The Hidden Empress Stripping Her Secrets After Divorce novel Chapter 376

Shangri-La Paris, Room 1705.

Lyra Langford was jolted awake by her phone vibrating endlessly against the nightstand.

She squinted through the glaring morning sunlight, grabbing her phone. There were dozens of unread messages across various apps, flooding in from every direction.

As she scrolled through them one by one, her face grew darker and darker.

[Lyra, I heard Evelyn Sullivan is Charles de Rothschild's granddaughter? Is it true?!]

[Lyra, are you okay? Everyone is talking about last night...]

[Lyra, how is Christian reacting to all this?]

She didn't reply to a single one. She just swiped them away in disgust.

Then, she opened an encrypted group chat.

It was a nameless group with a pitch-black icon. There were over a hundred women in it, scattered across the globe. None of them knew each other in real life, and they only communicated using aliases.

The chat had one singular purpose—trading intel to hook billionaires.

Which tycoon's heir was visiting Paris, which CEO was going through a messy divorce, what kind of women specific billionaires preferred... This intel was the currency that kept the group alive.

Someone had just dropped a bombshell in the chat:

[Did you guys hear?! That Iris girl is Charles de Rothschild's granddaughter!]

[Obviously. It blew up last night. The whole country knows by now.]

[Ugh, talk about winning the genetic lottery. She's loaded, gorgeous, and a genius? How are the rest of us supposed to compete?]

[Don't even bother being jealous. She's in a league we can't even touch.]

[But hey, what about that guy trailing behind Charles last night? The one from the Thorne family in San Francisco. He was incredibly hot.]

[Sebastian Thorne? I saw him too. Drop-dead gorgeous, and the aura on him... insane.]

[If I could bag a man like that, I'd trade ten years of my life for him.]

[Keep dreaming. Didn't you see the way he was looking at Iris? He looked ready to throw himself at her feet.]

[So what? Men are men. Throw yourself at him enough times, and eventually, you'll get a bite.]

Lyra stared at the screen, her fingers tightening into a death grip.

Her alias in the chat was 'The Starlight Dancer.' Because she only ever claimed to be a performer, no one knew her real identity. They all just assumed she was some dancer running through the European elite circles who had seen her fair share of the high life.

She had snagged an admin role early on by tossing a few wealthy contacts to the group. But once she returned home and hooked Christian, she had mostly faded into the background.

She never left the group, though.

The golden rule of the chat was simple: once you're in, you can't leave. It prevented members from stealing each other's marks, and more importantly, it was a goldmine of dirt—who was cheating, who had skeletons in the closet, the group knew it all.

Once, someone tried to leave and leak their contacts to the press.

That woman vanished.

Completely vanished.

Everyone in the chat knew it, but no one ever spoke of it.

Lyra glared at the messages, the humiliating scenes from last night flashing behind her eyes—

Evelyn standing proudly beside Charles, worshipped by the entire room.

Sebastian charging in, boldly declaring his devotion in front of the most powerful people in Europe.

While she had been relegated to a dark corner, pathetic and ignored.

Her grip on the phone turned white-knuckled.

She started typing.

[The Starlight Dancer: I've met that Sebastian Thorne.]

The chat exploded instantly.

[Holy shit! Look who finally logged in!]

[Dancer! I thought you retired? What brought you back?]

[Wait, you've met Mr. Thorne? What's he like in person?!]

A vicious, spiteful sneer curled onto Lyra's lips.

She typed back: