Chapter 175: Damage
Ryan’s POV
The search for Vivian’s ex was not bearing any fruit and that was frustrating for Ryan. He barely got any work done, instead focusing most of his energy on trying to find that awful human being. But no matter how many people Ryan got on the job, they just could not seem to track him down.
Finding Bryce should have been as easy as plucking fruit from a tree. Ryan had never had trouble finding anyone when he really, really wanted to get his hands on them. And yet when it came to Vivian’s ex, he was struggling to do so. He had even gone as far as to suspect that Gwendolyn Stuart the fourth might have somehow been involved. She was the only person other than Bryce, who stood to benefit from Ryan not getting his hands on the man.
But when he’d had people track her movements, he had found nothing linking her to Bryce’s vanishing act. In fact, around the time that Bryce had gone missing, Gwendolyn had not been in the city. She had been off enjoying herself in another country.
So that took her off the list of possible people who could have helped the man escape.
But it still left Ryan not knowing where to find Bryce. After yet another day spent searching for somebody who seemed to have developed the power of invisibility out of nowhere, Ryan had returned to his penthouse, not knowing how he was going to face Vivian again. But the moment that he had walked into his bedroom and had found her crying, all thoughts of disappointing her had vanished from his mind as he had immediately gone into damage control mode.
Now he was holding a crying Vivian in his arms and trying his best to console her while not knowing exactly what was wrong. Finally getting her to calm down enough to speak to him, Ryan asked the question, "What is going on? Did something happen?" Wiping the tears from her eyes, Vivian looked at him sadly.
"Someone made this," She told him, then she held out her phone for him to see. As much as people liked to say that they knew the difference between fake and real, as technology got more advanced a lot of people struggled with that.
The truth was most human beings had a bit of trouble telling the difference between reality and AI. So far, Ryan had had teams of people working on doing damage control and making sure that Vivian’s reputation did not take too much of a hit. But what he was currently looking at was a whole different beast.
A sex tape.
They had used AI to create a sex tape. No matter what, real or not, people, especially the creepy ones, were going to flock to it and that was what was currently happening. Someone had made a sex tape of Vivian in an orgy and it already had over a million views. Feeling sick to his stomach, Ryan placed the phone on the bed and pulled Vivian even closer to him, waves upon waves of guilt, washing over him.
In a way this was all his fault. Bryce had started this entire thing after seeing Ryan with Vivian. Perhaps if the man had never witnessed them together, he would never have started all of the hate that Vivian was having to endure.
"I am so sorry Vivian," He told her but she should her head staring at him with red rimmed eyes.
"It is not your fault. I just can’t believe that someone would do this," Ryan nodded. Taking out his phone, he sent a quick text to his people. A few seconds later, he got a reply, it was not all good news, but it was something.
"My people are unable to trace the source of the video. It seems to be coming from somebody well equipped, but what they have been able to do is to attach a virus to it. From now on anyone who shares it, or who views it will have their device instantly freeze up. Pretty soon nobody will be wanting to spread it around,"
Vivian’s eyes widened. "Are you certain?" Ryan nodded. "Is that even legal?" She asked.
Completely unbothered, Ryan shrugged. "Probably not, but I do not care. If breaking the law is what it takes to help, then for you, I will do so in a heartbeat," Taking out his phone again, he sent another text. The person on the other end was also quick to respond and in less than a minute, Ryan had something else in the works.
"There, there is an actress who owes me a favor. She’s currently having an affair with a married politician that she does not like anymore . I have just instructed her to expose that and burn him. In exchange for me protecting her reputation, she is going to be taking all of the attention away from you and towards herself." It would be effective damage control. Ryan knew that much, but at the end of the day, damage control came after an injury had already been suffered. Everything that he had done would only minimize Vivian’s hurt. It would not take her hurt away, and that pained him.
***
"I should have anticipated that things would not die down without escalating first. My people should have been on the lookout for such damaging videos circulating the internet," Vivian shook her head.
"We can’t guess the things that other people will do. So I do not blame you for any of this," Not knowing what to do with her easy forgiveness. Ryan drew Vivian into yet another hug. The two of them parting when her phone began to ring. Picking it up, Vivian showed him the collar ID. It was the school director. Before she answered it and brought it to her ear, she shared a wide eyed look with him, but all that he could offer her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
Staying silent, he let her take the call, his fingers crossed that nothing bad was going on.
"Of course, of course, I understand, yes, ... yes," When the call ended, Vivian gave him such a heartbroken look that Ryan already knew that whatever she was about to say, it was going to be awful.
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