By the time the statement was done, it was full daylight. I went straight to the office.

I'd barely reached the foot of the building when a crowd blocked my way.

The middle-aged woman at the front wore black, her face twisted with rage. It was Drew's mother.

Behind her stood seven or eight relatives, holding up a printed banner in huge characters that read:

"Heartless matchmaking woman drove my son to his death. A life for a life!"

Aileen lunged to hit me. I dodged.

She dropped straight to the ground, beating her chest and wailing.

It was the morning rush hour, and her crying pulled a crowd of passersby in an instant. Plenty of them were my coworkers.

Her relatives shouted over each other.

"It's her! One blind date and she killed the most promising, most capable young man in the Harding family. Veronica Fox is a murderer!"

"A murderer walking free, coming and going to work like nothing happened. Is there any justice left?"

"Working alongside a murderer. Aren't you all afraid?"

The crowd stirred, exchanging looks, not understanding what was going on.

Aileen cried harder.

"My son went into that date with an honest heart. He was so happy, he wanted things to work out. And she humiliated him in public, treated him like dirt, called my son a toad reaching for a swan, said he wasn't good enough for her. Every word cut right into his heart!"

"My boy was simple-hearted. Her vicious words kept him up all night, tore him apart, and in the end his heart gave out and he died!"

"My perfectly healthy boy, driven to his death by her!"

A wave of shock ran through the crowd, murmurs rising on all sides.

"God, so young and so cold-hearted. A perfectly fine young man, and a blind date cost him his life."

"She must have said something cruel. How else does a healthy person just drop dead?"

"Losing a child in middle age, an old parent burying a young one. That poor mother."

"Which company is she with? Let's file a joint complaint. I really can't stand being in the same building as a murderer."

The Harding relatives raged on.

"Drew was young and accomplished, with a bright future ahead of him, and you drove him to death, harangued him to death! You ruined Drew's whole life, ruined their entire family! You have to pay!"

"That's right, do you know how hard my sister-in-law worked to raise Drew? He was all she had. Either you pay for Drew with your life, or you pay her five million!"

"Five million for Drew's life is letting her off cheap!"

Five million in damages? Was that what they were really after?

A chill crawled up my spine.

My face went white, and I couldn't stop shaking.

"Aunt Aileen, I feel for you, losing your son. But that doesn't give you the right to smear me."

"Drew and I weren't a match. I turned him down gently, and there was never a single harsh word between us, start to finish."

"If I'm guilty, let the law judge me. It isn't your place to decide."

Aileen ground her teeth.

"Look at her, everyone, look. A murderer, and she's threatening me, the victim's mother. Is there any justice?"

"There's nothing left for me. My son is gone. All I want is justice for him. What's wrong with that?"

Aileen wept as if her heart would break, and the crowd's sympathy swallowed the last of their doubt.

Someone flung a cup of hot coffee at me and snarled,

"Her son was humiliated to death by your words, so you killed him, didn't you? What's wrong with calling you a murderer?"

The scalding liquid soaked through my hair and my clothes in an instant.

More and more of them joined in.

"Nothing wrong with it, she's a murderer!"

"Murderer!"

Then buns, soy milk, eggs came down on me one after another, grease and scraps clinging all over me.

The curses surged in. People held up phones, filming, vowing to expose me, the "cold-blooded killer."

Seeing it, the Harding relatives swarmed forward, clawing at me, kicking and punching.

I couldn't fight back. I didn't last long before everything went black and I passed out.

When I came to again, I was lying in a hospital bed, gauze wrapped around my head and my arm.

Through the door I could hear my parents arguing with the Hardings.

My mother broke down, sobbing in anguish.

"My daughter's been driven to this because of you people. What more do you want from her?"

Aileen shrieked back, shrill and cutting:

"She's still alive, isn't she? But my son was driven to his death by her!"

"Pay me five million and I'll let her go. Otherwise I'll hound her for the rest of my life. I'll ruin her name, I'll make it so she can't show her face anywhere!"

I shoved the door open, lifted my phone toward the Hardings, and said:

"I never did anything to Drew, so I'm not paying you a cent. This is extortion!"

I pointed at my own bandaged head.

"Assault is a crime you go to prison for. I've already called the police. You can say all this to them."

The police arrived and told Aileen it had been preliminarily confirmed that Drew's death had nothing to do with me.

Then they took the relatives who'd beaten me into custody.

Aileen fell apart, refusing to listen, refusing to believe it, wailing that the police were shielding a murderer.

The video of her scene outside my office that morning had already begun spreading in small circles online.

Josephine Robles, the assistant I'd trained myself and trusted completely, told me she'd believe in me no matter what happened.

She also told me a lot of people had reported me to the company, and management was in a meeting about it right now.

I don't know who put the idea in Aileen's head, but that night she started a livestream, playing the grieving mother, weeping and choking on her words as she milked her sob story and spread her lies.

She painted the dead Drew as a devoted, sincere, honest, solid catch of a man.

And she smeared me as an arrogant, gold-digging, cold and heartless woman who thought she was better than everyone, who'd shown up to a blind date full of hollow entitlement.

She cried like the sky was falling.

"My son was gentle by nature. It was so hard for him to finally fall for someone, and he genuinely wanted to make it work with her."

"Fine, she didn't think my son was good enough. But why did she have to humiliate him every way she could, call him a toad reaching for a swan, call him a good-for-nothing who only made twenty thousand a month, tell him he was wasting the air he breathed?"

"My son was outstanding from the time he was little. He was my pride. I'd never seen him so crushed, his eyes all red, like he had nothing left to live for."

The livestream shot straight to the top of the local trending list, and the traffic exploded.

Countless people who had no idea what really happened were taken in by her tragic performance, their sympathy pouring out.

In her livestream they cursed and abused me with no limits at all.

As the rumors kept snowballing, strangers online doxxed me, digging up everything there was to find.

My parents' address, my workplace, all my social accounts were exposed.

My inbox filled up with vile abuse, curses, and ugly speculation.

Buckling under the pressure, the company cut me loose, forcing me to resign.

My promotion to sales director, about to go through, was rescinded.

Seven years of sleepless nights, of grinding away at my career, destroyed in a single stroke.

My parents were followed by furious strangers, harassed and threatened. My mother slipped on a banana peel someone threw and broke a bone on her way home from the grocery store.

My father was smeared with doctored photos claiming he'd had an affair and a child out of wedlock.

In the end his workplace let him go over "conduct issues," his good name ruined at the last.

With no way to defend himself, my father was so furious his heart gave out, and he ended up in the hospital too.

The steady life we'd had, the job I loved—all of it collapsed because of Aileen's malicious lies.

Aileen sent an anonymous message demanding I publicly apologize and pay out five million on my own, and then she'd give me a way to live.

Looking at my parents in their hospital beds, pale, suddenly aged ten years, I clenched my fingers.

I'd thought that as long as I cooperated with the investigation, I could clear my name.

But Aileen kept pressing, closing in for the kill, until I finally saw her clearly: this wasn't simple grief over a lost son.

She was using her son's death as a cover to extort me and destroy my life.

I refused to let her have her way!

I started going back over the whole date, calmly, detail by detail.

No arguing, no clash, nothing heated said the entire time. There was no reason for Drew to suddenly drop dead. Unless—

Then it came back to me. At the table that day, Drew kept taking deep breaths, his hands trembling now and then, drinking water constantly, his face pale.

At the time I'd chalked it up to nerves. Looking back now, it was deeply strange.

I went to the police station myself, laid out what didn't add up, and asked them to dig deeper. An autopsy, ideally.

The officer told me Drew's body had been cremated that same day, by his mother.

I froze for a second. I said nothing, and requested the security footage from the restaurant where we'd met.

I posted that footage online, meaning to show there had been no conflict at all between Drew and me.

His death had nothing to do with me.

Meanwhile, my most trusted subordinate, Josephine, paid a visit to Drew's company.

Drew's firm made EV parts, so Josephine arranged a meeting with his supervisor under the pretext of a business partnership.

Then I called a friend who worked at the health-insurance office and asked for her help.

I hadn't looked at my phone in half a day. My messages had blown up.

It turned out that after I posted the clarification video, Aileen had teamed up with the platform coordinator who'd matched me and Drew, and the two of them were smearing me even more shamelessly.

The coordinator, Emma Finch, said on camera, with open disdain, that I was spoiled and arrogant, that my requirements for a match were a man at least six-one, movie-star looks, and a top-tier fortune of over a hundred million.

She also spread the lie that I'd already run through thirteen boyfriends, that I'd had my fun and now just wanted to get married.

Regretfully, she added:

"I honestly thought she was only talking big, which is why I introduced Drew to her. Drew met every one of her requirements except the fortune. Who could have guessed it would cost him his life."

Then Aileen produced the chat logs from that night between Drew and me.

Drew: "Vera, I really like you. Don't be so quick to turn me down. How about we get to know each other a little more?"

Me: "We're not a good fit. No point wasting each other's time. I hope you find a girl who appreciates you soon."

Drew: "But I like you. Just tell me what you don't like about me. I'm willing to change for you!"

Me: "Since you put it that way, I'll be honest. You make less than thirty grand a month—what gives you the right to say you like me? Are you even in my league? To me, people like you are just the trash at the bottom of society!"

"Didn't the matchmaker tell you my requirements? I'm looking for a man worth over a hundred million, someone who can support my happiness for the rest of my life. Do you have any idea what you actually are?"

"A toad lusting after swan meat. Go take a good look at yourself in the mirror!"

"Stop bothering me. One more word and I'll report you for sexual harassment!"

I finished reading the screenshots shaking with rage.

I dug out my phone. My conversation with Drew still ended at:

"We're not a good fit. No point wasting each other's time. I hope you find a girl who appreciates you soon."

I never said any of those vicious things that came after!

The topic—"Blind-date woman looks down on ordinary man, drives honest guy to his death"—shot back up the trending list, and the whole internet piled on.

Round after round, strangers flooded my inbox:

"I'm a bottom-feeder making three grand a month. Mind if I finish you off?"

"Six-one, looks like a model, worth over a hundred million? You think you deserve that, you bitch?"

"Did you eat a mouthful of shit before you left the house this morning? Nothing but crap coming out of your mouth."

"So proper at the table, so venomous behind closed doors. Go die, you bitch!"

Relatives and friends, swayed by the rumors, all urged me:

"Just let it go. Pay them off and be done with it."

"The dead deserve respect. Drag this out and you're the only one who loses. Think of it as money to make the trouble disappear."

Right then, a message came in from Josephine:

"Vera, I found something."