Rising From Betrayal Reborn As The Family Outcast novel Chapter 3

Chapter 3 I’m Easy To Mess With?

After moving into her new home, Alicia tidied up.

Then she sat down, deep in thought, trying to remember what had happened at this exact moment in her past life.

Right now, she was getting roasted all over the internet, and she was still a member of the girl group LUMIA.

Her relationship with the other members was pretty bad. It wasn’t like she’d done anything to them. The other girls always ganged up on her for no reason.

After those four got a taste of success from dragging Alicia down twice, they just got even worse.

Of course, Alicia’s company and her agent had a hand in all of this too.

Back in her previous life, Alicia brought up quitting LUMIA, but they shot her down.

It dragged on until the next year, when a massive scandal exploded. Only then did she finally manage to break free.

But this time, Alicia wasn’t about to let those bloodsuckers keep draining her. First thing on her list was to quit the group and terminate the contract with her company for good.

Thinking of that, Alicia called up her mom’s lawyer friend and set up a meeting.

*****

That evening, Alicia slipped into a restaurant, wearing a baseball cap and a mask.

Even though she was getting dragged all over the internet, she was still pretty famous. She was pulling in a ton of traffic online.

After all, being infamous still made many people know her name.

After a few minutes, a distinguished and elegant middle-aged man stepped into the private room.

Alicia stood up with a smile and greeted that man. “Mr. Wise, it’s been so long.”

The man named Thomas Wise gave her a warm look. “Yeah, it has.”

He didn’t ask how she’d been. He didn’t really keep up with the entertainment scene, but after Alicia called to set up this meeting, he figured she probably needed his help, so he did a little digging.

After checking things out, he was totally thrown off guard. He never expected Alicia’s online reputation to be so trashed.

When he saw the reasons people roasted her for, he was just speechless.

But from all this, it was clear that Alicia’s entertainment company was super unprofessional, and the Hammonds were irresponsible too.

After they sat down, they chatted about some past things.

Then Alicia said, “Mr. Wise, I want your help to terminate my contract with Starlight Entertainment.”

She knew it was best to leave this kind of stuff to the professionals.

She definitely didn’t want to deal with all the drama from those people herself.

Thomas wasn’t surprised. He replied, “Did you bring your contract with your company? Or do you have an e-copy? Let me take a look.”

If Starlight Entertainment had done its job and handled her PR properly, Alicia’s reputation wouldn’t be in the gutter like this.

Thomas figured it was probably for the best to cut ties with a company like that.

Alicia pulled the contract out of her bag and handed it over. “I brought it.”

Thomas read through the contract carefully, then started discussing it with Alicia.

Alicia’s contract with Starlight Entertainment still had a year left, and if she wanted out early, she’d have to pay a 3-million-dollar penalty.

But Alicia had some proof that Starlight Entertainment hadn’t kept their promises, so Thomas said he’d use that to fight for a lower penalty.

After they finished talking about that, Alicia pulled out the equity contract.

She continued, “Mr. Wise, this is the equity my mom transferred to me before she passed away. According to the contract, I was supposed to start getting dividends from the company once I turned eighteen.

“But I haven’t gotten anything since then.

“So I want you to help me get back what’s mine from Hammond Group through legal channels.

“Even if it comes down to a lawsuit, I’m fine with that.”

Now that she’d cut ties with the Hammonds, she wouldn’t let them steal a single cent that was rightfully hers.

After her mother passed away, she never used a cent from the Hammond family.

Besides the equity, her mother had invested in several funds for her, so she got a nice chunk of cash every year.

Her three brothers had the same setup, of course.

With all that money coming in, her dad and brothers never gave her any allowance.

But when it came to Nicole, they’d give her hundreds of thousands of dollars in allowance every month, and they covered all her living expenses.

They always spoiled Nicole with the latest luxury clothes, designer bags, and jewelry.

As for Alicia, the only time she ever got a gift from them was on her birthday.

Back in her previous life, Alicia treasured those gifts, but now, she couldn’t care less. She left them all behind at the old house.

As for those funds her mother left her, once Austin started working in finance, Alicia just let him take care of them.

But now, she was ready to take them back and hand them over to a professional investment firm.

Thomas looked genuinely surprised. He asked, “Have you ever brought this up with your dad or Kevin? They really haven’t given you any dividends?”

If they had, Alicia wouldn’t even consider going the legal route to get her dividends.

Alicia gave a wry smile. “I cut ties with the entire Hammond family yesterday.

After that, she vented to her family and her close circle of society ladies, and soon enough, the whole story was making the rounds.

By the time the Hammonds caught wind of it, they’d already been labeled as ridiculously biased and out of their minds.

It was way too late to try and explain themselves or do anything about it.

*****

Meanwhile, Alicia got home and opened X, only to see the top trending topic right there.

Nicole had posted a photo of herself with the Hammond brothers and the rest of the family after last night’s party. Her smile was absolutely radiant.

She captioned it: [With you guys, I feel like I have the whole world. With all your love and care, I’m honestly the luckiest, happiest girl in the world.]

The comments were all raving about how lucky Nicole was and what a picture-perfect family they had.

Mixed in were plenty of snarky remarks, throwing shade at Alicia.

One of Nicole’s actress friends even mentioned Alicia and commented: [This is what a real family looks like. Stop trying to insert yourself into their drama.]

It was not like this actress was actually trying to have Nicole’s back or anything.

She just wanted to ride Nicole’s coattails, since Nicole was tight with all those big-shot elites.

And with Alicia getting roasted online and her company and agent basically showing no sign of defending her, the actress couldn’t care less about offending Alicia.

Plus, she could score points with both Nicole’s fans and Alicia’s haters for being so real. It was a total win-win.

Alicia let out a soft laugh when she saw the post tagging her.

‘Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon just to get some attention off me?’ she thought. ‘Do they really think I’m that easy to mess with?’

Since people were coming at her for Nicole, Alicia wasn’t going to play nice anymore.

It was perfect timing. Just when she needed a target, someone served one up.

Alicia fired off two posts on X right away, and in one of them, she responded directly by tagging that actress.

Just like she expected, her post shot straight to the top of the trending list in no time.

After all, she was basically a magnet for haters. Everyone was always watching her.

Any little thing she did, people would catch it instantly and start roasting her from all sides.

Online, nobody expected Alicia to suddenly go so hard and drop a post like this.

Her haters, the paid trolls, and all the gossip crowd were left stunned.