It was nearly 10PM when Naya felt the tail. The soft echo of footsteps followed her down the rain-slicked streets of Canary Wharf, too casual to be coincidence. She quickened her pace, heart thudding. Something wasn’t right—and it hadn’t been for days.

Just a week ago, Naya had accepted a permanent role at Tessaro & Vale, one of London’s most prestigious branding firms. To the outside world, Tessaro was sleek, sharp, and in demand. Internally? Naya sensed decay beneath the polish. There were whispers in the breakroom, strange glances during meetings, and emails that vanished without explanation.

Her first assignment was a portfolio audit—simple, routine, or so it seemed. As the newest member of the brand quality team, her job was to review past campaign materials and prepare a summary report of learnings and improvement strategies.

But as she combed through the files of recent projects, she noticed something strange. Several campaigns had been subtly flawed—too subtle to be amateur mistakes, too consistent to be coincidence. She noticed clashing colours, branding inconsistencies, and uninspired visuals that fell short of Tessaro’s reputation. Obvious branding flaws that would embarrass any credible agency.

When she brought it up casually with a colleague, they brushed it off. “Clients sometimes don’t get it,” he said. “We tone things down for the less adventurous.”

But Naya’s instincts wouldn’t rest. Something felt deliberate.

Uncovering the Branding Flaws

She dug deeper, staying after hours, tracing project drafts through the internal server logs. That’s when she uncovered something shocking: the original versions—vibrant, on-brand, and strategic—had been overwritten. Replaced with bland, watered-down alternatives. The changes weren’t errors—they were calculated downgrades. These branding flaws weren’t oversights; they were intentional degradations meant to weaken campaign outcomes.

And every one of those approved revisions? They were signed off by the same three directors: the Creative Director, the Head of Strategy, and the Lead Developer.

A pattern began to form.

To confirm her suspicions, Naya compiled side-by-side comparisons of the original and final outputs. In campaign after campaign, a clear downgrade was visible—from dynamic and polished to vague and forgettable. She knew it wasn’t incompetence.

This was sabotage.

Naya quietly reached out to a former client—a premium skincare startup. Their reply was immediate and jarring:

“We thought the problem was with us. But the campaign never aligned with our identity. It hurt us more than it helped.”

Another client told a similar story. Confidence shaken, they had scaled down their operations, attributing their underperformance to internal issues—not suspecting they were victims of deliberate branding flaws introduced by a trusted agency.

Then came the twist.

Each of those failed clients had, within months, been contacted by a new agency: Cléon & North. A sleek, boutique agency that had seemingly appeared from nowhere.

Naya pulled their website metadata. The hosting was offshore. The business registration led nowhere. The creative tone felt too familiar. The layout style, font choices, even the presentation decks mirrored Tessaro’s internal formats.

It hit her.

Cléon & North was a shell—a front.

The three directors were quietly sabotaging Tessaro from the inside by introducing subtle branding flaws into live projects, ensuring clients grew frustrated, then poaching them through their new alias. It was a long con to hollow Tessaro from within and funnel its client base into their secret agency.

She backed up her findings. Cloud copies. USB drops. Burner accounts. She printed hard copies and hid them in different folders, just in case.

By lunchtime the next day, her access to internal systems was abruptly revoked. Her laptop screen blinked once and went black.

Everything has been remotely wiped!.

When she returned from the breakroom, her keycard wouldn’t open the conference room door. At the front desk, Security offered no explanation—just a polite but firm suggestion that she leave the premises immediately.

Something in their tone told her this wasn’t standard protocol. No one said the words—but she understood. She had become a liability.

By nightfall, she was being followed again— this time more persistent. A man across the street. Then another behind a bus stop. Watching but never close enough to confront. She turned corners quickly, darting into a crowded convenience store before slipping into the back alley exit. Her hands trembled as she texted her cousin.

Naya left her flat and went to Brixton, where her cousin’s small apartment became her temporary haven. She turned off her phone, used a clean laptop, and worked offline. There, she encrypted her files and contacted an old friend—someone she once freelanced for. Someone now working deep within British intelligence.

They met quietly at a coffee shop posing as strangers. She passed the USB and laid out her findings in hushed tones. Her contact made no promises but promised to escalate. Two days later, MI5 assigned her a handler.

But just when Naya thought she had exposed the rot, the real chase began. In the shadows of London, someone wanted her silent—and they were getting closer. How far will they go to protect their secret? As Naya dives deeper into the conspiracy, her every step is shadowed by unseen enemies. The chase has begun — and there’s no turning back.

Find out what happens in episode 2