He put his arm around Chloe’s waist, displaying her as his official upgrade, the new trophy that was supposed to reflect the success and vitality that his corporate ambition demanded.
The message was brutally clear: my value, to him, was reduced to my appearance and social utility; by becoming an exhausted mother, I had become discarded and replaceable.
They left together; Chloe’s heels clicked on the marble floor, the front door closed with a final click, and the house was plunged into a thick, sharp silence.
Mark believed he had executed a perfect exit: a broken wife, three babies, lawyers controlling everything, and a settlement I would accept, too exhausted to fight or claim anything.
He was painfully wrong.
Before Mark, I was a promising writer with a degree from Columbia and published stories; he reduced my vocation to a « nice hobby » and turned me into an event organizer for his ego.
For seven years I sacrificed my creative career to be Mrs. Mark Vape: corporate parties, client dinners, perfect photos at galas, always behind his carefully manufactured shine.
The divorce papers on my bed weren’t just a condemnation; they were a document of emancipation, a crooked key that unlocked the door to the woman I had buried.
The nighttime hours, when the babies slept between feedings, became my secret refuge; I placed the laptop next to the bottle sterilizer and went back to writing like a madwoman.
I didn’t write a lament, nor a memoir to ask for compassion; I wrote a sharp, dark novel entitled « The CEO’s Scarecrow, » designed like a scalpel against Mark’s image.
I changed names for legal protection, but I kept every detail: the layout of the house, her tailored suits, her favorite whisky, her narcissistic tics, and above all, her postpartum neglect.
I added the financial shortcuts he boasted about, the regulatory gray areas, the cruel layoffs, the private humiliations; all transformed into the actions of Victor Stope, my fictional CEO.
Each page was an emotional autopsy of seven years of veiled abuse; some scenes I wrote crying, others with an almost clinical coldness, as if I were dissecting a moral corpse.
When I finished the manuscript, I didn’t just have a story; I had a precision weapon loaded with truth wrapped in fiction, ready to aim at the heart of his empire.
While his lawyers negotiated custody and assets, I sent the manuscript to a respected independent publisher, less interested in scandals and more in the devastating power of the text.
They agreed to publish it on an accelerated schedule; my lawyer consolidated legal layers of protection, ensuring that no one could easily accuse me of outright defamation even though everyone recognized the monster portrayed.
“The CEO Scarecrow” was released quietly on a Tuesday; at first it was a modest success, praised by critics as a devastating feminist thriller about emotional abuse and predatory capitalism.
Everything changed when a Forbes investigative journalist read the book on a flight, recognized addresses, dates, patterns, and decided to investigate how far this disturbing coincidence went.
He compared the novel to Mark Vape’s public life, his recent divorce, the triplets, the Apex headquarters; he published a scathing article titled « Fiction or confession disguised as a corporate novel? »
The reaction was explosive: in three days, the book jumped to the top of the best-seller list, becoming the most morbid and talked-about scandal in the business world that year.
Social media was flooded with hashtags like #ScarecrowWife and #CEOFails; TikTok recreated scenes from the book, podcasts analyzed Victor Stope’s narcissism as a manual of toxic behavior.
Customers, partners, and shareholders began abandoning Apex Dynamics as if it were on fire; no one wanted to associate their brand with a CEO portrayed as a symbol of misogyny and corporate cruelty.
The company’s value plummeted for a week, shares crashed, investment funds sold positions, and its reputation as an innovative leader became a national joke.
Mark tried to downplay it on television, calling the fantasy book by a « bitter ex-wife, » but his smug smile only confirmed to the audience that the novel’s villain really existed.
The board of directors, terrified by the hemorrhaging, held an emergency meeting and ultimately dismissed him for cause, citing extreme reputational risk and a total loss of confidence in his leadership.
Financial regulators began investigations inspired by the book’s « fictions »; the SEC and other agencies found enough irregularities to impose multimillion-dollar fines and ban Mark from trading.
Meanwhile, my lawyer used the public climate and his own statements as ammunition in the divorce; I obtained full custody of the triplets and a substantial financial settlement.
When the company wanted to buy my silence, I accepted only because it meant another written confirmation of everything they had tried to deny while turning me into a disposable scarecrow.
As my final gesture, I sent Mark a signed copy of the first edition, just as security was escorting him out of Apex with his belongings in a box.
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