Chapter 24
AVA
T he news cycle churns forward without mercy, and I find myself checking my phone every few minutes like some sort of digital addiction. I don't feel guilty about what I've done. Why should I? My husband didn't feel guilty when he cheated on me, so he can get fucked.
I sip my chamomile tea and scroll through the headlines like I'm checking tomorrow's weather forecast. The stories have taken on a life of their own now, spreading across every platform, every blog, every tabloid desperate for clicks.
Roman Muller suspended again amid rising backlash.
Annie Collins dropped from a third brand partnership this week.
Ava Muller, quiet in public, has become a symbol of silent strength.
This isn't revenge, no matter what anyone thinks. It's justice. Pure and simple justice for every woman who's been lied to, cheated on, and made to feel like she wasn't enough.
I lean against the granite kitchen counter, watching the steam rise from my mug in delicate spirals.
Through the sliding glass door, I can see Roman on the back patio, slumped in one of our wrought-iron chairs like a broken puppet.
He's staring at the sky as if it might reveal the secrets of how to undo everything he's lost.
Good luck, pal.
He's been wearing the same grey sweatpants for three days now.
His face is covered in patchy stubble that makes him look older, more worn down than his thirty-two years should allow.
There's a hollowness to his entire frame that I've never seen before—like the man who used to command every room he entered has been slowly deflating from the inside out.
He’s losing weight, and despite myself, I want to feed him and tell him to get a fucking grip. But I can’t. He deserves this.
He hasn't spoken to me in forty-eight hours. He hasn't asked me questions or demanded explanations. But he knows exactly what I did and how I did it.
Maybe he’s giving up. Feeling as powerless as I did when he fucked me over.
The texts I leaked to the gossip blogs and feminist media sites came directly from his phone.
He never bothered to change his password from our anniversary date—how's that for irony?
And maybe that's precisely why he hasn't confronted me about any of this.
Maybe he understands that this was never about vengeance.
Annie Collins didn't just break the girl code when she decided to sleep with my husband. She took a fucking blowtorch to it, scattered the ashes to the wind, and then had the audacity to go live on Instagram to cry about heartbreak and betrayal like she was the victim in all of this.
She claimed she didn't know Roman was married, she said she thought we were separated but hadn't announced it publicly yet. That she was just following her heart, chasing true love, all that romantic bullshit that sounds pretty until you realize it's built on a foundation of lies.
What a fucking cunt she is. Wrecking our marriage wasn’t enough—she made out it was in tatters and didn’t exist while she sucked my husband's cock.
I shudder with rage. I still want to gut her like a fucking fish for ever touching what is mine—what was mine. But it’s Roman who let her in—it’s him I have to blame.
But she is going to suffer too, because she knew exactly what she was doing, the skanky bitch.
Those text messages I released—those messages exposed the truth in black and fucking white.
She knew exactly what she was doing. Our marriage may have been struggling, but it wasn’t over.
Sure, maybe it was on its way, but we’d never even had a conversation about it.
She knew he had a wife and a daughter at home, and she didn't give a shit. Now the world knows it too.
Annie lost every single sponsorship deal within seventy-two hours of the story breaking.
Her luxury skincare brand, the one that paid her six figures to post those perfect morning routine videos, dropped her contract immediately.
The protein powder company that plastered her abs across their Instagram feed wiped every trace of her from their campaigns.
Even the discount fast-fashion label that used to adore her bubbly personality cut ties with a public statement about "aligning with our values. "
She posted a tearful video response two days ago. Black mascara streaked down her cheeks like war paint, and her voice cracked with every word.
"I didn't mean to hurt anyone," she sobbed into the camera, her usual perfect lighting replaced by harsh overhead fluorescents. "I thought he was being honest with me. Please, don't believe everything you read online."
The comments section wasn't kind. Not even a little bit.
Girl, bye.
You knew he was married.
Dirty hoe.
And my personal favourite:
She's not crying for what she did. She's crying because the rent's due.
It turns out influencers without clean reputations don't get to keep luxury high-rise condos with doormen and infinity pools overlooking the city. Last I heard, she's couch surfing or maybe back home with her parents in Ohio. I haven't checked because I don't need to.
I don’t give a fuck.
She's unravelling quietly and completely, and I can't say I feel sorry for the bitch.
Roman is imploding in slow motion, and that's harder to watch than I thought it would be.
The bastard destroyed our marriage, but seeing him fall apart still twists something in my chest that I wish I could turn off.
The NFL issued their formal statement two days ago, and it was exactly what you'd expect from a corporate entity trying to protect their image—clinical, carefully worded, heavy on condemnation and light on sympathy.
We do not condone violence in any form. We hold our players to the highest standard of professionalism, both on and off the field. Mr. Muller's conduct does not reflect the values of this organization.
They suspended him for four more games without pay.
No press conferences. No media appearances.
His locker was cleaned out, and his personal items were delivered to our front door in a cardboard box that now sits unopened in our garage.
His teammates have gone silent on social media—no supportive posts, no words of encouragement.
Even the rookies he spent hours mentoring have quietly unfollowed him across all platforms.
The Nike deal that he was so proud of? Dead .
The protein drink commercial he filmed just last month won't see the light of day.
The local car dealership that used to plaster his face on billboards across the city replaced him with a smiling family of four driving a sensible minivan to soccer practice.
His face used to be everywhere in this damn town. Now it's nowhere.
I hear him pacing at night when he thinks I'm asleep. The creak of the old floorboards in the hallway is familiar—and I know he sits outside our room while I sleep.
He’s never done that before.
Sometimes I hear him crying too. Quiet, desperate sounds that drift under the door of the guest bedroom where he's been since everything came out.
I used to cry the same way, muffling my sobs in my pillow so he wouldn't hear and ask questions I wasn't ready to answer.
He doesn't bother with that kind of discretion anymore.
My phone buzzes against the counter, and Amanda's name appears on the screen.
"Your interview aired again last night," her text reads. "The comments are incredible. You're making real waves, Ava. People are calling you a hero."
I don't reply immediately, but I find myself smiling for the first time in days. The emails have been pouring in steadily since that interview aired—messages from women who saw themselves in my story, from journalists who want to dig deeper, from editors who recognize the power in quiet strength.
I saw myself in your words.
You reminded me that I can walk away.
Thank you for being so classy in a shitstorm of skanky.
I didn't scream or throw things when I discovered the affair. I didn't drag them through the mud on social media or take to the microphone to burn everything down in a blaze of public fury. I just lived my truth quietly and let the facts speak for themselves.
The truth always finds a way to surface. It just takes time.
Poppy runs into the kitchen with her usual boundless energy, dark curls bouncing around her face as she clutches her favourite picture book—the one about the little girl who builds a rocket ship to visit her grandmother on the moon.
She climbs into my lap like it's her personal throne, and I feel the familiar weight of her small body grounding me in a way that no news headline or supportive message ever could.
"Mama, read," she says, looking up at me with Roman's eyes.
Such beautiful eyes.
"Always, baby," I whisper, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head that smells like her shampoo and childhood innocence.
I open the book and let the familiar story spill between us, my voice soft and steady as we follow the little girl's adventures among the stars.
For these few minutes, nothing else exists—not the scandal or the media attention, and not the man falling apart on our back patio.
Just my daughter and the magic of a story that promises happy endings are possible if you're brave enough to build your own spaceship.
Later, after Poppy is tucked into bed with her stuffed elephant and a promise that tomorrow we'll read two stories instead of one, I open my laptop at the kitchen table. Another email from Femme & Fierce magazine waits in bold font, marked as urgent.
Follow-Up Interview Request: From Silence to Strength
They want a cover story—A full spread! My face on newsstands across the country. A feature about what it means to reclaim your voice without ever raising it, about finding power in dignity rather than destruction.
I stare at the cursor blinking in the reply box for a long moment, listening to the quiet sounds of our house settling around me. The dishwasher humming. The grandfather clock in the living room marking another hour. Roman's footsteps moving restlessly across the patio outside.
Then I type without hesitation: I think I'm ready.
Because this isn't just the aftermath of a marriage that crumbled under the weight of betrayal. This isn't just about getting back at the people who hurt me.
This is the beginning of something entirely new. Something that belongs to me alone.
And for the first time in a very long time, I'm the one writing the story .