Kelvin refused to stop Urithi.
He moved the follow-up launch to a private lodge near Naivasha and called it:
**URITHI — THE STORY CONTINUES.**
Mercy told social media that creativity could not be cancelled by politics.
The company used prototypes, limited stock, and pieces from a foreign supplier whose labels never appeared on camera.
A buyer from Stockholm asked during the panel:
“Which artisan groups appear in the supply agreement?”
Mercy smiled.
“We work with communities across Kenya.”
“Which communities?”
“Several.”
“Are royalties paid per item?”
“Our CSR model is holistic.”
Holistic was an elegant way to avoid an amount.
Another buyer asked the meaning of the central motif.
Mercy answered:
“It represents women crossing into power.”
Mama Naserian watched from the cooperative office.
“She invented that.”
A bag strap loosened on the runway. The model caught it before it fell. Several beads had been wired roughly enough to scratch her hand.
The official incident report called it a minor styling issue.
Joyce from quality control wrote:
**Injury is not styling.**
Customer-service emails began asking for maker names, origin certificates, wages, and licensing.
The new supplier sent bead panels with inconsistent colours and sizes.
Joyce rejected them.
Kelvin overruled her for launch urgency.
The system required the person overriding quality to sign.
Nadia had designed that rule years earlier.
Kelvin signed.
He had valued the system when it protected him from supplier mistakes. Now it recorded his own decision.
He called Nadia after the buyers placed orders on hold.
“This has gone too far.”
“Which part?”
“The cooperative suspension. Buyers are asking nonsense.”
“Licence documents are not nonsense.”
“We need two weeks. Help us approve stock already produced.”
“I do not control the cooperative.”
“Do not pretend. They listen to you.”
“They have furthermore rejected me in meetings.”
Kelvin lowered his voice.
“I know the wedding was brutal.”
“Planned.”
“The board acted.”
“Who uploaded the slides?”
“I cannot discuss an investigation.”
“Then speak through counsel.”
“Urithi belongs to us.”
“Who is us? Onstage you said Mercy.”
“That was legal positioning.”
“My wedding was legal positioning?”
He admitted that investors wanted a clean ownership story. Mercy brought “evidence”. Beatrice said the deal would die unless he acted.
“I chose the company,” Kelvin said.
“Exactly.”
He offered to correct some language if Nadia helped unlock the licence.
She required overdue royalties, maker attribution, withdrawal of the restricted motif, and independent review.
“Can you speak like my fiancée for one minute instead of a lawyer?”
“You fired your fiancée.”
The call ended.
Stockholm placed its order on hold. A Dubai hotel cancelled. A Kenyan luxury store removed the window display.
A slow-motion video of the loose strap gained more views than the launch.
Someone joked that a KSh 86,000 bag should not require prayer to remain closed.
Nadia did not post it.
Sometimes the product delivered its own slap.
Savanna Crown could buy beads, foreign components, influencers, and champagne.
It could not instantly buy the knowledge of which wire cut skin, which leather pulled thread, which colours carried restrictions, or which motif could not be turned into decoration.
That knowledge had been erased from the label.
Now it was missing from the goods.
The quality failures affected more than headlines.
Industrial Area workers had been scheduled for a full month of Urithi finishing. When bead panels failed inspection and buyers paused orders, shifts disappeared.
Joyce proposed a recovery plan:
Pay the overdue Enkare royalties.
Return to older authorised designs.
Use local repair teams.
Stop the disputed motif.
Protect wages using the executive-bonus reserve.
Beatrice rejected the last item.
“Executives will not personally sponsor a supplier problem.”
“Workers did not select the supplier,” Joyce replied.
The proposal entered the official minutes.
When Joyce was later suspended, her written record showed that the company had possessed a safer alternative and rejected it.
Nadia learned of the plan through the audit, not through a secret message from Joyce. That distinction mattered.
Joyce was not Nadia’s agent. She was a quality officer performing her own duty.
The same was true of the foreign buyer, customs team, cooperative, and injured model.
Kelvin kept calling the crisis Nadia’s sabotage because one enemy was easier to understand than many independent people refusing the same false story.
International distribution for chapter 5 commenced smoothly as new partnership agreements were ratified.
International distribution channels performed smoothly as logistics partners expanded transport coverage.