Chapter 29: Ashes Don’t Lie
Smoke.
It curled through the air like a cruel whisper—clinging to everything.
Jayden stood at the edge of what used to be the retreat center. Now, just rubble, cinders, and silence.
Fire crews combed the scene.
One covered a burnt figure with a white sheet.
Another whispered to a medic, just loud enough for Jayden to catch:
> "Only one confirmed. Female. Early twenties."
Jayden's legs nearly buckled.
Leo caught him.
"She can't be—"
Jayden shook his head, almost violently. "No. Zaria was smart. She had backups. She wouldn't—she wouldn't go out like that."
But the voice inside him said otherwise.
---
Faith arrived fifteen minutes later with Nia.
They'd flown in by private copter as soon as the news broke.
"Still no digital footprint," Faith said grimly. "No camera caught the bomber. No license plates. No suspicious data. It's clean."
"Too clean," Leo muttered.
Jayden didn't respond.
He just stared at the rubble.
And beneath his silence, guilt screamed.
> You dragged her back into this.
You offered protection.
And now she's dead.
---
That night, Jayden locked himself in his room.
Not in grief.
In war mode.
He opened every Syndicate file they had. Every name. Every ledger. Every shell company. Every phone number ever traced.
He played them like a symphony of shadows.
But something didn't fit.
If Cormac wanted to send a message, killing Zaria would've been public, loud, brutal.
This?
This was clinical. Private.
Almost… surgical.
---
The next morning, Faith entered his office, looking pale.
"You need to see this," she said, placing a tablet on the table.
The screen played footage from a highway camera three hours after the explosion.
A woman in a grey hoodie, head down, walking calmly past a petrol station near Nakuru.
The algorithm flagged one detail: a slight limp in her right leg.
Zaria had that limp—after a childhood injury.
Jayden leaned forward.
His breath caught.
"It's her."
Faith whispered, "She faked her death."
---
They replayed the footage frame by frame.
Zaria never looked up.
Never ran.
Just vanished into a crowd boarding a rural matatu heading west.
Leo zoomed in on the vehicle.
"No plate registered. No GPS."
Jayden stood.
"She's running from something."
Faith looked at him. "Or someone."
---
Jayden called Leo into his private study.
"I need to find her before they do."
Leo nodded. "Already working on it. But there's more."
He slid a manila folder onto the table.
"The flash drive. From the retreat center. It was hidden under the foundation, in a fireproof casing."
Jayden's hands shook as he opened it.
Inside were six files.
Six high-level names.
Government officials.
International partners.
One of them was a close advisor to the President of Kenya.
Another? The Director of a major global NGO operating under the guise of child education.
All tied to the South Syndicate.
All had received "security donations" from Richard Lexington.
---
Jayden felt his chest tighten.
His father hadn't just funded evil.
He'd institutionalized it.
Made it sustainable.
Global.
---
Sasha walked in, holding a glass of water.
"You okay?"
"No," Jayden said. "And that's why I know I'm still human."
---
He gathered the council that night in the underground chamber.
He didn't sit at the head.
He didn't wear a suit.
Just a hoodie. Black. Plain.
"I found something," he said. "Something that might destroy the last of our legacy."
He handed the flash drive to Nia.
"Confirm everything. Quietly. Leak nothing. This has to be water-tight."
Faith nodded. "What are you going to do?"
Jayden looked around the circle.
"I'm going to do what my father never had the guts to do."
Leo raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"
Jayden stared straight ahead.
"Tell the whole truth. To the world. Even if it burns me too."
---
Meanwhile, in a private jet flying over Lusaka, Zaria sat quietly.
She stared at her own reflection.
Bruised. Burnt around the shoulder. But alive.
A man across from her leaned forward.
"You sure about this?" he asked.
Zaria nodded. "The Syndicate won't stop until Jayden's broken or bought. I'm not going to let either happen."
The man handed her a phone.
"Then you better call him. He thinks you're dead."
Zaria hesitated.
Her fingers hovered over the screen.
Then she whispered,
> "Not yet. Let him believe it a little longer. He's stronger when he hurts."
---
Back in Nairobi, Jayden stood once more at his window.
Rain tapped gently against the glass, like the world was knocking.
He whispered to the night:
> "I don't want to be a king.
I just want to leave behind a kingdom worth saving."
And far off in the digital ether, Cormac Veldt smiled as he watched.
"Let the boy bleed," he muttered. "It means he's getting close."
End of Chapter Twenty-Nine