Calculated Sabotage

Kendall blinked, her eyes heavy against the glare of the streetlights passing by. The reclined passenger seat of the Volkswagen groaned under her weight as she shifted. Blinking away the exhaustion of the day, she glanced out the window. The bustling, narrow old streets of K.Moon studio were nowhere in sight. Instead, sleek modern streetlamps illuminated the pristine parking lot of an upscale residential complex.

Tessa killed the engine. She unbuckled her seatbelt and dangled a shiny set of keys right in front of Kendall’s nose, flashing a massive grin. "Yep, I'm bringing you here to experience life!"

Kendall sat up, rubbing her temples to clear the lingering fog. "Where are we? Did we get a client call at this hour?"

Tessa pushed the car door open. "No clients. Just us. Come on."

Ten minutes later, Kendall stood in the center of a furnished, sunlit three-bedroom apartment. The hardwood floors gleamed under the recessed lighting, and plush cushions lined a velvet sofa in the living room. It was a stark contrast to the cramped conditions she was used to.

"Living on a tiny cot in the studio backroom is not a long-term solution for your mental or physical health," Tessa said, her usual boisterous tone dropping into a cadence of deep concern. She crossed her arms, leaning against the sleek kitchen island. "Since you're right in the messy midst of settling your divorce, I'm worried that jerk will try to take your personal property or freeze your assets. I bought this place under my name for now to hide it from his legal team. But it'll be yours once you regain your freedom."

Kendall stared at the shiny keys resting on the cool marble counter. Her throat tightened. A warm sensation bloomed in her chest, blurring her vision. She opened her mouth to thank her, but the words caught in her throat.

Seeing the tears pooling in Kendall's eyes, Tessa waved her hands, brushing off the hesitation. "Oh, stop it. Don't look at me like that. Consider this a delayed return of all those massive studio bonuses you refused to accept over the years. I'm pinning all my future financial hopes on your genius designs to take my brand to greater heights. So take the damn keys."

Persuaded by the flawless logic and the weight of their deep sisterhood, Kendall reached out. Her fingers closed around the cold metal.

The peaceful reprieve did not last.

Early the next morning, Kendall jolted awake in her unfamiliar new bedroom. A sharp vibration buzzed against the nightstand, rattling the wood. She grabbed her phone, squinting at the glaring screen. Her heart dropped. Thirty-three missed calls.

Thirty-two dials from Tessa. One from Declan.

She ignored Declan’s name and dialed Tessa. The line connected before the first ring even finished.

"Tessa, what's wrong?"

"It's a disaster," Tessa breathed, her voice trembling over the speaker. "Multiple VIP customers called the studio this morning. They all claimed their custom dresses didn't meet their requirements. They canceled their massive orders and forfeited their hefty deposits. All of them, Kendall. At the exact same time."

Kendall threw off the covers, her bare feet hitting the cold floorboards. Frowning, her business instincts kicked into gear. K.Moon was a modestly famous, hard-working studio. They delivered quality. They shouldn't be the random target of such coordinated, destructive financial sabotage.

"Hang on," Kendall urged, grabbing a pair of jeans from her suitcase. "Don't panic. I'm coming over right now."

She sprinted down the street, waving her arm to hail a passing cab. As she slid into the backseat, her phone buzzed in her palm. An Instagram notification popped up on the screen. It was a new story update from Chloe’s public account.

Kendall tapped the notification. A glowing selfie filled the screen, accompanied by a sugary caption: *The happiest thing in this world is probably someone turning the world upside-down for you over something small.*

Kendall zoomed in on the image. Just behind Chloe’s styled hair, sitting against a polished mahogany desk, was a man's broad half-shoulder. The fabric covering it was a dark, custom-tailored suit. It was the exact same suit Declan had worn earlier that day at Nova Zenith.

The pieces clicked into place. The realization hit her chest like a physical blow. Declan was orchestrating this. He was destroying her design studio, disregarding the financial livelihood of his legal wife and her best friend, simply because he couldn't use his wealth to secure Celine's designs for Chloe's gala dress.

Disgust churned in her stomach. The ruthlessness of the man she once loved turned her blood to ice. With a sharp flick of her thumb, she unfollowed Chloe's account and locked her screen in sheer frustration.

By the time she pushed open the heavy glass doors of K.Moon, the once-pristine studio was in a state of deafening chaos.

Three main phone lines rang with constant, overlapping trills. Assistants scrambled across the floor, clutching notepads and shouting apologies into receivers. Swatches of fabric and scattered design drafts littered the tables.

"Did you contact the clients?" Kendall demanded over the noise, striding toward the front desk. "What did they say?"

A sweat-drenched Tessa dropped a landline receiver onto the cradle. She looked up, her face pale and drawn. "I got the truth out of an old, loyal client off the record. They mentioned they were paid a massive sum to pull their order. Then they asked whether we had recently offended someone powerful in the city."

Kendall stood rigid in the center of the ruined studio. She knew exactly which powerful man they had offended.

Her voice went dead. "How much did we lose?"

Because their intricate custom orders required massive upfront factory payments, their business model relied on the clients' final clearing balances to cover the overhead. Without those final payments, K.Moon was on the hook for the manufacturing costs.

Tessa pulled up the spreadsheets on her monitor. Her hands shook as she scrolled through the red numbers. "Adding everything together, the factory penalties... we lost about two to two point eight million."

Tessa’s voice broke, tears welling in her eyes.

Two point eight million.

*He's out to bankrupt us into submission!*

Kendall screamed internally. The crushing weight of the sudden debt suffocated her. She couldn't draw a full breath. The air in the room felt thick, pressing down on her lungs. Furious, she opened her mouth to speak to Tessa, to form some kind of desperate action plan.

Before a single word left her lips, the locked phone in her hand began to vibrate.

She lowered her gaze. A cold glare fixed on the brightly lit screen.

The caller ID displayed the name of the orchestrator.

Declan.