Chapter 9
652words
"All his friends have blocked him," I said, refreshing a gossip forum post where someone had tracked Liam's former drinking buddies—all of whom had deleted every photo with him, fleeing his digital presence like a burning building.
Ava applied a gold foil face mask, casually scrolling through her tablet. "As expected, no one wants to be associated with that kind of mess," she remarked as casually as discussing the forecast.
The online storm had shredded his reputation while real-life consequences drowned him. His cards were frozen, bills piled up like snowdrifts, and his once-charming face now marked him for public scorn. Restaurants ejected him, bars blacklisted him, and former admirers recoiled in disgust. He'd plummeted from the heights straight into the mud.
We knew he had nowhere to go. And we knew he would come.
Sure enough, at eleven that night, the intercom rang—a death knell from the underworld.
A haggard, tear-streaked face appeared on the screen. Liam, once dazzling, now huddled outside the building entrance like an abandoned stray. Cold wind whipped his greasy hair, making him look pathetically ridiculous.
"Ava... please, let me in..." his voice crackled through the speaker, hoarse and broken. "I was wrong, so wrong... I have nowhere to go, it's freezing out here..."
Ava didn't answer immediately. She tapped her fingertips on the table, studying his humbled state with detached interest. For the first time, she viewed the parasite who had fed off her life from an Olympian height.
"Please, baby... for what we had... I'll sleep on the couch," he wailed louder. "I just need somewhere to stay... nothing else, I just—"
"One moment." Ava finally spoke, her voice glacial, then ended the call.
She stood and walked to the entrance. I immediately understood, grabbed my phone, and opened Instagram Live.
"Your Majesty's faithful cinematographer, reporting for duty," I said with a playful curtsy.
Ava smiled with cold satisfaction. She adjusted her silk robe to ensure perfect elegance, then opened the door.
Liam's face lit with desperate hope when the door opened—his salvation, his rebirth.
In the next instant, his smile froze.
He saw not just Ava but me behind her, phone aimed directly at him. He recognized the livestream interface, the viewer count climbing exponentially—100,000... 200,000... 300,000...
The whole world was watching.
This was the final judgment.
Liam's face drained of color, his expression plummeting from desperate hope to abject despair—perfect dramatic tension for our audience. The comment section exploded:
"OMG! The confrontation of the century!"
"Is this premium content? No, this is a gift from the universe!"
"He looks like something the cat dragged in! Queen Ava would soil her shoes just stepping near him!"
Ava ignored the streaming comments. She didn't even look at Liam again. She simply turned, retrieved a prepared black garbage bag from the entryway cabinet, and tossed it lightly at his feet.
The loosely tied bag spilled open, revealing designer clothes—an expensive sock particularly visible, the last pathetic remnant of his vanity.
"These are your belongings." Ava's voice carried clearly across the internet through my broadcast.
She finally looked at him, her eyes showing neither hatred nor pity—only complete, pure indifference.
"You said you wanted to earn money for the future," she began slowly, each word a precision strike.
"Now go work hard for 'your' future."
She paused, her lips curling into a final, judgmental smile.
"I've changed the locks."
With that, amid wild cheers from hundreds of thousands of viewers, as Liam's colorless face registered complete despair and disbelief, Ava firmly slammed the door.
With that decisive bang, she locked him—and her tainted past—firmly outside.
