While my billionaire CEO husband stood outside his assistant's delivery room, I pressed the "Go Live" button at M21 Gate AIRPORT. Before 91,000 viewers, I publicly displayed our recently signed divorce papers and played a leaked recording in which he told doctors that "my wife is giving birth to our child" in reference to his mistress. By 10:58 a.m., he had abandoned his newborn son to frantically run through Terminal 5—only to smash his hands against the glass and watch my plane take off while his billion-dollar empire crumbled on social media...

The digital attack came at 3:00 a.m. PST.

Claire was awakened by the frantic chiming of her iPad. When she sat up, she saw her inbox flooding with alerts. Her website was under a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, and her Instagram account had been flagged for "fraudulent activity" by thousands of bot accounts simultaneously, causing it to be temporarily suspended by the platform’s automated system.

She walked out into the living room, where Liam was already awake, hunched over his laptop.

"Nolan?" Claire asked, her voice calm despite the tightness in her stomach.

"Nolan," Liam confirmed, his fingers flying across the keyboard. "He hired a digital sweatshop in Eastern Europe to bomb your infrastructure. It's a classic corporate intimidation tactic. He wants to show you that even if you're physically free, he can still choke your livelihood."

Claire walked over to the kitchen, poured two cups of black coffee, and set one down next to Liam. "Can we trace it?"

"Directly? Hard. But the digital footprint uses a specific routing protocol that matches a firm Pierce Meridian used last year to suppress a negative short-seller report," Liam said, looking up with a fierce glint in his eye. "He thinks he’s being clever, but he’s leaving breadcrumbs for a federal obstruction charge if we can tie it to his personal funds."

"Don't just fix the site, Liam. Let it stay down for a few hours," Claire said suddenly, a slow smile forming on her lips.

Liam blinked. "Why?"

"Because Nolan’s biggest weakness has always been his pride. He can’t help but brag when he thinks he’s won. Let him think I’m panicking."

Four hours later, Nolan received a notification on his secure encrypted app from his hacker: Target silenced. Site down. Social media dark.

Nolan let out the first genuine laugh he had uttered in a week. He was sitting in the boardroom of a rival boutique firm, attempting to negotiate a private consulting gig to keep his income stream alive while suspended from Pierce Meridian.

"Excellent," Nolan muttered. He looked across the table at the rival firm's managing partner, a man named Henderson who used to beg Nolan for scraps.

"So, Nolan," Henderson said, sipping his tea. "We’d love to bring you on as a senior advisor, but this... situation with your wife. It’s a publicity nightmare. Our institutional clients are very conservative."

"The situation is handled, Henderson," Nolan said arrogantly, leaning back. "My ex-wife has realized that without my capital, she can't even keep a website online. Her little business venture collapsed this morning. She’ll be begging for a settlement by Friday."

Right at that moment, Henderson’s secretary walked into the room, holding a tablet. "Mr. Henderson, you need to see the morning business broadcast on CNBC."

Henderson turned on the wall-mounted television.

The financial anchor, Becky Quick, was speaking directly into the camera. "An incredible development in the ongoing saga of the Pierce Meridian divorce. Earlier this morning, the newly launched website of Claire Whitman, the estranged wife of disgraced CEO Nolan Pierce, was targeted by a sophisticated cyberattack. However, rather than silencing her, the attack backfired spectacularly."

The screen shifted to a live interview with the CEO of Shopify, the e-commerce giant.

"We noticed the malicious traffic targeting Ms. Whitman’s store," the Shopify executive said. "It was an obvious attempt at corporate bullying. In response, our internal security team volunteered to move her site to our ultra-secure enterprise servers for free. Not only is her store back online, but we are partnering with her to launch a global artisans initiative. The publicity from the attack has actually generated over three hundred thousand new pre-orders for her upcoming collection."

Nolan’s phone slipped from his hand, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull thud.

Henderson looked at Nolan, his expression turning cold and dismissive. "It seems your wife is better at business than you are, Nolan. I think this meeting is over. We can't have someone on our team who keeps getting outsmarted by a jewelry designer."