Gasps still lingered in the chandeliers, and every pair of eyes devoured Ivy like vultures spotting a wounded deer. The leaked video played on loop—intimate, raw, and clearly not meant for public eyes.
Ivy stood frozen, her mascara beginning to run, not from shame… but from betrayal.
Who had recorded it?
Only one person had access back then.
Only Ochieng.
But as her teary eyes darted across the glittering chaos, she saw him—not shocked, not scared—but furious.
Someone had set them both up.
---
Zahra sat beside Elijah Moretti, legs crossed, swirling her champagne. "She'll crack within minutes," she said.
Elijah looked bored. "You're still obsessed with her?"
Zahra smirked. "Obsessed? Please. I just hate that she still thinks she's better than me."
Behind them, Professor Trevor, a young and charming lecturer with salt-and-pepper hair and a reputation for dating students in secret, watched the screen silently. He whispered to his assistant:
"Ivy was my student. She wasn't the innocent girl they think."
---
Backstage, Ochieng ripped off his bowtie and stormed through the curtains. The room parted like Moses in silk.
"I need to speak," he announced, grabbing the mic.
Gasps.
Ivy looked at him with disbelief. Lena narrowed her eyes. Zahra grinned.
Ochieng's voice was sharp and steady:
"That video was taken without consent. I was 18. Ivy was 17. And the person who filmed it isn't in this room—he's watching, hoping we'll destroy ourselves."
He turned to the side, and on cue, Tasha, the undercover digital genius from the university's Tech Lab, projected a new video.
It showed Zahra entering the old hotel suite two days before the gala… inserting a flash drive into the system.
Crowd: silent.
Zahra: pale.
Elijah stood, stunned.
"You really are the devil," he whispered to her.
She didn't deny it.
---
Just as the drama reached boiling point, sleek black limos arrived.
Out stepped:
Bianca Kavuma, 25, tech mogul heiress, known for her ruthless buyouts and killer smile.
Jamal DuPont, 29, half-Kenyan, half-French trillionaire with a Harvard background and ex-lover of Lena.
Tessy Mwangi, 23, a fashion blogger-turned-CEO, with 45 million followers and enemies in every room.
They weren't here for the gala. They were here to shake the world.
And Ochieng, Ivy, Zahra, Lena?
They were just the beginning.
---