The phone trembled slightly as Nina hurried closer to the front, trying to get a better view.
Yeri could hear Nina's voice through the speaker, anxious but unmistakably thrilled, like someone watching a live drama unfold in real time.
"You remember Rita, right?" Nina whispered, breathless. "Tiffany caught her and Cherry at Marco Fabian's apartment with other boys, doing that thing. I seriously thought that was the end of it, but it turns out they never cut off contact. Absolutely crazy."
At the altar, Tiffany's incredulous gaze darted between Rita and Marco.
Pregnant?
Marco didn't immediately refute Rita's words, not even with a single shake of his head.
That silence was enough to snap Tiffany's remaining sanity in half. She screamed like a madwoman and lunged at Marco, her long manicured nails raking across his cheek.
The crowd erupted. Gasps burst like fireworks, followed by frantic murmurs that spread across the hall in seconds.
The groomsmen, who had been enjoying the spectacle as if it were free entertainment, finally snapped out of their stupor and rushed forward to help break them apart.
But Rita was no delicate flower either.
The moment she saw Marco's face bleeding, her eyes flashed with fury. She surged forward and yanked Tiffany's carefully styled hair, ruining the flawless bridal arrangement.
Seeing her daughter being "bullied," Tiffany's mother barged into the chaos and slapped Rita hard across the face.
Chaos descended and the uproar doubled.
Rita staggered, her cheek blazing red.
Tiffany, held back by two groomsmen, sobbed violently as if she were the victim of the century.
"How could you betray me?! I forgave you again and again! You promised my parents you'd look after me! You promised you'd never let anyone hurt me!" Tiffany cried, eyes bloodshot. "When I found out about your relationship with Rita and Cherry, you said they were the ones who seduced you! You said you only kept seeing them for my sake, otherwise they'd expose my secret, ruining me!"
The moment those names left her mouth, Marco's blood ran cold. Not because he felt guilty, but because Tiffany had just screamed his affairs in front of hundreds of guests.
Around the hall, whispers sharpened into accusations.
"Did she just mention another girl?" a guest spat, "What a scumbag. Stringing so many women along."
"They're young too," another murmured. "And they likely know each other? How could he take advantage of them like that?"
"This is so scandalous…"
"Enough!" Marco roared, his glare landed on Tiffany with frightening force. "Do you still want to get married? What nonsense are you spouting? Do you really want to leave yourself without an ounce of reputation?"
Tiffany froze.
"Don't forget what kind of reputation you have right now. Apart from me, who else would dare marry you?" Marco seized her wrist and pulled her closer, lowering his voice so only she could hear. His tone was icy warning, sharp as glass.
"Why are you letting Rita provoke you? Have you forgotten? We're already married and you're my legal wife. Do not disappoint me and drag the title of Mrs. Fabian into the mud."
That sentence hit Tiffany like cold water. Indeed, she was already his wife.
Marco, seeing the effect, released her and with the same iron control, he grabbed Rita by the arm and dragged her aside as well.
The wedding staff, who had been on standby rushed forward immediately. Someone fixed Tiffany's hair and veil, trying to restore the illusion of a perfect bride.
But Tiffany's venomous gaze never left Rita.
Nina, meanwhile, was practically vibrating with indecision. She wanted to follow Marco and Rita or Tiffany, curiosity burning through her like wildfire.
But just as she took a step, Levi appeared beside her like a wall.
"Are you a paparazzi?" he muttered, his voice flat. "Don't involve yourself in unnecessary trouble."
Nina rolled her eyes. She absolutely wanted to play paparazzi, thank you very much.
But Levi just wouldn't let her and reluctantly, she stayed put.
Not long after, the wedding resumed as if nothing had happened.
Marco reappeared, calm and composed, his face now cleaned and carefully concealed. He stood tall, voice steady, expression dignified.
"What happened earlier," he said, "was a deliberate attempt to ruin me and Tiffany. This union threatens certain rivals between our families."
He spoke eloquently, convincingly, that doubt began to creep into the guests' faces.
Some still looked skeptical. Others, however, nodded as if they'd just been handed a reasonable explanation.
As the wedding resumed, the host finally remembered he existed.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" he boomed. "Now, let us witness the beautiful moments of our newlyweds!"
A familiar romantic tune filled the hall.
On the massive LED screen, a slideshow began: Tiffany and Marco as children, then as teenagers, then dating, posing in perfectly staged couple photos.
The guests played along, letting out occasional laughter and teasing whistles.
Tiffany, too, seemed to have shoved the earlier disaster into a sealed mental box.
She laughed brightly, her face glowing with pride, especially when the sweeter moments played: Marco kissing her forehead like a devoted lover straight out of a romance movie.
Then the screen transitioned into their vacation photos.
The hall warmed again, the guests relaxing, their expressions softening.
But just as the next photo was about to appear the screen went black.
The music cut off abruptly, leaving behind an eerie silence.
A second later, a video began to play.
At first, no one could tell what they were looking at.
The footage was dark and shaky, with distorted sounds in the background: mixed voices, laughter, and the rough crackle of fire.
The camera moved as if whoever was filming was walking quickly, pushing through trees, branches and leaves.
Then suddenly, the scene cleared.
A bonfire.
And around it, bodies. Naked bodies.
People dancing in the firelight, pressed together in a way that wasn't dancing anymore, intimate and obscene.
The air in the hall seemed to freeze, the guests' smiles collapsing as if they'd been slapped off.
Marco's entire expression drained of color. It was as if all the blood in his body had fled at once.
"Turn it off!" Marco roared, his voice cracking with panic. "TURN IT OFF!"
Unfortunately, it was too late.
The resolution was horrifyingly clear, almost too sharp for something filmed at night, like it had been deliberately enhanced.
Marco appeared on the screen. Not a blur or a vague silhouette.
His face was unmistakable, wearing that lazy, smug expression of indulgence, cigarette between his fingers, eyes half-lidded with intoxicated satisfaction while fondling some woman.
The camera lingered long enough for everyone to recognize him.
And not only him, the other men caught in the footage were equally recognizable. Several of them were the very groomsmen standing at the wedding.
Now they stood frozen in place, eyes wide, faces turning grey.
The hall was so silent it felt unreal.
Marco was frantic and hysterical, but the guests didn't react. It was as if the footage had stolen their ability to process reality.
Then Marco's mother let out a shriek so sharp it pierced the air like glass, her eyes rolled back and she collapsed.
The banquet hall exploded into movement.
But the nightmare didn't stop there with the screen shifting into a rapid slideshow of intimate photos.
Marco with different women, some photos even included more than one of the groomsmen, their faces visible, captured in disgusting clarity.
A massacre in digital form.
"This is fake!" Marco shouted, his voice hoarse, his composure shredded to pieces. "DON'T BELIEVE ANY OF IT! It's AI! It's all AI!"
But the damage had already been burned into everyone's minds.
Tiffany remained standing, her smile long gone. Her eyes were locked onto the screen even after a staff member yanked the plug.
The banquet hall erupted into loud arguments, the guests splitting into camps almost instantly.
Some insisted the footage had to be fake. Others were already convinced it was real.
A few people, especially those who had attended the same university as Marco, looked visibly shaken.
Their faces tightened, their eyes darting around uneasily, as if they were suddenly worried about being associated with him.
"Apart from Marco… aren't those guys in the video members of the hiking club?"
"What? Don't tell me that club was just an excuse for them to do that…"
"It doesn't look fake to me. I mean, who could be so vicious as to drag his friends into this too?"
"Does Tiffany know about this? Or is she being played as well?"
Marco and Tiffany hadn't even had time to recover, their minds still spinning from humiliation and shock, when the main doors suddenly slammed open again.
This time, the people who stormed in weren't guests. They appeared angry, and grief-stricken. Ready to tear the wedding apart with their bare hands.
"Tiffany Rhian, you vicious bully!" a woman screamed as she pushed forward, her eyes bloodshot. "How dare you get married after causing my daughter to commit suicide?!"
Another voice followed, raw with hatred.
"They said the case is still ongoing, so what gives her the right to be happy when my sister is still suffering?!"
"If there's no justice," a man shouted, shoving through the crowd, "then I'll take justice into my own hands!"
The hall fell into a different kind of chaos, one far uglier and more dangerous.
Tiffany's entire body trembled, her legs nearly gave out. Without thinking, she scrambled behind Marco, clinging to him like he was the only wall between her and death.
Originally, several media outlets had been invited to livestream the luxurious wedding.
It was meant to be Tiffany's grand public comeback, a glamorous display meant to drown out scandal with diamonds and roses.
But after the earlier disaster, the organisers were terrified that another incident might explode on camera so the livestream had been halted.
Unfortunately, it didn't matter. Many people had already seen it, and among those who saw it were the relatives and friends of the victims Tiffany had bullied.
Bullying didn't need marketing or promotion. It was the kind of story that ignited the internet instantly. Netizens turned into righteous warriors within seconds, hungry for a villain to punish.
And Tiffany, with her recent explosive case, was already familiar to everyone.