Chapter 2

The "Bake with Me" livestream was a cataclysmic success.

Overnight, my followers doubled. Then tripled. The video of me, the beautiful, weeping homemaker, was everywhere. #StandWithAmelia trended for three days.

Jessi Vance was furious. She dedicated her next three podcasts to tearing me apart, but it was like pouring gasoline on a fire. Every attack she launched, every insult she hurled, only made my supporters more fervent. They saw a bully attacking a gentle soul.

And I let them.

With Mark's tech-world money and legal team, I moved fast. I trademarked "Amelia's Hearth." Within a month, I launched a line of organic baking mixes and artisanal home goods. They sold out in six hours. Sponsorship deals flooded my inbox: high-end kitchen appliances, luxury linen companies, organic farms.

My brand was no longer just "Tradwife." It was "Aspirational Serenity." I was selling a dream, and America was buying it.

While my public face was all soft smiles and gentle domesticity, my private life was a covert operation. I hired a private investigator, an expensive and discreet man who used to work for the CIA. His target: Jessi Vance.

I didn't need him to dig for dirt. I already knew where all the bodies were buried. I just needed him to document it. To get the receipts, the photos, the evidence I would need for the kill shot.

First, the plastic surgery. Jessi built her "girlboss" brand on natural beauty and denouncing the patriarchal pressures on women to alter their appearance. My PI came back with a thick file: invoices from a clinic in Seoul, pre-op and post-op photos of a nose job, a chin implant, and fillers so extensive her own mother wouldn't recognize her. The dates on the invoices corresponded perfectly with her "spiritual retreats" to Asia.

Next, the boyfriend. Chad Peterson. The crypto-bro leech. Publicly, Jessi preached female independence and warned against men who drain women financially and emotionally. Privately, she was paying for Chad's downtown loft, his leased Porsche, and his endless stream of failed crypto startups.

My PI got bank statements. Text messages. Photos of Chad at exclusive clubs, dropping thousands of Jessi's dollars on bottle service while she was recording podcasts about smashing the patriarchy.

The most damning piece of information was something I already knew from my first life, the real reason for Jessi's obsession with me. I had the PI dig into Chad's past social media. And there it was. A deleted post from the week before Jessi's first attack on me. It was a screenshot of my viral lunchbox video. Chad' s caption: "Now THIS is a real woman. Some of you 'girlbosses' should take notes."

He had used me, a total stranger, as a weapon to humiliate Jessi. And her fragile, surgically-altered ego couldn't take it. Her crusade wasn't about feminism. It was about petty, pathetic jealousy.

I saved every file, every photo, every screenshot into a folder on a secure, encrypted hard drive. I labeled it "Judgement Day."

One evening, Mark came home to find me staring at my laptop, a cold smile on my face. He wrapped his arms around my waist, kissing my neck.

"Another successful day, my beautiful mogul?" he murmured.

"Something like that," I replied, closing the laptop.

He didn't know about the PI. He didn't know about the hard drive. He just saw his wife, who had turned a vicious attack into a multi-million-dollar business. He was proud. He thought I was strong.

He had no idea.

I was patient. I let Jessi continue her rants. I let her dig her own grave, deeper and deeper with every hypocritical word she uttered. I let Chad bleed her dry.

I was building my empire, brick by brick. And when it was tall enough, I would stand on top of it and watch theirs burn to the ground.