Read Chapter 20: The Backer

The knock came at 9:47 AM, a full thirteen minutes before Miles was supposed to arrive. Jazz looked up from the duct-taped prototype on the coffee table—a cardboard mockup of the supplier-chat interface they were meant to be rebuilding in six weeks—and caught Tom's expression flicker from focused to something she couldn't name.

"You expecting someone?" she asked.

"Not exactly." Tom was already on his feet, running a hand through his hair in that anxious way he did before pitches. But this wasn't a pitch. He'd told her an angel investor had reached out through Alex's network, someone interested in the MVP space. Someone who wanted to see their operation firsthand.

The second knock came harder. A voice through the door, amused and familiar in a way that made Jazz's stomach tighten. "Thomas. I know you're in there. Your bike's in the window."

Tom's face went pale.

He opened the door, and a man in a perfectly tailored charcoal coat stepped inside like he owned the place. He was shorter than Tom, older by maybe eight years, with the kind of easy confidence that came from never having been told no. His eyes swept the flat—the mismatched furniture, the whiteboard covered in their pivot notes, the stack of ramen cups by the sink—and his smile widened.

"Nice place. Very... earnest."

"Miles." Tom's voice was flat. "You said you were sending someone from your firm."

"I am someone from my firm." Miles spread his hands. "I'm also someone you owe forty thousand pounds. So when I heard through the grapevine that you were doing an investor round, I thought I'd come collect an introduction. Old friends and all that."

Jazz stood slowly, the cardboard prototype still in her hands. "I'm sorry—Tom? Who is this?"

"Jazz, this is Miles Carrington. We went to Oxford together." Tom's jaw tightened on the last word. "Miles, this is my co-founder, Jasmin Okafor."

Miles turned to her with an appreciative nod. "The product genius. I've heard good things. Alex speaks highly of you both, which is why I came personally rather than sending a collections letter." He walked past them both, helping himself to the chair by the window, crossing one leg over the other. "So. The way I understand it, you're building some kind of budget supplier-chat tool now? After the AI thing collapsed?"

"It didn't collapse," Jazz said, sharper than she intended. "We pivoted. Strategically."

"Of course you did." Miles's smile didn't waver. "And you've got a demo day coming up, a vote of confidence from Alex's fund, and a patent application that might or might not survive contact with your old classmate's competing product. Am I reading the room correctly?"

Tom moved to stand beside Jazz, unconsciously squaring his shoulders. "What do you want, Miles?"

"I want what I've always wanted from you, Thomas. Repayment." Miles pulled out his phone, studied it for a moment, then put it away. "You borrowed forty grand in your third year. We agreed on terms. You've paid back maybe six. That leaves us with a shortfall that's acquired a rather unappealing amount of interest over the years."

"We agreed on a deferral while I got the company off the ground. You signed the extension yourself."

"And that extension expires in thirty days." Miles's tone was light, almost conversational, but his eyes were calculating. "So I thought I'd present a solution. I invest in your current round—say, twenty thousand pounds for five percent—and we write off the remaining balance of the loan as forgiven. We start fresh, as partners."

The offer hung in the air. Jazz did the mental math rapidly: forty thousand outstanding, twenty thousand in, five percent equity, and the debt disappears. On paper, it was practically generous. But something in the way Miles said "partners" made her skin crawl.

"Five percent," Tom repeated. "We're pre-seed. Our cap table's already tight—"

"I'm aware. That's the deal. Take it or leave it." Miles stood, smoothing his coat. "But I should mention there was a small complication. When I looked at your current cap table, I noticed something odd. Someone else's name in the history. A Priya Sharma. Care to explain why a woman who now runs a competing company was once listed as a technical advisor on your incorporation documents?"

The room went very quiet.

Jazz felt the ground shift under her feet. "What?"

Tom didn't look at her. "That was a mistake. She was never an advisor. She helped with early beta testing, and our lawyer made an error on the paperwork. We corrected it before anything was filed."

Miles tilted his head. "Did you? Because I have a friend at Companies House who pulled your filing history as a courtesy. The correction was never registered. As far as the official record is concerned, Priya Sharma was an advisor to your startup at conception."

The blood drained from Jazz's face. She'd proofread every document they'd filed. There had never been a mention of Priya Sharma on anything she'd seen.

"That's not possible," she said slowly. "I would have caught that."

"You'd think so." Miles looked between them, clearly enjoying the tension. "But people miss things when they're rushing. Especially when they're in love—or whatever this is." He gestured vaguely between them. "The point is, if it's an error, it's fixable. You just need to file a correction. But if it's not an error—if she genuinely advised you—then her subsequent patent claim looks a lot stronger, doesn't it?"

Tom's fists were clenched at his sides. "It's an error. I'll fix it today."

"Good. Then we have no problem." Miles extended a hand, the gesture casual but loaded. "Twenty grand in, debt forgiven, and I get on the board as an observer. I won't interfere—I just want eyes on my money. Give me the word and I'll wire the funds this afternoon."

Tom stared at his hand for a long moment. Jazz watched the conflict play out across his face: pride and debt and desperation, all colliding.

"Tom," she said quietly. "We should talk about this. Alone."

"There's nothing to talk about." Tom took Miles's hand. "We accept. Thank you."

Miles's grin widened. "Excellent. I'll have my lawyer send over the paperwork. Lovely meeting you properly, Jasmin. I expect great things from your little pivot." He was gone as quickly as he'd come, the door clicking shut behind him.

The silence stretched.

Jazz turned to Tom slowly. "Why did you tell me he was just a potential investor?"

"Because he was." Tom wouldn't meet her eyes. "I didn't know he'd come personally."

"Forty thousand pounds, Tom. You never mentioned that. We're founders—you're required to disclose material liabilities. I could have made different decisions with that information."

"Jazz—"

"No." She held up a hand. "And what was that about Priya Sharma being on our filings? I reviewed every document we submitted. She was never on anything. I would have noticed." She felt her voice rising, fear bleeding into anger. "What else aren't you telling me?"

Tom finally met her gaze, and she saw something raw in his expression—a crack in the facade he'd been holding up since Oxford, since his father, since everything.

"I don't know," he said quietly. "I don't know what else I'm not telling you, because I don't know what secrets are buried in my own files. My father handled a lot of the early incorporation paperwork before he cut me off. I thought I'd caught all his messes. Apparently not."

Jazz felt the air leave her lungs. "Your father filed paperwork for us?"

"He thought he was helping." Tom's voice was barely above a whisper. "He thought he knew better than our lawyer. I've been untangling his changes for a year. I thought I'd gotten them all."

The whiteboard behind him still listed their six-week timeline. Their beta goals. Their path to a bigger raise. None of it accounted for hidden filings, unpaid debts, or angel investors with strings attached.

"I need to see everything," Jazz said finally. "Every document. Every email from your father. Do you understand? I can't work with you like this—building a company on foundations I can't verify."

Tom nodded slowly. "I'll send you the files tonight."

"No. Now. I'm not waiting." She grabbed her laptop from the table. "And we need to call Marcus. We can't keep hiding the metrics issue—not with Miles suddenly owning a piece of us. If there's more we don't know, I need all the cards on the table before someone else plays them first."

The boiler coughed somewhere in the flat, a reminder that the hot water would die tomorrow alongside everything else.

Two weeks until demo day. Six weeks until their MVP deadline. Thirty days until Tom's loan extension expired—or didn't, depending on what the paperwork said.

And somewhere on the East Coast, Priya Sharma was building features they'd dreamed up first.

Jazz opened her email, and saw the unread message from the IP classmate she'd sent the patent questions to days ago. Her finger hovered over it, and in the close silence of the flat, she heard Tom exhale behind her.

"You should read that," he said. "Whatever it says, I'd rather know."

She clicked.