The True Heiress's Revenge: Exposing My Toxic Family on Live TV novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Tuesday, Front Hall

The screens went black, then bright.

A grainy hallway appeared across the wall of monitors, ten feet high, in front of two hundred people and every camera on the mountain.

The timestamp in the corner read last Tuesday, 3:12 p.m.

"What is this?" Celia said, and her voice came out thin.

"It is your front hall," Demi said.

At the top of the staircase, a small figure in a pink cardigan appeared.

It was Celia.

She stood very still, glanced up at the camera in the ceiling, and moved half a step to her left.

She checked the angle.

Then she gripped the banister, let her ankle fold, and threw herself down the stairs with a sharp, well-timed cry.

She landed at the bottom on her side and lay there.

A moment later, she lifted her head.

She looked straight into the lens, adjusted her hair, and put her head back down.

The footage ran on.

At the top of the stairs, nobody else was there.

No hand, no shove, no sister.

The meadow was completely silent.

On the chat wall behind the screens, the numbers jumped: thirty-one million, thirty-four million, thirty-eight.

Her mother's mouth hung open.

"That is not real," Celia said, and spun on the nearest camera. "That is fake. That is AI, they can do anything now, you can make anything with a computer."

"Celia," her mother whispered.

"It is not me! Demi made it!"

"Demi was in the garden pulling weeds," a voice said from the side.

It was the young cameraman from the rattlesnake trail, his rig on his shoulder.

"I was filming the house for the pre-show package," he said. "The garden crew will tell you."

Celia turned, wild-eyed.

"You are lying."

"I am a camera operator," he said. "I film what is there."

Quinton moved fast.

He stepped in front of the screens with his hands up, loud and furious.

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