novelraw Chapter 236: No Facts, Only Drama
Chapter 236: No Facts, Only Drama
1:35 PM.
"Move, move, move!" Aria chanted frantically, bouncing her knee.
But the sleek Aston Martin wasn’t moving an inch. They were completely gridlocked in the middle of Midtown traffic. Blaring horns echoed from every direction, the dense sea of yellow cabs and delivery trucks creating an impenetrable wall of metal.
Aria was having a full-blown meltdown in the passenger seat. Her heart was beating so fast she felt nauseous. "I don’t have a script," Aria hyperventilated, biting her thumbnail. "They are going to eat me alive! I’m going to walk out there and sound like an absolute idiot!"
A sudden tap on the tinted window made Aria almost jump out of her skin.
A sleek, matte-black Ducati motorcycle had expertly woven through the standstill traffic, idling right beside their vehicle. The rider, dressed in a black leather jacket and a tinted helmet, unzipped a compartment on the side of the bike and pulled out a stuffed black duffel bag.
Damien lowered the window. The Sinclair operative wordlessly shoved the bag through the gap and gave a sharp nod before revving the engine and peeling off between two delivery trucks.
"Clothes," Damien announced, tossing the duffel into Aria’s lap.
Aria went into the narrow backseat of the Aston Martin to change. She shucked off Damien’s suit jacket and the sheer red lace dress, wiggling into a pair of tailored black trousers and a simple, cream cashmere sweater.
She slid back into the front seat, running her fingers through her tangled hair, trying and failing to tame the mess.
"I can’t do this," Aria panicked, her breath hitching as she stared at her bare, exhausted face in the sun visor mirror.
Damien put the Aston Martin in park.
He unbuckled his seatbelt, leaned across the center console, and grabbed both of her trembling hands in his.
"Look at me," Damien commanded, his golden eyes locking onto hers.
Aria met his gaze.
"You don’t need a script, Aria," Damien told her, his voice low. "You are Aria Sinclair. You survived the French cartel. You survived a freezing river. A room full of bottom-feeding journalists is nothing but noise. You walk in there, and you tell them whatever you want to tell them."
Aria swallowed hard, the knot in her chest loosening just a fraction.
"Okay," she whispered, squeezing his hands back. "Okay."
Meanwhile, inside Conference Room B at The Marquis Hotel. Zoe was sweating through her power suit. She stood at the podium, gripping the edges of the wood so tightly her knuckles were white. The room was packed wall-to-wall with flashing cameras and shouting reporters.
"As I have previously stated," Zoe yelled into the microphone, trying to project over the chaotic din, "we are just waiting for the final... logistical clearances before we begin."
Behind the thick, black velvet curtains separating the stage from the backstage holding area, Kai was hunched over a laptop resting on a catering crate, his fingers flying across the keyboard in a blur. Julian was pacing behind him, rapidly scrolling through a digital legal document on his tablet.
Zoe glanced down at her watch.
1:58 PM.
The reporters were getting restless. A journalist from a trashy tabloid in the second row actually stood up on a folding chair, shouting over the crowd.
"Ms. Chen! Is it true Aria Sinclair is currently hiding in a mental facility?! Stop stalling!"
Zoe couldn’t hold the line anymore. She stepped back from the podium, slipping behind the black velvet curtain.
She looked at Julian. She looked at Kai. And then, her eyes landed on Dr. Elias Thorne.
Elias was leaning against the concrete wall, nursing a lukewarm cup of black coffee. He looked like he hadn’t slept since 2019. His white coat was slightly wrinkled, and his eyes were dark with profound exhaustion.
"Dr. Thorne," Zoe pleaded, her voice cracking. "I’m out of time. Tag in."
Elias let out a long sigh. He tossed the half-empty coffee cup into a nearby trash can.
"Let’s get this over with," Elias muttered, pushing past the velvet curtain and stepping out into the blinding glare of the flashbulbs.
The volume in the room doubled the second the Chief Medical Officer of St. Jude’s approached the microphone.
"Dr. Thorne! Dr. Thorne!" a reporter shrieked from the front row. "Is Aria Sinclair brain-dead?! Was the audio leak real?!"
Another reporter, completely lacking any semblance of human decency or professional boundaries, yelled from the back, "Dr. Thorne! Are you currently single?! Are you taking applications?!"
Elias slowly turned his head, leveling the reporter who asked about his dating life with a deadpan stare so incredibly cold that the woman actually shrank back into her seat.
Elias leaned into the microphone.
"Let me be absolutely clear," Elias started, instantly silencing the shouting journalists.
"Mrs. Sinclair did not fake a coma," Elias continued, his tone entirely devoid of emotion. "Following a severe, highly traumatic incident, her body went into a state of hypothermic and physiological shock. The medical coma was a necessary, life-saving measure to prevent organ failure. It is, quite frankly, a miracle that she woke up as quickly as she did."
The room was silent for exactly two seconds.
Then, a sleazy, smirking reporter from The Daily Gossip stood up, holding a digital recorder like a weapon.
"Oh, come on, Doctor!" the reporter scoffed loudly. "Isn’t it true that Damien Sinclair is your best friend? You expect us to believe you didn’t just falsify a few medical records to cover up a massive PR stunt for his wife?!"
The accusation hung heavy in the air.
Elias didn’t even look angry. He turned his head slightly, making eye contact with Kai, who was peeking through the slit in the velvet curtain.
Kai flashed a grin and hit the ’Enter’ key on his laptop.
Elias turned back to the microphone.
"Check your phones," Elias said flatly.
A wave of dings, buzzes, and notification chimes erupted across the entire conference room. Every single journalist pulled their phone from their pocket.
The reporters stared at their screens, their jaws dropping.
Official, legally certified hospital records. Time-stamped CCTV footage of Damien Sinclair doing chest compressions on a pale, lifeless Aria on the muddy riverbank. Lab results showing her core body temperature dropping to fatal levels. Redacted, official physician signatures detailing her critical admittance.
It was airtight proof.
The entire room fell into a dumbfounded silence. The narrative they had been milking for the last twelve hours was now under question.
Elias didn’t say another word. He stepped away from the podium and walked off the stage, leaving the press staring at their screens in silent shock.
In the dead silence of the conference room, a single, desperate voice shrieked from the back row. It was a blogger who had built his entire career off hating Aria Sinclair, and he refused to let his cash cow die.
"THESE ARE PDFs!" the blogger screamed, pointing his phone at the empty podium. "ANYONE CAN FORGE A PDF!"
A few reporters turned to look at him.
"Look at the font on the lab results!" the reporter continued, his voice cracking with manic desperation. "It’s standard Arial! St. Jude’s uses Helvetica! They used AI to generate these documents! Damien Sinclair paid off the hospital board to fake the timestamps!"
It was the most ridiculous, illogical counter-theory in the history of journalism. You couldn’t fake a multi-layered, multi-departmental hospital database trail in twelve hours. It was impossible.
But the media didn’t care about logic.
They cared about ad revenue. And the headline ’Aria Sinclair Forges Medical Records’ was guaranteed to generate ten million clicks by midnight.
The momentary silence shattered. The room erupted into a renewed, even more feral frenzy.
"DR. THORNE! DID YOU USE CHATGPT TO FAKE THE BLOODWORK?!" "IS THE CCTV FOOTAGE A DEEPFAKE?!"
Backstage, Elias stopped walking. He slowly turned around, staring through the gap in the curtain at the screaming, rabid journalists who were eagerly, happily adopting the new lie as gospel.
"I hate this planet," Elias muttered.