Chapter 7 - The Production Leaks
By noon the following day, the story had metastasized across the internet.
Evan’s production coordinator, a twenty-two-year-old film student named Leo who had realized he was twenty-four hours away from being indicted as a co-conspirator, walked into the New York State Police barracks with an external hard drive and an immunity agreement signed by the district attorney.
Leo didn't just hand over the audio. He handed over the raw, unedited, multi-camera 4K footage of the entire incident.
Within three hours, despite the police attempting to hold the evidence under seal, a sixty-second clip leaked to a major celebrity news outlet.
The video wasn't the sanitized, edited version Fallon had planned. It showed the high-definition reality of the assault: Fallon smiling with predatory focus, stepping across the dance floor, raising the glass, and flicking the caustic mixture directly into my face. But what made the video go viral—what turned it into a global cultural phenomenon of disgust—was what the boom microphone caught three seconds after I screamed.
The high-grade directional mic had captured Evan Mercer standing behind the primary camera, leaning into the ear of his camera operator, and whispering:
*"Stay on her face. Don't look away. That’s our house in the Hamptons right there."*
The internet exploded with an intensity that made Fallon’s previous influencer career look like a drop in the ocean.
Her social media accounts, which had boasted nearly two million followers twelve hours earlier, became a digital abattoir. Every sponsor, from high-end skincare brands to organic tea companies, posted identical, panicked statements terminating their contracts with immediate effect. AuraDerma deleted their entire website within forty minutes.
Outside the Westchester County courthouse, where Fallon and Evan were scheduled for their preliminary arraignment, a crowd of nearly four hundred people had gathered. They weren't fans. They were carrying signs that read: *LOCK UP THE ACID BRIDE* and *JUSTICE FOR SLOAN*.
Greer sat beside my hospital bed, reading the news feeds aloud with a grim, satisfying precision.
"The District Attorney just announced they are superseding the indictment," Greer told me, her eyes gleaming. "They’re dropping the simple assault charges. They are charging Evan Mercer and Fallon Ward-Mercer with Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, Aggravated Assault with a Caustic Substance, and First-Degree Insurance Fraud."
"And Sybil?" I asked.
"Sybil was picked up an hour ago at JFK," Greer said. "She had a one-way ticket to Lisbon, two hundred thousand dollars in cashiers' checks drawn from your father’s depleted trust account, and three of Fallon’s diamond bracelets in her carry-on bag. Grand Larceny, Forgery, and Accessory After the Fact."
I touched the edge of my bandage. The swelling had begun to recede slightly under the high-dose steroids Dr. Vance had prescribed, but the skin beneath was tight, scarred, and permanently altered.
"I want to go to the courthouse," I said.
Greer looked up from her tablet, her expression shifting from vindication to concern. "Sloan, you’re less than forty-eight hours post-op. Dr. Vance said you shouldn't be moving."
May you like
"I don't need to run a marathon, Greer," I said, pulling the IV line’s tape from the back of my hand with a sharp, steady yank. "I just need to look my sister in the eye when the judge reads the charges."
***
