The Fake Angel's Downfall

Two charity cases transferred into this elite private high school. One was me. The other was the "innocent angel" brought back by Vaughn, the billionaire heir.

During the three months Vaughn was in Europe for a family corporate merger, his frat boys built an absolute defensive class barrier around this girl at school.

The moment I stepped onto campus, I was dragged into an endless nightmare of bullying.

The frat assholes slammed my lunch tray into my face in the cafeteria, forcing me to lick mashed potatoes off the filthy floor.

The cheerleaders dragged me into a bathroom stall, blasted me with freezing water, and used scissors to shred my beautiful long hair to pieces.

After that "innocent angel" squeezed out a few more tears for the frat boys, I was pinned down hard in the locker room, forced to choke down vodka laced with illegal drugs.

Just as a street thug ripped open my uniform shirt, the storage room door was kicked open. Vaughn was back.

He glanced at me, his brows pulling together in a frown as he lowered his voice. "I told you to just give her a warning.

Who the hell told you to take it this far?" Over a decade later, I stepped foot into his family's estate once again. This time, I was here to break off our engagement.

Chapter 1 At the sound of Vaughn's icy voice, the guys who were just whistling a second ago froze, the atmosphere turning icecold.

Hunter, Vaughn's most loyal quarterback lapdog in the frat, shrugged and took a step forward, faking a relaxed posture. "Man, don't be like that.

We were just teaching her the rules around here, getting justice for Juliette. You have no idea how arrogant that bitch Sloane usually is.

If we didn't protect Juliette, she would've been eaten alive." Hunter's family business relied entirely on handouts from the Vaughn empire.

Ever since he transferred to this school a year ago, he had been operating in full minion mode. If Vaughn pointed east, Hunter didn't dare look west. "Yeah, exactly.

Juliette just transferred here, and you left for Europe.

We had to watch her back." "That bitch Sloane makes Juliette cry all the time…" "We just wanted to teach her a lesson, that's all. Nothing real was going to happen.

Even if you didn't walk in, we would've called it off at the last second." Seeing Hunter take the heat, the rest of the crew started scrambling over each other to make excuses.

Their families had money, sure, but they were nothing compared to the Vaughns. Most of them survived off the scraps that fell from the Vaughn family's fingertips.

Everyone knew there were only two types of people at this elite prep school: Vaughn, and Vaughn's lackeys. These guys were all the latter.

After all, Vaughn was the one who greenlit giving me a "little lesson." But who would have thought that the person who saved me at the very last second would be him, too.

I lay under the glaring surgical lights, the freezing IV fluid crashing into my veins.

The tearing agony of having my stomach pumped was nothing compared to the bonechilling cold in my heart.

The rough fingers of that street thug and the stench of cheap weed still seemed to cling to my skin.

I bit down hard on my lip, staring at the ceiling, refusing to let a single tear fall.

In this VIP hospital room reeking of sharp disinfectant, I pulled the blanket over my head, desperately trying to block out the noise coming from outside the door.

But of course, they weren't going to let it go. The noise outside showed no signs of stopping.

Vaughn glanced at me through the glass door of the hospital room, a flash of highly unnatural guilt crossing his eyes.

He ran a hand through his hair in frustration, lowering his voice. "I just told you guys to give her a warning so Juliette wouldn't be embarrassed.

Who the fuck told you to use that kind of drug?" A harsh sneer echoed from the hallway. "Oh, come on.

She's just trailer park trash who needs a charity fund to even afford tuition." "Nobody would believe her even if she went to the cops.

What else can she do but swallow it?" Vaughn frowned, his jaw tightening as if he were about to rip into the guy.

But a delicate, weeping voice instantly snuffed out his anger. "Vaughn, it's all my fault. I was too sensitive and made everyone misunderstand… punish me.

Please don't be mad at them…" she sobbed, her voice trembling like a startled deer. "Oh, come on, Juliette, you're just too kind…" "It's fine, it's fine.

Vaughn knows we were just trying to protect you. He won't stay mad at us…" The crowd immediately shifted gears, showering Juliette with frantic comfort.

Chapter 2 Vaughn's demeanor instantly softened at the sight. He stepped up to Juliette, his thumb gently brushing a tear from her cheek. "Hey, it's okay. I'm not mad.

No more tears, alright?" "Alright, alright, wrap it up," someone chimed in to smooth things over. "Vaughn, man, you haven't been back in a year." "Juliette missed you like crazy.

Let's hit up the usual spot and throw you a proper welcome back party." Vaughn and Juliette were ushered to the center of the group, and the whole entourage swept out of the hallway in a massive wave.

The second the hospital door clicked shut, I ripped the IV needle out of the back of my hand. Blood welled up instantly, but I didn't even flinch.

I stared at my pale, deadeyed reflection in the window glass.

I knew then that the Sloane who once held onto stupid fantasies of him being her savior had died in that storage room, suffocating on the stench of weed.

I didn't know how long I drifted in and out of a heavy, suffocating sleep. A faint rustle near the door snapped me awake. I had always been a light sleeper.

It was a leftover survival instinct—one that Vaughn had actually managed to cure once upon a time. Back then, he crashed into my messedup life looking like highsociety royalty.

I remember gripping the frayed hem of a ratty sweater, feeling out of place. The neighbor lady had handed it down to me because she couldn't stand seeing me shiver in rags.

She told me I was seven years old now and couldn't be sprinting around halfnaked like the feral boys in the neighborhood.

The sweater was washedout and massively oversized, practically swallowing my scrawny frame.

That year, Vaughn was wearing a customtailored suit from a brand I couldn't even pronounce, looking like a coldblooded aristocrat who had taken a wrong turn into the slums.

He stared at my ankles, which were caked in mud and covered in bruises, without a single trace of disgust.

He just dropped down on one knee right into the dirt and held out a perfect hand—a hand that looked like it was only meant to sign massive checks. "Look at me," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Your mother took a bullet for me.

From today on, you belong to the Vaughns." I stared at his pristine, aristocratic hand. I slowly let go of my sweater and tremblingly placed my hand in his.

His skin was impossibly smooth. So smooth that I panicked, terrified that the thick calluses I'd built up from years of heavy labor would scratch him. But he didn't care.

Instead, his fingers closed tightly around mine, locking me in his grip. Audrey, his mother, had come with him.

She swept her gaze over the dumping ground I called a home, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows pulling together. When she looked back at me, there was a flash of raw pity in her eyes.

Growing up, that was the exact same look everyone gave me.

They all whispered that if my grandfather hadn't been a greedy bastard, my mom might have actually escaped this suffocating, backward town.

Her college acceptance letter had actually made it all the way to her hands.

But right when she was glowing with the desperate hope of a brand new life, my grandfather snatched that flimsy piece of paper—the only thing carrying her entire future—and ripped it to shreds. "The only reason I let you finish high school was so I could pawn you off to the Miller family for a massive payout," he had spat. "A worthless girl like you has already wasted enough money on books.

You think you're going to college? You're out of your damn mind!" "The Millers dropped off the cash this afternoon.

You're marrying their oldest son next month, so you better kill that little college dream right now!" Instead of the bright city lights and bustling streets she had dreamed of, she was locked in a basement.

And that lock ended up trapping her for the rest of her life. My mother was sold off like damaged goods to my father. And that payout?

My grandfather used it to buy my deadbeat uncle a spot in a fancy prep school in the city. My mom had me first. A worthless girl.

She lived every single day enduring beatings and breaking her back with endless chores. It wasn't until she gave birth to my little brother that her life got just a fraction easier.

And her tragic life seamlessly became my own.

Chapter 3 It wasn't until Audrey suddenly appeared in front of me with Vaughn that I realized my mother had traded her life to buy me a future.

A future completely different from hers, and from the nightmare I was living. My mom had been missing for half a month.

I thought she was just locked in the cellar again, chained up by my dad with the very padlock my grandfather had handed him.

I told myself over and over that as long as the hard bread in front of the basement door eventually disappeared, my mom was still alive.

In this living hell fueled by cheap alcohol and relentless violence, she was my only sliver of light.

Glancing at my dad, who was standing to the side with a sickening, groveling smile plastered on his face, I had no idea my entire existence was about to permanently shift.

I pulled my hand back from Vaughn's, looking between him and Audrey with wide, desperate eyes. "My mom saved you? Is she in the hospital right now?

Is that why I haven't seen her in so long?

Can you take me to see her?" My voice pitched up in frantic excitement, the movement accidentally exposing the faded, nasty bruises crisscrossing my arms.

They were courtesy of my dad. The reasons for his beatings were endless.

Sometimes my little brother would kick off his blankets in his sleep, and if I didn't catch it in time to tuck him back in, I'd earn a brutal thrashing.

It was why I never dared to fall into a deep sleep. Audrey's eyes immediately reddened. She pulled me into a tight, crushing hug.

Vaughn just stood there in absolute silence, his gaze locked onto the purple and yellow marks on my skin. A dark, unreadable storm gathered in his eyes.

A few days later, all I got was the flashing red and blue lights of a squad car and a body covered by a stark white sheet.

To shield Vaughn from a kidnapper's lethal knife strike, my mother's stomach was brutally punctured, leaving her bleeding out on the spot.

With her dying breath, she demanded a guarantee from Audrey. An ironclad guarantee that would singlehandedly rewrite the rest of my life.

They stayed in that suffocating town with me for an entire summer. The Vaughn empire was navigating a brutal corporate war at the time, so they couldn't immediately extract me.

Audrey, her face an absolute mask of ice, issued a lethal warning to my deadbeat dad.

She told him a generous trust deposit would hit his account every single month, strictly on the condition that he provided for me.

She promised they would send people to check in randomly, and if they found a single new scratch on my body—or if I was living in the same squalor—the cash flow would be permanently cut off.

Thanks to that dirty money, I experienced a brief, fleeting taste of a normal life. I blinked, the suffocating memory shattering like glass.

The deep, safe sleep that Vaughn had once cured for me had just been violently shoved right back into the abyss by his own hands. Seeing my eyes open, Vaughn froze.

He had clearly tried to muffle his movements, caught off guard that I was already awake.

His jaw tightened as he pushed the hospital door shut, no longer bothering to hide his heavy footsteps. "You're awake?

Why didn't you sleep longer?" I stared at him with hollow, deadened eyes and gave a mechanical shake of my head.

He dragged a chair right to my bedside, his gaze zeroing in on the nasty bruise at the corner of my mouth.

It was the parting gift I'd earned from taking a brutal slap to the face when I fought back against the guy trying to rip my clothes off.

Vaughn and I just stared at each other in suffocating silence. Neither of us said a word. In truth, I actually wanted to open my mouth. I wanted to ask him why.

Why the hell he would do this to me. Back when my world was nothing but a hopeless dead end, he was the blinding light that ripped through the endless dark of my life.

He was the one who looked me in the eye and swore he would protect me for the rest of my life.

Chapter 4 Ever since Vaughn's first visit, he came back every summer and winter break to spend time with me.

I stopped looking like a starved ghost, and my palms lost that rough, sandpaper texture from my earlier years of labor.

My mother had always been beautiful, and I inherited her features, maybe even outshining them.

Without the constant grind of survival crushing me, I blossomed out of my awkward phase into a young woman.

That was the first time I ever caught Vaughn staring at me with a faint flush on his neck. "You know," he had said. "My mother promised yours that you'd marry into the Vaughn family." His words were a match struck in a dark room.

The stagnant, deadend reality I lived in only ever felt alive when he showed up, and that single sentence sent a jolt straight to my chest.

The summer night sky over that rusty town was stunning, a massive canvas of black spilled with stars.

Standing under that sky, the teenage boy clumsily reached out and pulled me into his chest. "It's almost over.

Once my mom completely locks down the board of directors and takes full control, she'll bring you home." "If we take you back right now, they'll use you as a target." That was the night I finally understood the brutal reality Vaughn and Audrey were trapped in.

I realized that everyone, no matter how untouchable they seemed, had their own personal hell. Vaughn carried his mother's maiden name for a reason.

Audrey came from old money and had married a man from an equally powerful family.

But the guy turned out to be a total snake—not only cheating on her constantly but actively plotting to swallow her family's entire fortune.

Audrey was an only child, and after her father passed, Vaughn's biological dad tried to orchestrate a hostile takeover of the entire Vaughn empire. But Audrey was ruthless.

She legally changed her son's last name to Vaughn and announced her divorce right in the middle of a highsociety gala.

She wasn't just divorcing him; she was wiping him out financially. Of course, a bastard like that didn't go down without a fight, sparking a bloodsoaked corporate war.

The kidnapping that almost got Vaughn killed? His own father helped orchestrate it. On that summer night when we were sixteen, I saw the first crack in Vaughn's armor.

I couldn't stop myself from reaching up and smoothing the hard line between his eyebrows. "So… your dad doesn't love you either." At least we both had mothers who sacrificed everything for us.

At least we had each other. "What are you thinking about?" Vaughn finally shattered the dead silence in the hospital room. I just gave a slight shake of my head.

Another suffocating stretch of quiet followed. It stretched on so long I thought he was done talking.

He finally dragged his eyes away from mine. "If you targeted Juliette a little less, and stopped acting like this arrogant victim all the time, my guys wouldn't have used such extreme methods to teach you a lesson." Vaughn stared at me coldly, like he was passing judgment on a criminal. "Sloane, stop blaming everything on everyone else.

Do you really think you bear zero responsibility for the pathetic state you're in right now?" I actually saw thick, unfiltered disappointment swimming in his eyes. He was right.

I should reflect on myself. I should take a long, hard look in the mirror and figure out why I let myself sink so low. My mother paid for this new life with a hole in her heart.

It was never supposed to be like this. When exactly did Vaughn change?

It probably started during New Year's when we were seventeen, the day Juliette transferred back into our miserable little town.

Chapter 5 Juliette's parents dragged her off to the city when she was just a kid. Rumor had it they were the first family to ever claw their way out of our deadend town.

When they left, they acted like absolute royalty. But when they finally crawled back, it was a completely different story.

Juliette was brutally kicked out of a rustedout pickup truck by a man reeking of cheap booze. "Cry, cry, cry! That's all you fucking do! You cried away all my damn luck!

If you weren't constantly whining, I wouldn't have lost every single bet!" "Your stripper whore of a mother saw I went bankrupt and ran off with another guy!

She dumped all her debt and your crying ass on me. Shut the fuck up before I break your legs!" I found out later that Juliette's dad was a massive gambling addict.

Once they hit it big in the city, his addiction spiraled out of control.

The sharks at the underground casinos saw an easy mark with deep pockets and bled him dry until he lost every last cent.

Her mom, totally addicted to the high life, couldn't handle the crash and bailed.

The bank foreclosed on their city house, leaving them with nothing but that rusted pickup truck and endless screaming matches.

That was the year Vaughn came down to spend the winter holidays with me. On New Year's Eve, as he pulled me outside to set off fireworks, we spotted Juliette.

She had been locked out of her trailer, shivering in the freezing snow.

Maybe it was because I knew exactly what that kind of hell felt like, but a pathetic wave of pity washed over me. I walked over and pulled Juliette up from the ice.

She had grown up spoiled in the city, and she had this delicate, pretty face.

Even dragged through the mud, she had this fragile, brokendoll look that practically begged to be saved.

What I didn't know was that my momentary kindness was about to make Vaughn obsessed with her shattered little act. After that night, something shifted in Vaughn.

Every time he came back to town, the very first thing he did was ask about Juliette.

Whenever he caught the cold flash in my eyes, he would quickly backtrack, his posture stiffening as he scrambled for excuses. "Sloane, don't overthink it.

I just… she reminds me so much of how you used to be. Every time I look at her, I remember the day I found you in the dirt.

I just feel bad for you…" Eventually, he didn't even bother putting effort into his pathetic lies.

A heavy impatience would settle between his eyebrows. "Sloane, why are you being so paranoid? Are you getting too comfortable? Did you forget what you used to look like?

Why are you so damn heartless?" "I just think she's pathetic.

What's wrong with tossing her a lifeline?" It all came to a head when Audrey finally seized absolute control of the board and was ready to bring me back to the city.

That was when Vaughn stepped in. "The Vaughn trust can fund one charity case, it can fund two." "Juliette is transferring with us.

It's not a request." It hit me right then—a cold, sickening drop in my stomach. Without me even realizing it, Vaughn had stopped being my savior a long time ago.

But I was still stupidly clinging to the edge. "This is a settlement agreement. Sign it." Out of nowhere, Vaughn slid a manila folder onto my hospital bed.

I snapped my head up, my eyes locking onto his face like crosshairs. "You're telling me to sign a settlement with a thug who just tried to sexually assault me?" If Vaughn hadn't kicked that door open, "attempted" wouldn't even be in the sentence.

But Vaughn's entire goal was to sweep this under the rug. After all, I didn't actually get hurt, right?

Vaughn actively avoided my stare, fixing his gaze on the wall. "If that guy goes to prison, Hunter and the rest of the frat will have their family reputations and their Ivy League spots completely destroyed.

Juliette is having a total meltdown over this.

She thinks she singlehandedly ruined the frat's entire future." Chapter 6 So, Juliette's tears were supposed to just wash away every single thing they did to me?

The pathetic, suffocating hope I had been clinging to shattered into dust. My desperate excuses—that Vaughn was just projecting his memories of the old me onto Juliette—collapsed.

I had to face the brutal reality. He had wiped clean the promises he made to me when we were kids. He wasn't my savior anymore. He was the one personally shoving me off the ledge.

My forced composure snapped. Uncontrollable tremors ripped through my body.

I gripped the hospital blanket so hard my knuckles went white, a sharp, stinging pain shooting straight through the back of my hand. "Let go!

Your IV is backing up!" Vaughn's sharp command dragged me back. His hand clamped over mine, but it didn't carry that old, anchoring weight anymore. It just felt like ice.

I felt nothing but a hollow chill. I released my death grip on the sheets and leveled a dead stare at him. "Vaughn.

Do you realize I was almost raped?" The weight of that word visibly hit him. A flicker of guilt crossed his face. But he snuffed it out in a fraction of a second.

He immediately rationalized it away. "Sloane, you just said almost.

You're perfectly fine now, aren't you?" "Juliette only made it to the city because of you, and she already feels insecure.

My mom is insanely stubborn—she feels guilty about bringing Juliette to the city, so she smothers you with attention and treats Juliette like a ghost." "If I don't watch her back, do you want her to get bullied to death?

I'll admit, I told Hunter and the guys to keep an eye on her. I didn't expect them to take it that far.

But take a step back—are you completely innocent?" "If you were just a little nicer to her, or put in a good word with my mom, she wouldn't be this insecure." Vaughn paused, his posture straightening as he layered on the selfrighteousness. "I guarantee you, nothing like today will ever happen again.

But you have to sign this settlement. Otherwise, Juliette is going to be a wreck." I met Vaughn's eyes, seeing nothing but impatient charity. The sheer absurdity of it all hit me.

The boy who had reached into the mud to save me was now handing a knife directly to my abusers. "Give me the pen." I snatched the settlement agreement from him and slashed my signature across the bottom without a single hesitation. "Congratulations, Vaughn.

You just personally slaughtered the last piece of whatever we had left." And just like that, the circus ended with a stroke of a pen. Vaughn and I were dead.

Maybe some microscopic shred of guilt was eating at him, because Vaughn actually stayed at the hospital with me for the next few days. "If my mom finds out about this, she'll blow it completely out of proportion.

So I didn't tell her you were admitted." For once, he wasn't running off to coddle a "heartbroken" Juliette. I rolled onto my side, giving him my back. I was done listening.

He froze, awkwardly holding out a peeled apple. Two suffocating minutes passed before he pulled his hand back. "If you're tired, just rest." "I talked to the doctor.

Your system is flushed out. You can be discharged tomorrow.

Did you want to head back to the estate, or straight to campus?" I stared at the blank wall, keeping my back to him. "Campus." After all, I had to pack up my dorm room. "Alright.

I'll pick you up in the morning." The door clicked shut. He was gone. Chapter 7 The next morning, I didn't wait for Vaughn.

I signed my own discharge papers and caught a bus back to campus.

This elite private high school sat on a hilltop in the city's richest zip code, its parking lot crammed with Porsches and Maybachs.

They only accepted billionaire heirs and politicians' kids. The annual tuition alone was enough to buy a mansion.

Juliette and I only stepped foot on these grounds because of the Vaughn family's charity.

Here, everyone knew Juliette was the untouchable girl Vaughn kept wrapped around his finger. Nobody had a clue about my actual history with him.

On my first day, my class introduction was met with dead silence.

These trustfund babies stared at me with pure, unfiltered disgust. "She's decentlooking, but God, she's disgusting. She just piggybacked off Vaughn's girl to get in here.

How is she not embarrassed?" "Obviously. Trash from the boonies will cling like a parasite the second they see a meal ticket. She's not even the same species as us." "Right?

And she's acting all high and mighty. Who the hell is she trying to fool?" When it was Juliette's turn, the room completely flipped. "Holy shit, she's literally an angel.

How does a trailer park produce someone that gorgeous?" "No wonder Vaughn is obsessed with her.

Before he flew out for Europe, he made it crystal clear we had to watch her back." "Whatever Vaughn says, goes. She's a million times better than that stuckup bitch Sloane.

Juliette is actual perfection. Look at those dimples!" For the past year, Juliette basked in absolute privilege. Cash fixed everything.

Her degenerate father grabbed his monthly payoff and vanished back into the city's underground casinos, while Vaughn funded Juliette's perfect life.

It was like she never even tasted the dirt of our rotten hometown.

She played the part of the sheltered, flawless city girl flawlessly. "I hope we can all be great friends," she had said.

Amidst a wave of cheers, Juliette took the premier seat in the front row. I kept my mouth shut and dragged my boots to the darkest corner of the room.

I thought that was the end of it. I had no idea it was just the kickoff to a relentless nightmare.

With Vaughn's official stamp of approval, Juliette became their untouchable princess.

Even though I practically buried myself in textbooks and completely erased my presence, they still dragged me into their crosshairs.

Juliette clearly wasn't satisfied with the status quo. She wanted me erased.

She started dropping toxic little hints to the frat boys, spinning a twisted narrative that I only leached off the Vaughn trust fund because of her. "I heard the only reason the Vaughns are paying your tuition is because your mom saved Vaughn's life, right?

Juliette, since you're so pretty, your mom must have been a total saint!" Juliette's response was pure manipulation. She didn't confirm it, but she didn't deny it either.

She just ducked her head in fake modesty. "My mom always taught me to keep a kind heart.

Just do good things and don't expect anything in return." The disgust in the room instantly dialed up. "So Juliette gets to live the good life because her mom literally took a bullet, but what the hell gives Sloane the right?" "Is she a fucking thief?

Trying to steal someone else's tragic backstory? If she wants a handout so badly, her mom should go jump in front of a gun too!

Why leech off Juliette's life?" "Wow, you're giving her way too much credit. Trash like that doesn't have the guts.

If the daughter is this pathetic, her mom is probably just as worthless." Chapter 8