My Secret TikTok Life: Family Disgrace to Global Kingmaker

Chapter 18: The Bakar Group Panic

The shift from the damp, quiet alleyway to the 52nd-floor boardroom of the Bakar Tower was jarring. In the alley, the only sound was Elara’s breathing and the distant city hum. Here, the air was conditioned to a perfect 68 degrees, smelling of expensive leather and panic.

The "Golden Cage" was in a state of absolute meltdown.

I wasn't there in person, but I didn't need to be. My burner phone was dead, but the System’s "Ghost Interface" remained projected in my field of vision, hovering like a translucent heads-up display. It allowed me to see the digital ripples I had created. I could see the Bakar Group’s internal metrics cratering in real-time.

On the massive mahogany table in the boardroom, twenty high-end tablets were synced to a central projector. The lead marketing director, a man named Henderson who used to mock my "little internet hobbies," was trembling.

"I don't understand," Henderson stammered, his voice echoing through the speaker system the Ghost Interface had intercepted. "We had a ten-million-dollar ad buy. The engagement should be vertical. But every time someone clicks on Marcus’s 'Exclusivity' campaign, the algorithm redirects them."

"Redirects them where?"

The voice belonged to my father, Suleiman. It was a low, dangerous rumble that made everyone in the room sit straighter.

Henderson swallowed hard and tapped his tablet. The giant screen at the front of the room flickered. It didn't show the polished, high-definition commercial Marcus had just spent all morning filming. Instead, it showed the video I had just uploaded from the alley.

There was Elara, bathed in the "stolen" light of Marcus’s own production. She looked raw, haunting, and undeniably real. And there, in the background, was Marcus—looking like a spoiled caricature of wealth, complaining to a makeup artist while a girl with a birthmark sang a song that made the soul ache.

The contrast was devastating.

"It’s a side-by-side edit," Henderson whispered. "It’s being called 'The Stolen Light.' It’s trending on every platform. People aren't just watching her; they’re using our own campaign hashtag, #BakarExclusivity, to mock Marcus. They’re calling him a 'clown in a cream suit.'"

I watched the data streams through my HUD. The Algorithm Sabotage was working perfectly. It had turned the Bakar Group’s massive financial weight against them. The more they spent on ads, the more the algorithm pushed Elara’s "counter-video" to the top of the feed to provide "balance." I had turned my family into the world's most expensive marketing department for a girl they didn't even know.

"Who is she?" Marcus’s voice cut through the room. He was sitting at the table, still in his linen suit, but he looked small now. His face was flushed with a mix of rage and embarrassment. "She was in the alley. She was with that... that beggar."

"The girl is Elara Vance," a junior analyst piped up, her voice small. "She was a nobody twenty-four hours ago. Now, she has a higher organic reach than our entire residential division. But she isn't the problem, Marcus."

"Then what is?" Marcus snapped.

"The editing," the analyst replied, turning her screen to show a complex heat map of the video’s metadata. "This isn't just a random upload. The SEO is perfect. The timing of the cuts, the way it hijacks our specific pixel-tags... this was done by a master. Someone who knows our internal marketing strategy inside and out."

I leaned my head against the brick wall of the alley, a faint, cold smile touching my lips. They were starting to realize they weren't fighting a singer. They were fighting a ghost who knew all their secrets.

Suleiman stood up. The movement was slow and heavy, like a landslide. He walked to the window, looking out over the city he thought he owned. The reflection in the glass showed a man who was realizing for the first time that his "bricks and mortar" empire had no walls against the digital tide.

"This 'Stolen Light' video," Suleiman said, his back to the room. "It didn't just happen. Someone is managing her. Someone found her in the subway, protected her from those pranksters, and is now using our own production sets to feed her fame."

He turned around, his grey eyes narrowed with a predatory focus.

"I want to know who is behind this," Suleiman commanded. "This girl is a tool. There is a 'Ghost' behind the curtain. Someone who knows how we breathe. Someone who is deliberately humiliating this family for sport."

"We’re trying to trace the upload IP," Henderson said, his fingers flying across his keyboard. "But it’s masked. It’s coming from everywhere and nowhere. Whoever this manager is, they’re playing a different game than we are."

My father slammed his fist onto the mahogany table, rattling the crystal water pitchers.

"Find them," he hissed. "I don't care what it costs. I want the name of this 'Ghost Manager.' I want to know who thinks they can build a throne out of my shadow."

Marcus looked at the screen, staring at the image of the "beggar" in the green shoes who had been filming in the alley. For a split second, a look of doubt crossed his face—a fleeting thought that maybe, just maybe, he recognized those shoes. But he shook it off. The Salim he knew was a loser, a "weed" he had pulled and thrown away. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that the brother he had mocked was currently dismantling his reputation from a dark alley three miles away.

"We’ll find him, Father," Marcus said, trying to regain his composure. "It’s probably just some disgruntled ex-employee or a rival firm trying to get an edge."

"No," Suleiman said, staring at the viral numbers that were still climbing. "This feels personal. This feels like someone who knows exactly where to cut to make us bleed."

He looked at the image of Elara one last time.

"Bring me the Ghost Manager," my father whispered, his voice filled with a cold, lethal intent. "I want to see the face of the man who thinks he can out-maneuver a Bakar."

I closed my eyes as the HUD dimmed. My physical integrity was still low, but the Influence Level had ticked up again. I was no longer just a victim of their erasure. I was the architect of their panic.