My Secret TikTok Life: Family Disgrace to Global Kingmaker

Chapter 3: Strip-Searched

The ballroom doors were only twenty feet away. Beyond them lay the dark, rainy night—a night that was starting to look more like a sanctuary than a threat. I just wanted the cold air. I wanted the rain to wash the smell of this room off my skin. But Zara stood in my way like a shimmering, silver-clad gatekeeper.

"Step aside, Zara," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. "Father got what he wanted. I signed the paper. I’m gone."

"You signed a piece of paper, Salim. That handles the future," she said, her voice dripping with a sickly sweet malice. She reached out and tapped the crystal face of the watch on my left wrist. "But we haven't handled the present. And the present looks a lot like Bakar property to me."

I looked down at my wrist. It was a Patek Philippe—the vintage Calatrava. It had been a gift from our grandfather on my eighteenth birthday. It was the only thing I wore that felt like it had any soul, a piece of history from the only man in this family who had ever actually spoken to me like I was a human being instead of a line item on a balance sheet.

"This was Grandfather’s," I said, my grip tightening on my own arm. "He gave it to me personally. It wasn't part of the 'upbringing' fund."

"Grandfather gave it to a Bakar," Zara countered, her eyes narrowing. "Since you’ve been so eager to tell everyone you don't belong here, you don't get to keep the family heirlooms. Hand it over, Salim. Don't make me call Hakan back over here to take it from you. It would be such a shame to ruin that silk shirt in a scuffle."

I looked around. A few guests near the door had paused their conversations to watch. They were smiling—those small, polite smiles that people wear when they’re watching a disaster unfold from a safe distance. To them, this was the "after-party" entertainment.

My chest felt like it was being crushed by an invisible vice. The watch was worth sixty thousand dollars, sure, but it was the only thing I had left that felt like a connection to a home that no longer existed.

"Zara, please," I whispered.

"Tick-tock, Salim," she mocked, mimicking the sound of a clock. "Every second you waste is another second you’re trespassing."

With fingers that felt numb, I unbuckled the leather strap. The watch felt heavy, a piece of my identity being stripped away. I placed it in her open palm. She didn't even look at the craftsmanship; she just shoved it into her clutch like it was a piece of spare change.

"Good," she said. Then her eyes traveled down, landing on my feet. "Now, the shoes."

I froze. "What?"

"The Berluti loafers," she said, pointing a silver-tipped finger. "Kangaroo leather. Custom-made. Paid for by the Bakar Group’s corporate account last Christmas. You surely didn't think you were walking out of here in three thousand dollars' worth of footwear, did you?"

"You want me to walk out of here barefoot?" I asked, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my throat. This was the absurdity of it. They had half a million dollars of my future debt, and now they were fighting me for the shoes on my feet.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," she said, snapping her fingers at a nearby server. "Julio, go to the cloakroom. Bring out the 'donation bin' shoes. You know, the ones the staff leaves behind when they quit."

The server looked at me with a flash of genuine pity—the only real emotion I’d seen all night—before nodding and disappearing into the hallway. A minute later, he returned with a pair of tattered, off-brand gym shoes. They were neon green, scuffed, and at least two sizes too small.

"There," Zara said, gesturing to the floor. "Exchange them. Now."

I looked at the gym shoes. They were a joke. A final, cruel punchline to the evening. I could feel the eyes of the crowd burning into me. My mother was still across the room, laughing with a senator’s wife. My father was lighting a fresh cigar. Neither of them looked my way.

I sat down on a velvet bench by the door. I unlaced the Berluti loafers—shoes I had once been so proud of—and set them neatly on the marble floor. I slid my feet into the cramped, stiff gym shoes. The heels crushed against the back of my feet, and the cheap rubber smelled like a warehouse.

"And the jacket," Zara added, her voice relentless. "That’s Italian cashmere, Salim. Far too nice for a debtor."

I didn't even argue this time. I stood up, peeled off the blazer, and tossed it onto the bench. I was left in a thin, white dress shirt that felt like paper against the rising chill coming from the open door.

"Wait," Zara said as I turned to leave. She reached out and grabbed the collar of my shirt. "This is a Bakar shirt, too. But... I suppose I can't have you walking out completely naked. It would be bad for the brand's PR."

She laughed, a sharp, metallic sound that echoed in my head. "You look exactly like what you are now, Salim. A commoner. A nobody. A sucker who thought he could play with the big boys because he had a fancy last name."

"I never cared about the name, Zara," I said, and for the first time that night, my voice was cold and steady. "I cared about the family. It’s a pity I was the only one who did."

"Family is for people who can't afford to be alone," she shot back, her face twisting into a mask of pure arrogance. "Now, get out. Before I decide I want the socks, too."

I turned my back on her. I didn't look at the ballroom. I didn't look at the gold or the crystals or the people I had grown up with. I pushed open the massive oak doors and stepped out.

The storm had finally broken in full force. The rain wasn't just falling; it was a horizontal sheet of ice-cold water that slammed into me the moment I left the shelter of the portico. Within three seconds, my white shirt was transparent, clinging to my ribs. The cheap gym shoes offered no grip on the wet gravel of the driveway.

I walked. I didn't have a car—Marcus had the keys to my Audi. I didn't have a coat. I didn't even have a watch to tell me how long I had been walking.

As I reached the end of the long, winding drive, the massive iron gates of the Bakar Estate loomed ahead of me. The security guard in the booth didn't even hit the automatic trigger. He waited for me to reach the small pedestrian gate.

Click.

The lock disengaged. I pushed through it and stepped onto the public sidewalk. Behind me, the gate swung shut with a heavy, final thud that vibrated through the pavement.

I was on the outside.

I stood there for a moment, the neon green shoes soaking up the rainwater like sponges. My feet ached, my heart felt like a hollowed-out shell, and I was five hundred thousand dollars in the hole. I looked up at the silhouette of the mansion on the hill—the "Golden Cage" that had been my entire world. It looked like a tomb now.

I reached into my back pocket. My fingers brushed against the only thing they hadn't taken.

My burner phone.

It was a cheap, cracked thing I used for my secret management accounts. To them, it was trash. To me, it was the only thing I had left that connected me to the digital world—the world my father thought was a toy.

I pulled it out, the screen flickering weakly in the rain. A single notification was waiting on the screen, but it wasn't a text or an email. It was a gold-rimmed box that seemed to pulse with its own light.

[Status: Total Erasure Complete.] [Condition Met: The Phoenix must burn to be reborn.] [System Initializing: 0.1%...]

I stared at it, the rain blurring my vision. My life was over. My family was gone. I was a debtor in gym shoes.

But as I looked at that flickering gold light, the first spark of something other than grief started to warm my chest. It was a quiet, jagged edge of hope.

"You should have taken the phone, Zara," I whispered into the dark.