Read Chapter 32: The Confession

Tom’s fingers hovered over the keyboard for a full thirty seconds before he finally pressed publish.

The cursor blinked once, twice, and then the screen refreshed. The post was live.

Jazz stood behind him, arms crossed, watching the hit counter climb from zero to thirteen in the span of a minute. Her jaw was tight, but she didn't say anything. She didn't need to. They'd argued about this for two hours the night before—whether to get ahead of the story or let Eleanor Vance's scoop land first.

Tom had argued for the truth. Not because it was noble, but because it was the only move left.

*"If she runs the story without our response, we look guilty. If we confess first, we control the narrative."*

Jazz hadn't liked it. But she'd agreed.

Now she was watching the comments roll in from people who had never met them, never worked with them, never suffered through the sleepless nights and the constant, grinding anxiety of building something from nothing. And they were judging.

"Forty percent positive," Jazz said, reading over his shoulder. "Twenty percent calling you a fraud. The rest just want to know if the product still works."

"That's better than I expected."

"One investor just tweeted that honesty is refreshing. Tagged you in it."

Tom turned around. "Which one?"

"Marcus Chen from Bolt Capital. He's an angel with a big network. This could actually—"

A notification flashed on Tom's phone. Another tweet. This one less kind.

**Vikram Shah Holdings** had just released a statement calling Tom's admission "a serious breach of fiduciary duty" and "evidence that the startup ecosystem cannot police itself." The public relations machine was already in motion, spinning the story toward their own patent claim.

Jazz's phone buzzed. Then Tom's. Then the landline—which neither of them had even plugged in until last week—started ringing too.

"This is going to be a long day," Tom said.

---

Jazz left the flat at eleven, claiming she needed air. Tom didn't ask where she was going. He knew the blog post had cost her something too—not reputation, but control. She hated being reactive, hated letting other people set the terms.

Priya's care facility was forty minutes north of their flat, tucked behind a row of Victorian houses converted into boutique clinics. The receptionist recognized Jazz by now and waved her straight through.

Priya sat on a bench in the garden, staring at a bed of lavender that hadn't bloomed yet. Her phone was face-down on the armrest. She looked thinner than she had three days ago.

"You look like shit," Jazz said, sitting down beside her.

"I've been outed as a corporate traitor, my mother doesn't know where I am half the time, and Vikram's lawyers have already sent me a cease and desist." Priya's laugh had no warmth in it. "I'm doing fantastic."

"Do you want to talk about what happened?"

"Nothing new happened. I've been here every day, watching my mother's physio sessions, pretending I'm just a daughter visiting. But I found out this morning that two of the facility's nurses were hired through a staffing agency that Vikram owns."

Jazz went still. "He's monitoring you?"

"Not visibly. Not illegally, probably. But he knows people are watching. He wants me to feel it."

"He's trying to intimidate you."

"He's succeeding." Priya finally met Jazz's eyes. Her gaze was raw, stripped of all the polish and precision she'd carried in the office. "I want to testify. I want to stand up in front of that hearing and say exactly what he did to me, to my family. But every time I think about it, I picture the hospital bill. Sixty-three thousand pounds. And that's just for the next twelve months."

Jazz didn't have an answer for that. She couldn't promise money she didn't have, couldn't guarantee protection she couldn't provide. What she could offer was something less tangible but perhaps more important.

"I'm ashamed," Priya said quietly. "That's what I've been trying to say. I'm not ashamed of my mother, or my situation. I'm ashamed that I let him do this to me for so long. I'm ashamed that I helped him leak those documents, even if I didn't know what they were at the time. I told myself I was just sharing technical specs with a partner company. But I knew. I colored the pages wrong, filed them at odd times, hinted at proprietary processes so that Daniel's team would look suspicious when they went through our records. I was a mole, and I was good at it."

"You were protecting your mother."

"That doesn't make it right."

"No," Jazz agreed. "But it makes it forgivable."

Priya looked at her—a long, searching look that Jazz felt like she'd been waiting for all week. Then she nodded, slow and deliberate.

"Okay."

"Okay, what?"

"I'll testify. But you need to help me tell my mother first."

---

Maya Okonkwo was waiting outside the flat when Jazz got back, scrolling through her phone with the easy confidence of someone who owned buildings rather than rented them.

"Your blog post is already being picked up by industry newsletters," Maya said, straightening up. "I've got twenty emails from potential partners who want to meet about the hybrid integration. And I've got eleven from people who want to distance themselves from you entirely."

Jazz unlocked the door. "Sounds about right."

"The interesting one is from a lawyer called Eleanor Vance. She's not a journalist anymore—she's got a practice now, defamation and corporate ethics. She says she has more evidence than just the patent documents."

Jazz froze with her hand on the door handle. "The journalist who called us?"

"Former journalist. She's been investigating Vikram Shah for months, and your story gave her the last piece she needed." Maya held out her phone. "She wants to meet tonight. Says she has information that could flip this whole case."

Jazz pulled out her own phone, scrolling to the final message she'd received from Eleanor before they'd gone silent on her deadline.

*"I know about the shell company in Cyprus. I know about the payment trail. I know about the beneficiary. I'm not here to bury you—I'm here to help you bury him."*

Tom appeared in the doorway behind them, tracking his eyes from Jazz's phone to Maya's face. "What's happening?"

"We're going to meet with Eleanor Vance."

"I thought she was the enemy."

"She's the one who knows the whole story." Jazz stopped, her heart suddenly hammering against the inside of her chest. "And I think she's the one who can tell us exactly what Daniel did with the code before Tom even wrote it."