Chapter 17 - The Defamation Lawsuit and Vanessa’s Utter Ruin
While Ethan rotted inside his federal cell,
Vanessa Cole found herself drowning in her own swamp of ruin.
Stripped of her luxury lifestyle,
abandoned by her wealthy socialite friends,
and blacklisted by every fashion brand in New York and Chicago,
she was forced to move into a tiny,
cramped studio apartment above a noisy laundromat in Queens.
She worked forty hours a week as a junior sales clerk at a mid-tier department store,
earning minimum wage,
her polished acrylic nails replaced by bitten,
raw fingers.
Every morning,
when she looked in the mirror,
she saw the bitter reflection of a woman who had gambled her youth on a fake millionaire and lost everything.
Racked by anger,
envy,
and desperation,
Vanessa made one last catastrophic mistake.
In a foolish attempt to extort money from the woman who had conquered Chicago,
Vanessa hired a shady ambulance-chasing attorney to file a civil lawsuit against Clara Vance and Vance Global Capital.
The lawsuit claimed ten million dollars in damages for "defamation,"
"intentional infliction of emotional distress,"
"and loss of career opportunities,"
alleging that Clara’s legal team had deliberately leaked Vanessa’s private text messages to the media to ruin her public image.
The news of the lawsuit made a minor splash in the tabloid newspapers,
and for three days,
Vanessa felt a surge of arrogant hope.
She truly believed that Clara would pay her a few hundred thousand dollars just to make the embarrassing tabloid headlines disappear.
She was wrong.
On Friday afternoon,
Vanessa sat inside a cold deposition room in downtown Manhattan,
waiting for Clara’s legal team to arrive.
The door opened,
and in walked Rachel,
accompanied by four senior partners from the largest litigation firm on Wall Street.
They did not bring small files.
They brought two rolling carts stacked high with black leather binders.
Rachel took her seat,
adjusting her silver wire glasses,
looking at Vanessa and her low-budget lawyer with quiet pity.
"Miss Cole,"
Rachel opened,
her voice icy and razor-sharp.
"We are here regarding your complaint against Miss Clara Vance."
"I want ten million dollars!"
Vanessa snapped,
trying to sound bold,
though her voice quivered with anxiety.
"Your client destroyed my reputation!"
"She ruined my marriage before it even started!"
"She made me a laughingstock across the entire country!"
Rachel didn't even smile.
She pulled the top binder from the cart,
opening it to the first page.
"Miss Cole,"
Rachel said calmly,
"this is a counter-claim filed this morning in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York."
"We are countersuing you for tortious interference,"
"conspiracy to commit corporate embezzlement,"
"and civil fraud."
Vanessa’s attorney frowned,
leaning over to look at the document.
"On what grounds?"
the attorney stammered.
"On the grounds,"
Rachel explained,
"that we have recovered deleted text messages from Ethan Cole’s server,"
"dated four months prior to his divorce from Clara Vance."
"In these messages,
Miss Cole,"
Rachel continued,
looking directly into Vanessa's terrified eyes,
"you explicitly instructed Ethan Cole to 'use your wife's credit cards' to buy your engagement ring."
"You wrote,
and I quote:"
"'She's too stupid to check the statements anyway,'"
"'make her pay for Paris.'"
The room descended into a suffocating,
horrified silence.
Vanessa's face went completely white.
Her lips parted,
but no sound came out of her throat.
"These messages,"
Rachel stated,
"prove that you were not an innocent bystander."
"You were an active accomplice in the fraudulent conversion of Clara Vance’s personal assets."
"If you do not withdraw your frivolous lawsuit within five minutes,"
"we will submit these exhibits to the New York District Attorney's office,"
"along with a formal criminal complaint for grand larceny and conspiracy."
"Furthermore,"
Rachel added,
leaning back in her chair,
"our counter-claim seeks two million dollars in legal damages,"
"which will result in the immediate garnishment of your department store wages for the rest of your natural life."
Vanessa’s attorney immediately grabbed his pen,
plucking the legal withdraw form from his folder,
and signed it in frantic,
shaky strokes.
"We withdraw the suit!"
the attorney yelled,
pushing the paper across the table.
"We withdraw everything!"
"The case is dropped!"
He grabbed his briefcase,
stood up,
and walked out of the room,
leaving Vanessa sitting completely alone at the long table.
Rachel slowly closed her leather binder,
stood up,
and looked down at the trembling woman.
"You tried to play a game with a woman who owns the board,
Miss Cole,"
Rachel whispered softly.
"Don't ever speak Clara Vance’s name again."
Rachel and her legal team walked out,
their heavy leather carts rolling smoothly behind them,
leaving Vanessa sobbing hysterically in the empty room,
facing a lifetime of quiet,
May you like
unseen,
unforgiving poverty.
