Rise of the Zillionaire Star

Chapter 45: Weaponized Romance

The news broke like a thunderclap over the industry feeds.

Jaylen was Cruz spotted in a midnight rendezvous with the pop idol Lana Syxx!

Different photos flooded social media of her leaning on his shoulder with his hand resting on her waist and their laughter frozen in a flattering half-light. The captions wrote themselves, “Love in the air? A scandal in the making?”

Jaylen didn’t need Zee to tell him it stank. Lana Syxx was a walking publicity grenade. She had this perfect smile, perfect PR machine, and an uncanny talent for making men look like villains in her wake. The last time she’d trended, it was over her teary confession that her ex “ruined her career.” That man had been quietly blackballed from the industry two months later.

Now, she was in his arms publicly.

“Zee,” Jaylen muttered in the back of the rideshare. His phone was blowing up with different notifications, “what’s her game?”

Zee’s voice was as calm over a smooth beat, replied, “Analyzing… Lana Syxx flagged for three high-risk smear campaigns in the last year. Source probability: 92% linked to Roman Vale.”

Jaylen’s jaw flexed. “So, Vale’s sending her to torch me.” He raised his eyebrows.

“Affirmative. Sub-quest detected: ‘Sabotage the Femme Fatale Plan.’ Reward on completion: +5 Talent, public credibility shield.”

The first move came fast. Within twenty-four hours, gossip blogs claimed he and Lana had been dating for “months,” with “close friends” confirming an “unstable relationship.” Anonymous tips to entertainment sites alleged that Jaylen had “anger issues” and “controlling tendencies.”

That's the story brought up by Vale this time around. But Jaylen wasn’t playing defense anymore.

Lana approached him in person the next night when he was onstage at an awards afterparty of all places. Cameras flashed his face rapidly. She smiled up at him with bright eyes in her gold colored clothing.

“Jaylen,” she calmly called his name, “I just wanted to say… you’ve been so brave. I am here for you.”

“For me?” he asked, micromanaging his expression so the cameras would read polite interest instead of suspicion.

She leaned in, whispering just loud enough for the mics to maybe catch her voice, “We could be really good for each other.”

Zee’s whisper in his ear was the opposite of flirtation, “Alert! Lana’s wearable device syncing with cloud storage. Estimated upload: fabricated imagery scheduled for release in 18 hours.”

So that was the mission, get him close, fake a domestic scandal and destroy his public image before his case against Vale reached trial.

Jaylen half-smiled for the cameras, leaned closer, and murmured back, “You should’ve picked a quieter place for this.”

He left the party without incident, letting Lana think she had baited him. In reality, Zee had already ghosted into her private server through the signal from her smartwatch. What they found made Jaylen’s blood run cold and then boil.

The folder was titled, “BREAK_GLASS_IN_CASE_OF_HIM.”

Inside of it were photos of composites of Lana with bruises and cuts. Then, there were images of Jaylen mid-shout where he lifted himself from unrelated footage and cropped against her background. There was a prewritten statement accusing him of assault and draft contracts with ValeStream’s PR branch for an “exclusive victim interview.”

The system chimed in, “Probability of success: 78% if undiscovered. Emotional damage potential: severe.”

Jaylen clenched his fists. “Not anymore.” His voice was milking its way out of his tongue.

He waited until the next day, until Lana’s team had primed the press for “a special announcement” during her live performance at the City Soundstage. She had planned to “accidentally” leak one of the fake images mid-show to create an on-air frenzy.

But Jaylen arrived uninvited by walking out onstage after the third song with mic in hand, under the full fire of the studio lights.

The audience roared in surprise. Lana froze with the microphone halfway to her lips.

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jaylen began in a calm, charming voice. “But before we all start believing in the next big headline… maybe you should see the whole picture.”

He tapped his smartwatch, and the massive screen behind them turned ON. It was not with her next stage visual, but with the folder Zee had cracked open.

He scrolled images after images with timestamps, metadatas and the edits exposed in real-time. Each fake photo faded into its untouched source image which revealed the copy-paste job, the filters and the false bruises.

Gasps from the crowd rippled through the crowd.

Lana’s voice cracked. “This is… this is a violation.” She spoke with a hot impression.

“No,” Jaylen cut her off, “this is not a violation.” He pulled up the signed PR contract with ValeStream, highlighting Roman Vale’s name in the payment section. “This is a setup, bought and already paid for. It's still the same old playbook. Only that this time, the game’s over before it started.”

The audience began booing at her. People pulled out their phones and started streaming, recording, and uploading what's happening.

Zee’s voice buzzed in his ear, “Mini-Quest Complete: ‘Sabotage the Femme Fatale Plan.’ Reward granted: +5 Talent, Public Credibility Shield active.”

Jaylen stepped closer to Lana with a calm, not threatening resolve. He was tall enough for every camera angle to capture the shift in his eyes.

“You came here to end me,” he said softly, for her and the mics, “but all you’ve done is show the world exactly who you are.”

The host rushed in to cut the feed. “It's too late. The clip is already climbing the trending charts.” #LanaSyxxExposed overtook the night’s biggest music tags within an hour.

By midnight, her sponsors had pulled out. Music blogs their retracted stories. Even some of Vale’s loyalists distanced themselves at that moment. Lana posted a tearful misunderstood video, but the public wasn’t buying it this time around.

Zee’s final note for the night was just the right and cold satisfaction, “Adversary Lana Syxx - reputation damage: critical. Recovery probability: <15%.”

Jaylen blinked, his hand rightly placed on the table. ‘They’ve got the plans, but I will make sure I frustrate it all.’ He took a sip from the wine in his hand.

But somewhere in a dark concerned room, Roman Vale was seething with a fearsome anger in his eyes. This was not how he planned it all… ‘What changed? How is Jaylen still soaring?’