Chapter 8
Khloe lifted her voice.
“This wasn’t an accident,” she said, shaking her head. “Someone wanted this to happen. Someone wanted us to get in trouble and get hurt.”
She pointed at me again, confident now.
“It was Luna.”
The hallway erupted.
Parents shouted.
Kids cried.
Someone barked, “How could you do that to your classmates?”
My dad’s arm moved in front of me like a shield.
“Enough,” he said, dangerously quiet. “If you accuse my daughter, you’d better have proof.”
Khloe’s chin lifted.
“I do,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “She heard about the party. She knew we were going. And then, conveniently, her phone broke. Conveniently, she never showed. Conveniently, our payment method stopped working.”
She turned toward my father with false innocence.
“She canceled my card,” Khloe said softly, like she was confessing a sad truth. “That’s why everything happened.”
Every head turned toward my dad.
And that was the moment I understood why she had always been so confident.
Because Khloe didn’t just manipulate teenagers.
She manipulated adults.
I stepped out from behind my dad, heart pounding, and looked straight at her.
“Let’s stop pretending,” I said.
The hallway quieted.
Khloe’s lashes fluttered.
“What?”
I spoke evenly, like I was reading from a list.
“You weren’t rich,” I said. “You were sponsored.”
Her face didn’t change fast enough.
A flicker.
Tiny, but real.
I turned to the crowd.
“My family has been anonymously supporting a scholarship student for years,” I said. “That student is Khloe.”
My mom gasped.
Khloe’s mouth opened, then closed.
The teacher blinked, stunned.
“That—that can’t be.”
“It can,” my dad said, stepping forward. “And it is.”
He pulled out his phone, tapped, then held it up so the teacher could see.
“I already contacted the organization,” he said. “And our legal team. The card Khloe used tonight was issued under my family’s name. It was never hers. She was never supposed to present herself as someone with unlimited money. She violated the agreement.”
A ripple ran through the parents.
“Wait, so she lied?”
“She used sponsor money to pretend to be rich?”
Khloe snapped out of shock and lunged back into performance mode.
“No,” she cried. “That’s not what happened. They’re twisting it.”
My dad held up a hand, cutting her off.
“There’s more,” he said.
Then, from down the hallway, two people approached—a suited man carrying a folder and an officer who looked like he had already heard enough excuses for one night.
The suited man introduced himself as our attorney. He flipped open the folder calmly.
“Over the past three years,” he said, “Khloe has received funds earmarked for academic support and basic living costs. We have reason to believe a significant portion was used for non-essential purchases and entertainment. We also have documentation of repeated requests for emergency expenses that do not align with verified records.”
Khloe’s knees went weak.
“You can’t,” she whispered. “You can’t do this to me.”
My dad’s expression didn’t soften.
“You did it to yourself,” he said. “And you did it to those kids.”