Chapter Thirty-Five: Betrayal Exposed (Part 1)
Zion's office.
Zion's office was quiet except for the faint hum of the air conditioning and the tapping of his keyboard. The screen in front of him glowed with encrypted files, lines of code, and grainy footage that had been enhanced frame by frame. His jaw was tight, his eyes dark with the kind of sharp focus only Zion had when he was piecing together the final stretch of a puzzle. He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his temple, then reached for the flash drive he had been compiling for weeks.
He had it. Finally.
Every scattered lead, every half-deleted message, every carefully concealed trail had led him here. The culprit wasn't some distant shadow pulling strings in the dark—it was Tammy's own sister. Tayo Coker which they already knew. They also knew about Tony but the last was the third mysterious party. He just had to make them believe that he knew nothing and make their leader expose himself.
The revelation was a punch to the gut even for Zion, who prided himself on being immune to shock. He leaned forward, staring again at the captured footage of Tayo handing off a small vial in a hotel corridor, then splicing it with audio clips he'd enhanced from whispered phone calls. Her voice, clear and unmistakable, arranging for Tammy to be drugged that night. And next to her, the smug face of Tony Balogun—Jeremy's business partner—taking instructions with a grin that made Zion's skin crawl.
When Jeremy walked in, Zion didn't waste time. "Sit," he said flatly, sliding the flash drive across the desk. "You're going to want to see this."
Jeremy picked it up, his face unreadable as Zion opened the files. First came the video. Jeremy's posture stiffened as soon as Tayo appeared on screen. His hand curled into a fist, knuckles whitening as he watched her exchange the vial. Then came the audio. Tayo's voice, crisp and venomous: "Make sure it's her drink. She needs to be ruined before the wedding. I don't care how."
Jeremy's chest rose and fell sharply. His whole body vibrated with barely restrained fury. "Her own sister?" His voice cracked in disbelief before hardening into something dangerous. "Her own blood? Watching this makes it harder for me not to press charges against her the more."
"And not just her," Zion added, switching the file. Tony Balogun's name lit up the screen, attached to transaction records and coded emails. "Your business partner too. He was in on it. Paid off staff at the hotel, kept the surveillance gaps open for just long enough. They planned this together."
Jeremy slammed a hand against the desk, the sound ricocheting across the office. His eyes burned with a mixture of rage and betrayal. "I'll destroy him. I'll destroy both of them. Tammy deserves to know now—tonight. She deserves to know that I'm putting her sister in jail right now."
Zion's calm, deliberate tone cut through the storm. "Not yet."
Jeremy turned on him, incredulous. "Not yet? You want me to sit here and do nothing while the woman I love—while the mother of my children—still believes her sister can actually change.?" His voice shook with fury and desperation. "Do you understand what this will do to her when the press finds out?"
Zion stood, his expression immovable. "That's exactly why we wait. Right now, all we have is enough to confront them privately, not enough to bury them legally. If you go to her with this, she'll want blood. She'll want to act immediately. And Tayo will see us coming. She's not stupid. She'll burn every other lead we haven't touched yet, including whoever her third partner is. Someone else was in on this. Someone higher. If we blow this too early, we lose our shot at the full picture."
Jeremy's breathing was heavy, his chest tight as he gripped the back of a chair for balance. "So what—you're asking me to lie to her face every day while her sister eats at her table, pretends to care about her pregnancy, acts like family?"
"Yes," Zion said simply, his voice steady as steel. "Because protecting her now means letting her live in ignorance a little longer. When we bring this out, it won't just be a family betrayal. It'll be a court case, a media storm, and possibly a war in your business world. You want to protect her? Then we wait. We let me lock this down airtight. By the time Tammy hears the truth, the full truth, there will be nowhere left for Tayo or Tony to hide."
Jeremy ran both hands over his face, torn between the primal urge to shield Tammy from everything and the cold logic Zion laid out. His voice came out hoarse, almost broken. "You don't know what it's like watching her trust people who don't deserve a second of her trust. If she knew—if she saw this—she'd never forgive herself for doubting me, for marrying into all this chaos. And God help me, she'd never forgive me for keeping it from her."
Zion leaned across the desk, his gaze sharp. "You're not keeping it from her. You're timing it. There's a difference. Right now, she's fragile. Pregnant. She needs stability, not the kind of heartbreak that could send her spiraling. We wait until she's stronger, until the evidence is unshakable, and then we tear the mask off every single one of them."
Jeremy's fists clenched so tightly his knuckles cracked. His silence stretched long enough that Zion thought he might lash out again. Instead, Jeremy lowered himself into the chair, his face a storm of anguish and resolve. "Fine. But the second you have enough to end them, you tell me. No more delays."
Zion nodded once, the flicker of a grim smile playing at his lips. "Trust me, Jeremy. When this breaks, it'll break loud. And none of them will recover."
The flash drive sat between them like a loaded weapon, humming with the weight of betrayal. Neither man said another word, but both knew what came next. They were sitting on a truth so dangerous it could shatter Tammy's world forever.
And when the time came, it would.