisted with rage.

The moment she saw me, she lost it.

Before I could say a word, she grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me inside.

She dragged me across the floor, forcing me to kneel in front of the principal. She jabbed a finger in my face and spat out, “Is this the teacher who seduced my husband, Elena? Do you dare deny it?”

The elderly principal looked completely blindsided. He stared down at me, sprawled on the floor, but couldn’t find the words to respond.

I shouted, “Ma’am, you’ve got the wrong person! The one who’s morally corrupt isn’t me!”

I tried to push myself up, bracing against the desk for support, but she slammed her high heel down on my leg, the sharp point digging into my skin.

Then she shoved her phone’s live-streaming camera right up to my face, contorted in pain.

Dora sneered, her voice laced with venom. “This school really sticks together, huh? Neither of you wants to admit it. Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of ways to make you talk!”

With that, she pulled out another phone and opened her photo album, shoving a picture right up to the camera.

“Take a good look, everyone! Here are the intimate photos of her with my husband! I found them on his computer!”

“This isn’t over until she’s completely humiliated!” she shouted.

I fought through the pain and looked up, only to see an Instagram photo of me and my husband that had been crudely edited. Half of me was cut out, and what remained was spliced together with a picture of Dora’s husband, turning it into the so-called “intimate photo” she was flaunting as proof.

I was stunned—David had a creepy habit of saving photos.

A wave of disgust washed over me, sending chills down my spine.

“This isn’t even a picture with David! It’s from a vacation I took with my husband! He must’ve screenshotted it!” I protested.

As soon as the words left my mouth, she drove her heel into the top of my foot with brutal force, twisting it like she was trying to bore a hole through my bone.

“Keep denying it all you want! The evidence is right here! You’ve got the original on your phone, don’t you? Planning to use it later to blackmail my husband for a promotion? Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re up to!”

The excruciating pain soaked my maternity dress with cold sweat. I bit down on my lip so hard that I tasted blood.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I frantically scanned the room for help.

But all I saw were Dora’s relatives—no one was stepping in. Some of them even rolled up their sleeves, looking ready to jump in.

Seeing this, Dora slapped me across the face, hard. “Who are you trying to fool with that victim act? Everyone here is ready to deal with you, you homewrecker!”

She grabbed my head with both hands, and two of her relatives seized my arms, holding me down. Then she called over a man in his fifties, who rifled through my pockets and snatched my phone.

The office door was wide open, and a crowd of students had gathered outside, watching the spectacle.

Humiliation burned through me as I screamed at the leering man, “Get away from me! Don’t touch me! I’ve already called the police—they’re on their way!”

At that, Dora shoved the man aside and kicked me hard in the chest. “Call the cops? I need to find that original photo and delete it. When you try to blackmail my husband later, I’ll be the one calling the police!”

I hit the floor with a thud, a sharp pain stabbing through my abdomen.

Sweat dripped down my forehead as I gasped, “Please, don’t hurt me! I’m not a homewrecker—David’s the one who’s been harassing the female teachers. He’s the real monster!”

I thought the truth might make her pause, maybe even calm her down a bit.

But instead, she froze for just a moment before her anger erupted. She yanked the phone mount off its stand and started beating me with it.

I writhed on the floor in agony as she screamed, “Still trying to smear my husband? You think you can get away with that, you slut? I’ll teach you a lesson you won’t forget!”

In the struggle, my phone slipped out of my pocket. Dora snatched it up.

With the face-recognition feature, she easily unlocked it. She planted her foot on my chest, pinning me down, and aimed the camera right at my face.

I heard a soft “click” as she sneered, “Let’s see how you try to lie your way out of this once I find those photos.”

By now, my entire body was drenched in sweat, every ounce of strength drained. I glanced at the principal, who was cowering in the corner, downing his blood pressure meds.

He couldn’t even take care of himself, let alone help me.

Tears of despair slid down my cheeks.

The searing pain in my abdomen pulsed through me, each wave sharper than the last.

After a few moments, Dora finished scrolling through my phone’s photo album. Her face twisted with rage as she hurled the phone at me, hitting me square in the face.

Blood spurted from my nose as she screamed, eyes blazing with fury, “You think you’re smart, huh? Hiding the original so I can’t find it? Well, you’re not getting away with this!”

Dora whipped out her phone and dialed a video call. The screen quickly lit up with a live feed from my home.

I watched in horror as Dora’s goons smashed through my living room windows. They poured in, and chaos erupted. My once cozy home was turned into a disaster zone in an instant.

Family photos were shattered and stomped on. The wallpaper was splattered with red paint, and “Homewrecker” was scrawled across our bed in angry red letters. In the study, all my teaching materials were set ablaze, filling the room with thick, black smoke.

They ransacked the place like vandals, tearing apart my precious jewelry and tossing it into the fire.

After a while, the lead thug shook his head at the camera. They hadn’t found the photos or evidence Dora was after.

My fury was boiling over as I watched. Ignoring the pain in my abdomen, I yelled at Dora, “Stop it! Get them out of my house! When the police get here, you’re done for! I won’t let you get away with this! Both you and David will pay!”

Her face twisted with hatred as she ended the call abruptly, then leaned over and grabbed me by the neck with both hands. “Where did you hide the evidence? My husband’s worked for twenty years, and you dare to accuse him? I’m going to make you pay!”

Just then, my phone rang. It was my husband calling. Dora glanced at the caller ID and a wicked grin spread across her face.

She answered the call, and my husband, thinking it was me, asked urgently, “Elena, where are you? The alarm went off at the house. Are you okay?”

Dora sneered, “Oh, so worried about your wife? You probably don’t know that the baby she’s carrying might not even be yours! She’s been sleeping around with older men at work for promotions—there are dozens of hotel bookings! I actually feel sorry for you for being duped by this tramp!”

She hung up on him, and when he tried to call back, she blocked his number right in front of me.

My rage was so intense I could barely breathe. “What are you telling him? I told you, it’s not what you think! Arson and assault will land you in jail! Is David really worth throwing your life away?”

Dora laughed coldly and turned the live-stream camera toward my furious, flushed face. “Did you hear that? The mistress is now trying to threaten me. Running out of tricks, are we?”

“This is the woman who seduced my husband! He’s even spending money meant for our child’s education on her! And you think firing her from school will solve anything? I’m going to make sure she’s publicly humiliated today!”

With a cruel glint in her eyes, Dora approached me, her voice dripping with venom. “Did your family celebrate when you got into the school? Do they know what you’ve been doing in this sacred place?”

Without waiting for a reply, she scrolled through my phone contacts, found my parents’ numbers, and called them.

Dora painted me as a manipulative seductress, and when my father heard about my firing, he had a medical emergency and collapsed. All that remained on the line was my mother’s anguished sobs.

My anger turned into a shaking fury. The pain seemed to numb as I sprang to my feet, breaking free from those holding me, and lunged at Dora. I grabbed her and tore at her face with all my might. My handbag slammed into her head, ripping her earrings from her ears. She screamed in pain as her earlobes bled.

Before I could do more, her relatives swarmed me, pinning me to the ground. An older man took advantage of the chaos to grope me, his eyes filled with vile intent.

Dora covered her ears and shouted, “Drag her to the playground! I want everyone at the school to see this tramp’s true face!”