Richard turned toward her.
“You represented my company tonight.”
“Dad—”
“Didn't you?”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
“And you livestreamed it.”
“Yes.”
“To how many people?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“Forty-two thousand at the peak.”
Nobody moved.
Forty-two thousand.
I felt suddenly nauseated.
Daniel's head turned toward me.
He saw it.
His hand found mine under the table.
Richard rubbed his forehead.
“Jesus Christ.”
Sloane's phone vibrated on the table.
Then Evan's.
Then again.
And again.
The clip had already escaped the livestream.
Of course it had.
Someone had recorded it.
Someone had posted it.
Sloane looked at her screen.
All the blood drained from her face.
“What?” Richard asked.
She didn't answer.
Evan checked his own phone.
“Oh, shit.”
“What?”
He turned the screen.
A repost of the video had accumulated more than two hundred thousand views.
The caption read:
RICH DEVELOPER'S DAUGHTER DUMPS COKE ON WAITRESS FOR CONTENT.
The internet didn't know who I was.
Not yet.
I looked at Sloane.
For the first time that night, neither of us had control over what happened next.
Then my own phone started ringing.
---