Read Chapter 25: The Truth

The instant the incubator’s email notification chimed on Jazz’s laptop, Tom was already talking over her, pacing the living room like a caged animal. His voice had that defensive edge she’d come to know too well—the one that meant he was about to say something reasonable that wasn’t true at all.

“I filed it on my own because I knew you’d say no,” he said, raking a hand through his hair. “You’d have wanted to scope it, validate it, wait another quarter. We didn’t have another quarter.”

Jazz slammed the laptop shut. The sound cracked through the flat like a whip. “So you lied. You told me it was ours. You let me present it to the incubator as a joint project. You let me stay up four nights building the prototype while you sat in your room, knowing what you’d already done.”

“I was protecting you.” He stopped pacing, planted his feet. “If the patent had your name on it and the claim got filed, you’d be tied to it. I made sure you weren’t.”

“That’s not protection. That’s control.” She stood, hands flat against the kitchen counter, knuckles white. The truth sat between them like a third person in the room—the truth about him telling Marcus and Miles, about his father’s meddling with Priya, about the pricing metrics that were false because he’d been scared to run them properly. And now this. “You used my talent to get ahead, Tom. You used my work, my name, my reputation—you built your salvation on my back and then decided I couldn’t handle the truth about how it was built.”

“You were the one who knew about the patent lie for weeks before you even told me you knew,” he shot back. His voice cracked. “You covered for it. You stood in that kitchen and told me it was okay. You had your reasons, I had mine.”

“Mine wasn’t self-preservation.”

“No, yours was just self-protection. Easier to stay numb than to pick a fight, right, Jazz?”

The words landed like a slap. She could feel the sting of them heating her cheek. He was wrong and right in equal parts, and that was the worst kind of accusation—the kind that came wrapped in a half-truth. She turned away from him, facing the window, where the gray London sky pressed down over rooftops.

“I put my name on that filing because I was trying to save us,” he said, quieter now. “You don’t think I wanted to tell you? I wanted to sit you down and say, ‘Hey, I filed this so we could get the investor, but I didn’t run it by you because I was scared you’d leave.’” He let out a bitter laugh. “Turns out I was going to lose you anyway. I just got to choose the bigger explosion.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel sorry for you?” Jazz spun to face him. Her voice felt raw, scraped clean of politeness. “This isn’t about your fear, Tom. This is about what you did. And what you didn’t do. You told me it was ours—‘our’ technology, ‘our’ future. But it was always yours. Your decisions. Your risks. Your debt. Your father. Your secrets.”

“I was trying to protect you from all of it. From Elliott, from the journalist, from what the numbers said. I was trying to keep you safe so you could do the work.”

“I don’t need you to keep me safe. I need you to tell me the truth.”

The flat filled with a terrible silence. The kettle sat cold on the counter. The last delivery boxes stacked near the door held the remains of three weeks of cheap takeout. Somewhere outside, a siren wailed, and the city inched forward without them.

Tom’s phone vibrated against the coffee table. He ignored it. His phone buzzed again. And then Jazz’s own phone rang—the incubator’s number flashing across the screen.

She picked it up. Her voice was clipped. “Jazz Okafor.”

“Ms. Okafor, this is Grace at the London Technology Incubator.” The woman’s voice was tight, professional, and doing a bad job of hiding alarm. “We need to talk about the ownership claim on the voice-note specification.”

“We’re already aware,” Jazz said. “We have forty-eight hours.”

“Yes, well—not exactly.” The pause stretched. “There’s been a development. The filing party has requested an emergency provisional hearing on the basis that they hold prior art documentation. They’re claiming the transcription pipeline was developed in collaboration with a third party outside your founding team, and”—Grace inhaled sharply—“they’ve named Priya Sharma as evidence. They say she developed the foundational architecture during a pilot project with Elliott Faraday’s firm two years ago.”

Jazz’s hand went numb. Priya. The name from the incorporation forms. The co-founder who supposedly never existed. Tom’s father had erased her, and now she was coming back as a weapon.

“We have forty-eight hours,” Jazz repeated. It felt like a lifeline and a lie.

“You have forty-eight hours to respond,” Grace corrected, “but if they bring Priya in with valid documentation, the ownership dispute could freeze your assets for the duration of the review. Do you have access to her? Can you speak with her?”

Jazz didn’t answer. Her eyes found Tom’s. He was watching her, reading every flicker of her face like the engineer he was. She could already see his mind moving—calculating angles, seeking exits. She hated him for it. She hated herself for still, in the corner of her chest, wanting him to fix it.

“We’ll be in touch,” Jazz said, and hung up.

She set the phone down on the counter with deliberate calm. Tom waited.

“It’s not just the claim,” she said. “They have Priya. Or they can find her. And if they do, they’ll have more than a story. They’ll have her receipts, her diaries, her notebooks. Everything your father tried to bury.”

Tom went pale. “She’s not real. She never signed anything.”

“That’s what your father said. But someone is out there using her name, which means either she exists or someone built a ghost that looks exactly like her. And either way, Tom”—Jazz felt the words settle like cold stones in her mouth—“you don’t get to decide what happens next.”

She walked past him, toward her room.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Figuring out the truth about Priya Sharma,” she said, without turning around. “Before it finishes killing the thing we built.”