Twisted Ties of Love
Chapter 398

The topic "Ariana Abuses Cats" suddenly popped up at the top of the trending search list.

Ariana rubbed her eyes, wondering if she was hallucinating due to stress, or if her phone was glitching.

Kristin had just mentioned "Izabella Abuses Cats" over the phone. So why was she seeing something different?

Her heart was pounding like a drum, and an intense anxiety was creeping over her. She carefully opened her eyes to look at her phone again. Nothing had changed, except that the popularity of the topic was skyrocketing.

Ariana turned pale and her breath became cold. Even though it wasn't autumn yet, she felt a chill that reminded her of winter. The air she inhaled felt icy, causing a pain in her heart. This cold feeling persisted, seeping down her spine.

What the hell was going on?

Why was that different from what Kristin had told her?

Hadn't Kristin said that Izabella was the one trending? Why was she the one appearing in the hot topics?

Although Ariana knew that abusing cats wasn't illegal, she never wanted anyone to witness her ugly act of animal cruelty.

At this point, Ariana could only hope for the best. Maybe, like Kristin said, there were no surveillance cameras at the dump that could directly prove she had abused the cat.

She took a deep breath and finally summoned the courage to click on the trending topic.

She had thought the trend had been posted by a marketing account, but to her surprise, it was actually had been posted by Casey.

Casey had directly posted a video of Ariana abusing a cat, causing the topic to get even hotter.

Her hands trembling, Ariana clicked on the video, which had already racked up over a hundred million views, with a million comments and ten million likes.

All the major news outlets were pushing the video. Screenshots of Ariana's ferocious face flooded the feeds.

The twenty-minute video showed the entire process of Ariana's abuse of the cat from the cat's perspective. The video started with Ariana holding a pair of pliers.

"You ugly cat, you want to bite me? I'm going to pull out all your teeth, let's see if you can still bite people. You're Izabella's cat, you should blame yourself for having a bad owner!"

A cat's scream erupted from the video, making the viewer's skin crawl and heart ache.

The video was shaky, but it didn't affect the clarity of the images. Even passersby could recognize that this was Ariana and that was her voice.

Many netizens couldn't bear to watch the entire video because it was too brutal.

While it wasn't the first time they heard about people abusing cats, it was the first time many had seen such a complete video of cat abuse, and the abuser was Ariana, who had seven million followers. After the last incident where Ariana falsely accused Izabella of tampering with the script and her fake Twitter account was exposed, her image was damaged and many of her followers left her. However, many fans still supported her, believing that she had just made a mistake in the heat of the moment and was essentially a good person.

But before two months had passed, her image was damaged again because of this "cat abuse" video.

Ariana's treatment of the cat was extremely cruel. Her actions became increasingly violent and her face was filled with satisfaction.

It was hard to tell from the surveillance video how severely the cat was injured, but just watching her actions was enough to make anyone feel pain. A life was being abused at her whim.

The viewers of this video were diverse, from animal protection organizations and cat lovers to curious onlookers. Many of them had never owned a cat, but they all felt saddened by the video and wished they could step into the video and treat Ariana the same way.

There were such evil people in the world. Ariana's remaining fans were very disappointed. They never thought that the person they had always supported would be so vicious.

There were tens of thousands of comments under the video. At a glance, they were all telling "Ariana to drop dead."

"I really can't believe Ariana would be so vicious! How could she bear to abuse such a small life?"

"In the video, she said she hated Izabella, so she stole Izabella's cat and brutally abused it."

"Izabella didn't hurt her, right? She was blacklisted by the company because of her own actions. If she hadn't framed Izabella and slandered her with a fake account, she wouldn't have put her career on a dead-end. But I never thought Ariana would be so vengeful! Since she couldn't get back at Izabella, she took it out on her cat. Izabella really stepped in a huge pile of shit!"

"Izabella's cat was killed, and she took the cat to the hospital. Yet some heartless marketing accounts accuse her of abusing cats. Do these people have no brains?" "Ariana's face is too scary; I'm afraid I'll have nightmares. Also, the cat is so pitiful. I can't imagine how it endured so much. I'm heartbroken."

"Ariana doesn't deserve to be a human, calling her an animal is not even an overstatement!"

"Why won't Ariana just die? Why will God let such a vicious person live this long? This kind of person deserves to die!"

"Poor cat, may there be no pain in heaven."

"Why are there no animal protection laws? People like Ariana should suffer the same torment they inflicted on the cat, to see the unforgivable things they've done!"

"Where does Ariana live? I want to send her a bomb!"

"Hell is empty because the devil is on earth."

"As a spectator, it hurts to even watch this. It's hard to imagine how much pain this little kitten endured! Having its teeth pulled out, its skin destroyed, and being burned! I hope the kitten turns into a vengeful ghost and scratches Ariana's face every night, so she won't die a good death."

"Am I the only one who noticed this? Why would Mr. Dempsey help Izabella post this video? Shouldn't she have done it herself? Is there some secret going on between them? Someone leaked photos of Casey and Izabella together before, I thought it was fake, but it turns out to be true. When did Mr. Dempsey and Izabella meet? Why are they so close?"

Among tens of thousands of comments, most of them were blaming Ariana. She never thought things would blow up like that. She just abused a cat, it's not like she broke the law.

So, what if she got exposed? Did those people actually think that they could come to her house and kill her? Besides, she was already out of showbiz, she didn't care about her image anymore. Although she comforted herself, she could clearly feel the murderous intent from the comments targeting her when she looked at them.

Suddenly, her phone screen went black, then vibrated and turned back on. Ariana thought there was something wrong with her phone, but then the screen lit up, displaying a black and white photo of her. It was a GIF of her with blood streaming from her eyes, nose, and mouth; it was terrifying.

"Ahhhh!" Ariana screamed and threw her phone away.

Her phone had been hacked! Oh my god, that meant her home address could be leaked soon too, right?

She knew that there were many violent people online. They were not just talking about killing, but they could actually do it.

The hacking of her phone was just the first step, Ariana felt a chill down her spine, she had never felt this scared before. When she was terrified, it felt like time had stopped.

She thought for a long time, regret was useless at that moment. Since she had done it, the priority was to ensure her own safety.

She made quite a bit of money in the entertainment industry, but after the incident, the company froze her bank account, canceled all her endorsements, and she had to pay a lot of money. Now her savings only amounted to a few hundred thousand dollars, which was not enough to live on.

Ariana thought of Kristin, it was Kristin who made her do it, now that she was in trouble, Kristin should compensate her.

Ariana bent down to pick up her phone from the floor, turned it off and on again, and then called Kristin.

The call was answered.

"What's up?" Kristin's tone was indifferent, she probably didn't know about the change in the situation online.

"Kristin, have you checked the trending topics on Twitter?"

"I haven't had time; what happened? Is Izabella being trashed?" Kristin was still gloating.

"The one being trashed is not Izabella, it's me!" Ariana said angrily, "The video of me abusing the cat was posted online by Casey!"

"What?!" There was a gasp from Kristin on the other end, "How is there a video? Were you being monitored? Wait, let me check the trending topics."

Ariana heard the rustling on the other end, "The cat was rigged with a tracker, it must have been hidden in its collar."

Kristin had finished checking the trends, and she was furious, "Why are you just finding this out now? Why weren't you more careful?"

She could tell that Kristin wasn't happy with her; Ariana snickered: even couples would fight for themselves when they were faced with difficulties, not to mention their temporary alliance.

Last time they spoke on the phone, Kristin was comforting her not to worry, even if she got caught, she wouldn't be the first one to be held accountable.

Now that the problem had escalated, Ariana saw Kristin's true colors. She never really trusted Kristin; they were just using each other.

"It's pointless to talk about that now, I've been found out. All the criticism online is aimed at me. I don't really care; my life has already been ruined by Izabella. But you still have millions of fans watching you," Ariana's tone suddenly changed, and she said sarcastically, "Tell me, if your fans find out that you orchestrated this cat abuse, will they still like you? I'm worried that your fate will be the same as mine." "Are you threatening me?"

"What are you talking about? We're partners, you're my friend," The word "friend" was heavily stressed by Ariana; it was extremely ironic.

Kristin held back her anger, she had initially thought of Ariana as a pawn, but she didn't expect that pawn to bite back.

She should have known, a person who could abuse life without hesitation was twisted in the soul, such a person couldn't be easily controlled.

Ariana was not someone she could manipulate at will.

Kristin suppressed her anger, and said softly, "That's the right way to think, we are friends, our common enemy is Izabella. You're in trouble now, do you need me to do something?"

Ariana didn't want to beat around the bush, she said directly, "I need money."

Kristin wasn't surprised, if a problem could be solved with money, then it was not a big problem.

"How much?"

"Ten million dollars."

Kristin was prepared, but she was still shocked by Ariana's demand.

"Ariana, are you blackmailing me?"

"Ten million dollars can protect your position in the entertainment industry, let you have a smooth journey in showbiz, isn't this a good deal? Don't tell me you don't even have ten million dollars; I've been in this circle for a while too. For you, ten million dollars should be nothing, right?"

Kristin could indeed afford it, but she didn't want to. Ten million was not a small amount. Moreover, what Ariana did was beyond her expectations. It was already magnanimous of her not to be angry with Ariana but she didn't expect Ariana to even dare to threaten her.

"Let me think about it."

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.