The road to Mombasa stretched ahead like a long, burning ribbon.
The journey was supposed to be calming—a scenic drive along the coast to distance them from Grace's reach in Nairobi. But there was no calm in Elijah's chest. Not after everything that had happened. Not after Amina's suspension, the staged academic scandal, the break-in.
Not after reading the letter.
She had trusted him. Even in death, Elijah's mother had trusted him to find the vault. To find the truth.
Now it was time to unlock it.
Amina glanced at him as the salty wind whipped through the open windows. "You've barely spoken since we left Nairobi."
He kept his eyes on the road. "I keep thinking—what if this is another trap? What if Grace already knows about the vault?"
"She doesn't," Amina said firmly. "If she did, she would've emptied it years ago."
Elijah nodded, his grip tightening around the steering wheel. "Then what we find in there better be worth everything we've lost."
Amina's voice softened. "We haven't lost. Not yet."
---
They arrived in the old part of Mombasa after sunset.
The directions were vague, but Elijah remembered enough from his childhood to recognize the narrow streets and the decaying whitewashed building hidden between a spice shop and a crumbling post office.
It was an abandoned lawyer's office. The metal shutters creaked as he lifted them.
Dust filled the air, thick and musty. The building hadn't been touched in years.
At the back of the office, behind a bookshelf bolted into the wall, was the vault.
Elijah slid the key in.
Click.
The door swung open with a groan, revealing a small chamber no larger than a closet. Inside: five boxes, each sealed and labeled with dates spanning nearly two decades.
Amina stepped closer. "This is… everything?"
Elijah opened the first box.
Inside were files—property deeds, old contracts, passports, and legal statements. Some documents bore Grace's signature. Others were signed in his father's name, but the handwriting didn't match.
Forgery.
He opened another box—this one contained a series of journal entries. His mother's handwriting. Her thoughts, fears, and warnings.
But the fourth box held something different.
A flash drive. Wrapped in a silk cloth.
Amina took it gently. "We'll need to check what's on it."
Then Elijah found the last box—marked only with one word in thick black ink.
"Empress."
His hands trembled as he opened it.
Inside was a single manila folder. A photograph was clipped to the top.
Elijah froze.
It was a picture of Grace… standing next to a man who looked eerily like Daniel Mwangi.
But the timestamp showed the photo was taken a full year after his father's supposed death.
"What the hell—" Elijah whispered.
Amina leaned in. "That's not possible. Your father's plane crash—"
"Was a lie," Elijah finished.
Inside the file were reports. Names. Locations. Financial records.
Project Empress wasn't a business plan.
It was a covert operation orchestrated by Grace and a few unnamed government officials. They had staged Daniel Mwangi's death… for reasons yet unknown.
Elijah sank to the floor.
"My whole life… was built on a lie."
Amina knelt beside him. "Then we uncover every piece. We bring it all to light."
---
They checked into a small beachfront cottage that night. It wasn't fancy, but it was safe.
Elijah sat on the porch with the flash drive, fingers trembling as he inserted it into his laptop.
Encrypted.
He entered the password his mother always used for her personal files.
It unlocked.
Videos. Emails. Audio recordings. Even satellite images.
Proof of everything.
And then… a final folder labeled:
"In case of betrayal."
Amina sat beside him as he clicked it open.
Inside was a confession—a full recording by Daniel Mwangi.
His voice.
His face.
A private video recorded before the crash.
> "If you're seeing this, I may already be dead—or worse. Grace has grown too ambitious. She wants the company for herself. But it's more than that. There are political deals I never agreed to. She's working with people who want to control more than business. They want power over governments, over people… over Kenya's future."
> "She told me I had to step aside. That the world was changing. I said no."
> "That's when the threats began. And now, I fear for my family. For Elijah."
> "If anything happens to me… know that it wasn't an accident."
Amina covered her mouth.
Elijah stared at the screen in silence.
His father hadn't died in ignorance. He'd known everything. He'd tried to protect them. And Grace had silenced him.
"They'll kill us for this," Elijah whispered.
Amina turned to him. "Then we make it too public to bury."
---
The next morning, the sun rose with an eerie peace.
They sat together by the waterline, waves lapping at their feet.
"I never thought we'd get this far," Elijah said.
"You didn't think we'd make it out of the boardroom," Amina teased.
He smiled, but it faded fast.
"If we go public, everything changes. There's no turning back."
She took his hand.
"I didn't fall for you because you were a billionaire. I fell because you never stopped fighting. Not for your mother. Not for the truth. And not for me."
Their lips met softly—this time not in desperation, but in clarity. A choice.
Whatever happened next, they were in it together.
---
Back in Nairobi, Grace sat across from a man whose name rarely appeared on paper.
He was older. Colder. The kind of man who made decisions over lives like others ordered coffee.
"You were supposed to have handled this," he said calmly.
Grace's lips twitched. "I underestimated him."
"And now?"
"He found the vault."
The man tapped the table. "Then there's no more room for mercy."
Grace looked up. "What do you want me to do?"
"Finish it. We can't afford another scandal. Not before the elections."
She hesitated, then nodded.
"I understand."
---
The final shot of the chapter pans out with Elijah and Amina preparing to leave Mombasa—flash drive in hand, betrayal behind them, and a city waiting for the truth.
But someone is already following them.
And not everyone will make it back to Nairobi alive.