CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN – GUIDING LIGHT

The break came in an unexpectedly fortuitous manner: a chance encounter with Brock Donovan, an antiquated gossip columnist with a penchant for sloshing through the underbelly of the city's high society scene. It was he who provided the final, damning piece of the puzzle in the form of a smartphone video, grainy but incriminating. The footage depicted Nancy DuBois slipping an overstuffed envelope to the editor of Village Gossip, the very publication that had so ruthlessly skewered Jasmine's reputation with its scandalous exposé. Brock's voice, tiny but audible, could be heard making explicit reference to the envelope's contents being "enough to bury that little harlot of Blackwood's." Jasmine's hands trembled as the video concluded, her mind reeling from the implications. This... this was it – concrete proof of Nancy's unconscionable machinations, her willingness to demolish an innocent woman's life and livelihood out of sheer malice and jealousy. For a fleeting moment, a surge o