Zara didn't go home.
She couldn't. Not after that message. Not knowing that someone was out there, watching her every move, documenting her life the way she'd documented everyone else's for years.
Look closer at the people around you.
The words echoed in her head as she ducked into a crowded coffee shop three blocks from the café. Not Paper & Beans—she couldn't go back there, couldn't risk leading whoever was following her to the one place that still felt sacred.
This was a generic Starbucks, the kind of soulless franchise she'd usually avoid, but right now anonymity felt more important than aesthetics. She ordered a drink she didn't want, found a corner seat facing the door, and tried to think.
Arjun wants to talk urgently.
Meera found something.
Someone was watching me with Kabir.
Three threads. Three potential leads. Three people who might be the "friendly face" hiding behind the ShadowsExposed mask.
She pulled up Meera's messages first.
5:23 PM: "Where are you??"
5:41 PM: "Why aren't you answering??"
5:58 PM: "I found something about ShadowsExposed. Call me."
6:34 PM: "Zara this is SERIOUS. I know who's doing this."
The last message had come in while she was talking to Kabir. She hadn't seen it until now.
I know who's doing this.
Zara's heart pounded. She typed back quickly:
"I'm here. Sorry, was dealing with something. What did you find?"
The response came immediately—Meera must have been staring at her phone, waiting.
"Can't explain over text. Too complicated. Can you come over? I'm at home."
Something about the request felt off. Meera lived in Andheri, a forty-minute drive in good traffic. At this hour, it would take at least an hour. And the urgency in her messages didn't match with the request to come all the way to her apartment.
Why not just tell me over the phone?
But maybe Meera was scared too. Maybe she'd found something so big she didn't want to risk it being screenshot or intercepted.
Or maybe this was a trap.
Look closer at the people around you.
Zara stared at the message, paralysis setting in. She didn't know who to trust anymore. Every interaction felt like a potential betrayal.
Her phone buzzed again. Arjun this time.
"Zara. I'm not joking. We need to talk TONIGHT. Where are you?"
She ignored him for now and called Meera instead.
The phone rang four times before she picked up.
"Finally!" Meera's voice was breathless, frantic. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for hours."
"I was handling something. You said you know who's behind ShadowsExposed?"
A pause. Longer than it should have been.
"Not over the phone," Meera said. "Come to my place. I'll explain everything."
"Meera, just tell me. Is it someone we know?"
Another pause. In the background, Zara could hear something—music, maybe, or a television. Signs of normal life that felt surreal given the circumstances.
"It's complicated," Meera said finally. "There's... there's more than one person involved. And I think—" She stopped abruptly. "I can't do this over the phone. Please, Zara. Just come."
"Why are you being so cagey?"
"Because I'm scared!" Meera's voice cracked. "Because whoever is doing this knows things about me—about both of us—that they shouldn't know. And I don't know who's listening anymore. Please. Just come."
The fear in her voice sounded genuine. But so had everything else about Meera for the past three years—and Zara was starting to question all of it.
"Give me an hour," she said. "I'll be there."
She hung up before Meera could respond.
The Uber ride to Andheri felt like driving into the unknown.
Zara sat in the backseat, watching the city scroll past her window—the chaos of evening traffic, the glow of shop fronts, the millions of lives being lived without any awareness of the drama unfolding in hers.
Seventeen hours.
The countdown was a constant drumbeat in her mind now. Seventeen hours until ShadowsExposed revealed whatever version of the truth they had. Seventeen hours until her carefully constructed life came crashing down.
She thought about what Kabir had said. About apologizing to the people she'd actually hurt. About telling the truth one conversation at a time.
Meera was on that list.
Not because Zara had done anything specifically terrible to her—not like what she'd done to Kabir—but because their entire friendship had been built on a foundation of competition and performance. Zara had never been fully honest with Meera. Had never trusted her enough to show the real version of herself.
And now she was driving to Meera's apartment, half convinced that her best friend might be the person trying to destroy her.
What does that say about our friendship? What does it say about me?
Her phone buzzed. Arjun again.
"Zara I know you're ignoring me. But there's something you need to know before tomorrow. It's about ShadowsExposed. Please."
She typed back quickly:
"I'm dealing with something right now. Can we talk in a few hours?"
"This can't wait."
"It's going to have to."
She muted his notifications and focused on the road ahead.
One confrontation at a time.
Meera's apartment was in a high-rise building that had been trendy five years ago and now looked slightly dated. The lobby was all marble floors and gold accents—Instagram aesthetic from a previous era—and the security guard waved Zara through without checking her ID.
So much for safety.
She took the elevator to the fourteenth floor and stood outside Meera's door for a long moment, trying to read the situation through wood and metal.
What's waiting on the other side?
A friend with information? A enemy with a trap? Something in between?
She knocked.
The door opened almost immediately—Meera had been waiting.
"Thank god." Meera grabbed her arm and pulled her inside, closing the door quickly behind them. "I was worried you wouldn't come."
Zara looked at her friend—really looked at her—for the first time in what felt like months.
Meera looked terrible. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair unwashed and pulled into a messy bun. Wearing an old sweatshirt and leggings, not a ring light in sight.
This was not the Meera who appeared on Instagram. This was someone falling apart.
"What's going on?" Zara asked. "You said you know who's behind ShadowsExposed."
Meera nodded, leading her into the living room. The apartment was messier than Zara had ever seen it—takeout containers on the coffee table, clothes draped over chairs, the general chaos of someone who had stopped caring about appearances.
"Sit down," Meera said. "This is going to take a while."
They sat on opposite ends of the couch, a careful distance between them.
Meera was fidgeting with her phone, turning it over and over in her hands like a talisman.
"After the exposure," she began slowly, "after my follower count tanked and brands started dropping me, I was desperate. I needed to know who was doing this. So I started digging."
"Digging how?"
"I have a friend who works in cybersecurity. He owed me a favor—don't ask—so I asked him to look into the ShadowsExposed accounts. See if he could trace the IP address or find any identifying information."
Zara leaned forward. "And?"
"The accounts were created using VPNs and burner emails. Totally untraceable, at least on the surface." Meera paused. "But my friend noticed something interesting. The engagement pattern on the posts—the way they were boosted, the timing of the shares—it didn't look organic."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean someone was paying for promotion. Someone was spending money to make sure those posts went viral. And when my friend dug into the payment trail—" Meera stopped, her face pale. "It led to a company called Digital Dynamics."
The name meant nothing to Zara. "Who are they?"
"They're a digital marketing agency. Pretty small, pretty under-the-radar. They specialize in what they call 'reputation management'—which is corporate-speak for making people look good online or making their competitors look bad."
"So someone hired this agency to run ShadowsExposed?"
Meera nodded. "And here's where it gets complicated." She took a deep breath. "Digital Dynamics has one major client. A client they've been working with for about two years now."
"Who?"
Meera looked at her, and Zara saw something in her eyes that looked almost like pity.
"NexaHealth," Meera said. "Arjun's company."
The words didn't compute.
Zara sat there, frozen, trying to make sense of what Meera was telling her.
"Arjun?" she repeated. "You think Arjun is behind ShadowsExposed?"
"I don't think it—I have evidence." Meera pulled out her laptop, which had been sitting on the coffee table. "Look at this."
She opened a document—spreadsheets, payment records, email screenshots. A trail of breadcrumbs leading from Digital Dynamics to NexaHealth.
"My friend managed to get access to some of their internal communications," Meera explained. "There are emails discussing a 'reputation cleanup' project. Emails about 'neutralizing competitive threats in the influencer space.' And there's a list—" She scrolled down. "A list of targets. Your name is on it. So is mine. So are about twelve other influencers who have all had some kind of connection to Arjun."
Zara stared at the screen, her mind racing.
"But why? Why would Arjun want to destroy me? We're—" She stopped, not sure what word to use. Dating? Sleeping together? Trapped in a situationship that had never been defined?
"Were you about to say you're together?" Meera's voice had an edge to it. "Because I don't think you're the only one who thought that."
"What do you mean?"
Meera closed the laptop and looked at her with an expression Zara couldn't read.
"Do you know a girl named Priya Sharma?"
The name was vaguely familiar. Zara had probably seen it in comments or DMs at some point—there were thousands of Priyas in her audience.
"Not really. Should I?"
"She's an influencer. Smaller—about 200K followers. Mostly lifestyle content. Pretty, young, on the rise." Meera paused. "She also dated Arjun. About eighteen months ago. Before you."
"Okay. So?"
"So about six months into their relationship, her career got destroyed. Anonymous accounts started spreading rumors about her. Brands dropped her. She lost almost half her followers in a month. Eventually she deleted all her social media and moved back to her parents' house in Jaipur."
Zara felt cold. "You think Arjun did that to her?"
"I think there's a pattern." Meera leaned forward. "I've been tracking this for the past two days. Every woman Arjun has dated seriously—or whatever passes for seriously with him—has had some kind of career setback after things ended. Some were exposed for old tweets. Some had fake rumors spread about them. Some just got mysteriously shadow-banned and never recovered."
"But why? What's his motive?"
"Control." Meera's voice was flat. "Think about it. Arjun is a narcissist. He needs to be the most successful person in every room. When he dates influencers, he's dating people with their own platforms, their own audiences, their own power. And when things end—or when he's ready for them to end—he needs to make sure they can't use that power against him."
"That's insane."
"Is it? Look at yourself, Zara. You know things about Arjun. Things he told you in private. Things that could damage him if they ever got out. What better way to neutralize that threat than to destroy your credibility before you can use it?"
Zara thought about the secrets she'd been holding. The funding irregularities. The sexual harassment cover-up. The business partner who had been pushed out.
If ShadowsExposed destroyed her, no one would believe anything she said about Arjun. She'd be written off as a bitter, exposed fraud trying to deflect attention.
Holy shit.
"There's more," Meera said quietly.
"How can there be more?"
Meera was fidgeting again, not meeting Zara's eyes.
"I haven't been completely honest with you," she said. "About a lot of things."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean—" Meera took a shaky breath. "I mean that I've been jealous of you. For years. I've watched you grow and succeed and get opportunities I wanted, and I've resented you for it. Even while I was pretending to be your biggest supporter."
Zara felt a familiar coldness settle in her chest. Confirmation of what she'd suspected for months.
"I know," she said quietly.
"You know?"
"I'm not blind, Meera. I've seen the way you look at my numbers. The way you copy my content two weeks after I post it. The way your congratulations always came with a little sting attached."
Meera's face crumpled. "And you never said anything?"
"What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, I know you're jealous of me, want to talk about it?' That's not how this industry works. We're all jealous of each other. We're all competing for the same slice of pie. I just learned to live with it."
"Well, I didn't." Meera's voice was thick with tears. "And six months ago, I did something I'm not proud of."
Zara braced herself. "What?"
"Someone reached out to me. They said they were starting a project to expose the dark side of influencer culture. They wanted to know if I had any information I'd be willing to share—about other influencers, about industry practices, about... about you."
The words hit Zara like a physical blow.
"You gave them information about me?"
"Not directly! I didn't tell them anything specific. But I—" Meera was crying now. "I told them things about the industry. About how everyone buys followers. About how sponsorships work. About the general culture of fakeness. And they asked questions about you, and I... I didn't shut them down the way I should have."
"You helped them build a case against me."
"I didn't know who they were! I thought they were journalists. I thought they were doing something legitimate. By the time I realized what ShadowsExposed really was—by the time they exposed me—it was too late."
Zara stood up abruptly, unable to sit still anymore. Her mind was reeling with betrayal piled on top of betrayal.
"So let me get this straight," she said, pacing the living room. "You've been jealous of me for years. You secretly provided information to someone building a takedown project. That project is funded by Arjun's company, who's using it to destroy every woman he's ever dated. And now you're telling me all this because... why? Because you got caught in your own trap?"
"Because I'm trying to make it right!" Meera stood up too, tears streaming down her face. "Because I was stupid and jealous and I made a terrible mistake. But I didn't know it was connected to Arjun. I didn't know you were being targeted. When they exposed me, I realized I'd been played just like everyone else."
"And I'm supposed to believe that?"
"I don't care if you believe it! I care about stopping this before it gets worse." Meera grabbed her laptop again. "There's one more thing you need to see. Something I just found today."
She opened another file—a video. The still frame showed what looked like a hotel room. A bed. Two people.
"This was in the same folder as the payment records," Meera said. "I don't know how they got it. But whoever is running ShadowsExposed has footage from Goa."
Zara's heart stopped.
"Play it," she whispered.
The video was grainy—clearly taken from a hidden camera or phone propped somewhere in the room. But the figures were unmistakable.
Zara and Kabir. In her hotel room. The night everything had changed.
The footage showed them talking—no audio, but their body language spoke volumes. The intimacy. The vulnerability. Two people dropping their walls and letting each other in.
And then the kiss. The stumbling toward the bed. The lights going out.
"It cuts off there," Meera said. "But whoever has this footage has proof that your relationship with Kabir was nothing like the story you told."
Zara felt like she was going to be sick.
"How did they get this? The room was private. We were alone."
"I don't know. Hotel security cameras? Someone who worked at the resort? Someone who—" Meera stopped, a new thought occurring to her. "Dev. The guy who brought Kabir on the trip. He was Arjun's friend first, wasn't he?"
Dev.
Zara hadn't thought about Dev in years. He'd been a peripheral figure on the Goa trip—always there, always documenting, always in the background of group photos.
And he'd been the one who'd brought Kabir.
"Oh my god," she breathed. "Dev works in digital marketing now. I remember seeing a LinkedIn update about it a few months ago. Some agency I'd never heard of—"
"Digital Dynamics?" Meera asked.
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity.
Arjun. Dev. Digital Dynamics. ShadowsExposed.
It had all been connected from the beginning.
Zara's phone rang.
She looked at the screen, already knowing who it would be.
Arjun.
"Don't answer it," Meera said.
But something in Zara had shifted. The fear was still there, but it was accompanied now by a cold, crystalline anger.
"No," she said. "I need to hear what he has to say."
She answered the call.
"Zara." Arjun's voice was smooth, concerned—the perfect performance of someone who cared. "I've been trying to reach you all night. Where are you?"
"I'm at Meera's."
A pause. Almost imperceptible, but Zara caught it.
"Meera's? Why?"
"She had some information to share with me. About ShadowsExposed. About Digital Dynamics. About you."
Silence on the other end of the line.
"Zara, whatever she's told you—"
"Is it true?" Zara cut him off. "Did you fund ShadowsExposed? Are you behind all of this?"
A longer pause. She could almost hear him calculating, deciding which lie would be most effective.
"It's complicated," he said finally.
"That's not an answer."
"Can we meet? In person? I can explain everything, but not over the phone. You never know who's listening."
The irony of that statement—coming from someone who had allegedly been surveilling her for months—was not lost on Zara.
"Where?"
"My apartment. One hour. Come alone—I don't want this to become a scene."
Every instinct told her not to go. Every rational thought screamed that this was a trap, a manipulation, another move in a game she hadn't even known she was playing.
But she needed answers. And she needed to look into his eyes when he gave them.
"Fine," she said. "One hour."
She hung up before he could respond.
Meera was staring at her. "You're not actually going?"
"I have to."
"Zara, that's insane. If he's really behind all of this, walking into his apartment alone is the worst possible thing you could do."
"Then come with me."
Meera blinked. "What?"
"You wanted to make things right? Here's your chance. Come with me to Arjun's. Be my witness. Help me get the truth on record."
"He said to come alone."
"He also said a lot of things that turned out to be lies." Zara grabbed her bag. "Are you coming or not?"
Meera hesitated for only a moment. Then she nodded, grabbing her own bag and laptop.
"Let's end this," she said.
Fifteen hours until the revelation.
Zara and Meera walked out of the apartment building and into the night.
The city buzzed around them—indifferent, oblivious, consumed with its own dramas and desires. Somewhere out there, ShadowsExposed was preparing the next revelation. Somewhere out there, Arjun was preparing his own defense.
And somewhere in between, Zara was finally ready to stop running.
Look closer at the people around you.
She had looked. And what she'd found was a web of betrayal so intricate she still couldn't see all its threads.
But one thread was clear now. One thread led directly to the man who had been stringing her along for months, who had made her feel special while planning her destruction.
It was time to pull that thread and watch everything unravel.
Even if it meant unraveling herself in the process.
END OF CHAPTER FIVE
Continue to Chapter Six: "The Unraveling"