The last laugh.

Seven: The Shadow Table

Jason couldn’t sleep.

Not because he was afraid…

But because he finally understood something:

> The world he thought he had won was just the first floor.

The real power?

It lived underneath.

In places with no lights.

In rooms where no cameras could enter.

---

5:45 AM – Carter Tower, Top Floor

Jason stood in front of a huge glass wall, watching the city wake up.

Abuja looked peaceful.

But now, peace made him nervous.

Amber walked in, holding a tablet.

“We got something,” she said quietly.

Jason turned to her. “Go on.”

Amber showed him a list of five names.

They weren’t public leaders. Not on Forbes. Not in politics.

But their companies were behind the biggest banks, weapons, and oil movements in the world.

One of them owned the satellites that watched half of Africa.

Another funded “research groups” that had shut down Jason’s early schools years ago.

And one?

Owned the server the warning message came from.

Jason stared at the list.

“This is the Shadow Table,” Amber said. “They’ve stayed hidden for over thirty years.”

Jason frowned. “How are they connected to ‘No Face’?”

Amber zoomed in on one name: Victor Tembo.

A quiet businessman in Switzerland.

But under the surface? A master of offshore accounts, silent funding, and removal teams.

Nova joined them, rubbing her eyes.

“I traced the message code. It bounced through seven continents before hitting our driver’s phone.”

Jason asked, “And?”

Nova hesitated.

“Victor Tembo’s team created the system that makes this kind of message untraceable. If he didn’t send it… he trained whoever did.”

Jason nodded once.

“Then we find Victor.”

---

The Meeting Room

Jason called the team together.

He stood, hands behind his back.

“Listen closely,” he said. “This is bigger than Magnus Wolfe. Bigger than the Gilded Table. Bigger than Phantom.”

Felix leaned forward. “How big are we talking?”

Jason looked them in the eye.

> “There’s a room we’ve never entered.

And the people in that room don’t speak.

They erase.”

K-Six asked, “What do they want from you?”

Jason answered slowly.

“Nothing.”

“They want me gone. Quietly. Because I’ve built something that wakes people up.”

“They don’t want chaos. They want silence.”

“And I’m making too much noise.”

---

In Switzerland – Victor Tembo

Across the world, a man in a grey suit poured tea by a lake.

He didn’t look dangerous.

He looked like someone’s kind uncle.

But his phone was encrypted six ways.

And the screen showed Jason Carter’s photo.

A voice came through the phone speaker.

Cold. Calm. Deep.

> “He got the message.”

Victor sipped his tea.

“Yes.”

“Will he listen?”

“No.”

The voice paused.

> “Then prepare the silence.”

Victor nodded once.

And the line went dead.

---

Back at Carter Tower

Jason sat in the war room.

Alone now.

Just him and the screen.

He replayed Kenny’s voice message again.

> “Don’t become the king you once swore to destroy.”

Jason whispered to himself:

> “I didn’t come this far to die in the dark.”

He opened a file.

Inside it was the one thing he had kept hidden for months.

The Black Book.

It held every dirty deal he had discovered about the world’s hidden rulers.

The Shadow Table.

Jason had kept it sealed because it was dangerous.

If it leaked, it could start wars.

But now?

He was ready to use it.

---

Later That Night

Felix stormed into Jason’s office.

“You can’t do this,” he said.

Jason didn’t look up.

“They want to disappear you. And you want to poke them in the chest?”

Jason closed the Black Book slowly.

“I want them to know… that I’m not scared.”

“This isn’t about fear, Jay. It’s about survival.”

Jason stood up.

“I didn’t survive the streets… the betrayal… Wolfe… just to bend my head now.”

Felix shook his head.

“Then what’s the plan?”

Jason looked at him dead in the eye.

> “We expose them.

One name at a time.

Every 72 hours.”

---

The Countdown Begins

Three days later, the first name dropped.

Jason’s team leaked documents showing how Elias Horn, a quiet billionaire from Norway, had used fake charities to hide weapons deals in East Africa.

The internet exploded.

Governments demanded answers.

Horn disappeared.

Day 3: Another name.

Day 6: Another.

Day 9: Victor Tembo himself.

And on day 10?

Jason went live.

---

The Broadcast

He stood on a dark stage, one spotlight over him.

Behind him, a screen showed a message:

> “The world should not be ruled in secret.”

Jason looked into the camera.

> “To the people who think they own the world:

We see you now.”

> “To everyone else:

You don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

> “They hide in silence.

But we shine light.”

They didn’t come with guns.

They didn’t send assassins.

They did something far more dangerous.

They made the world start to forget me.

---

Day 11 – 6:00 AM

I woke up like normal.

Took a shower.

Checked the news.

Opened the Ash Empire financial dashboard.

Then I froze.

$9.3 billion. Gone.

Not stolen.

Not hacked.

Erased.

Every investment we made in the last three months… wiped from the system.

Records gone.

Company names changed.

Even the bank accounts didn’t exist anymore.

I called Nova.

Her voice was shaking.

“Jay… it’s like those companies were never ours.”

I whispered one word.

> “They’re moving.”

---

The Shadow’s Game

By noon, the media had turned.

News headlines said things like:

> “Was Jason Carter’s empire fake all along?”

> “New evidence suggests Ash Empire inflated value.”

> “Secret billionaire may be running pyramid scheme.”

Amber slammed her laptop shut.

“This is how they fight. Not with bombs — with confusion.”

Deek was pacing. “They’ve planted fake ‘whistleblowers.’ People are calling reporters saying they worked for you and saw illegal activity.”

Nova added, “And worst part? The evidence is strong. Like… scarily strong.”

Felix was silent.

Then he finally said:

> “They’re rewriting reality.”

---

The Personal Attacks

That night, I logged into social media.

My accounts were still there.

But the comments had changed.

Once, people called me a hero.

Now?

They called me a liar.

A con artist.

A devil with a gold tie.

Even people I helped were turning.

Not because they wanted to...

But because they didn’t know who to trust anymore.

The Shadow Table didn’t just hit my wallet.

They hit my image.

And in this world, image is everything.

---

Day 12 – Breaking Point

We had a plan.

Go silent.

Rebuild slowly.

Let the truth catch up.

But then the worst thing happened.

They came for my team.

---

Amber’s Apartment – Midnight

She called me crying.

“They shut down my bank account.”

“What?”

“I can’t access anything. And there’s a warrant. They said I forged school records for Ash Education. Jason, I never did that—”

“I know.”

“I’m scared.”

“I’m on my way.”

By the time I got there, two unmarked cars were outside her building.

I watched from a distance.

They didn’t touch her.

They just watched her.

Letting her feel the fear.

---

Felix’s Warning

The next morning, Felix walked into my office and dropped his phone on my desk.

On the screen was a photo.

His wife and son.

Outside their school.

Taken just two hours earlier.

Felix was shaking.

“This is the line,” he said.

“I didn’t sign up to put my family in danger.”

“You want to leave?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“I want to stay. But I need to know one thing.”

“What?”

Felix looked at me, tired.

“Do you still believe we can win?”

I stared at him.

And even though I was bleeding inside…

I answered without blinking:

> “Yes.”

---

The Hacker from Ghana

Later that day, Nova burst into the war room with someone behind her.

A boy.

No older than 19.

Dark skin. Red hoodie. Headphones around his neck.

He introduced himself with just one word.

> “Marble.”

Nova smiled. “He’s the best ghost hacker in West Africa. And he doesn’t trust phones, emails, or even electricity. He only came in person because he saw something big.”

Marble pulled out a flash drive and plugged it into our offline system.

Lines of code filled the screen.

Then it stopped on a map.

Four red dots blinked.

Abuja. New York. Geneva. Shanghai.

“These,” he said, “are the four main brain points of the Shadow Table’s network.”

“Brain points?” Amber asked.

“Places where they rewrite the story. Where they erase. Fake news. Fake records. Fake death certificates. Everything.”

Marble looked at me.

“You want your name back?”

I nodded.

“Then you have to take out these four points. Fast.”

---

The New Plan

We couldn’t fight them all at once.

But we could hit them one at a time.

First target: Geneva.

Why?

Because that was where Victor Tembo’s personal server farm was hidden.

And inside it?

The digital key to restoring Ash Empire’s financial trail.

If we could get that data back…

We could prove we were never frauds.

We could take back reality.

---

Back on the Roof

That night, I stood on the rooftop again.

The wind was cold.

I could feel the pressure building in my chest.

Not fear.

Not anger.

Resolve.

The Shadow Table wanted the world to forget me.

But they forgot one thing.

I wasn’t here to be remembered.

I was here to change the game.

And that meant taking the fight…

underground.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

11:23 PM

The city looked peaceful.

Clean air. Cold wind. Expensive silence.

But under that silence was a lie.

A deep one.

The kind built to last forever.

And that lie was hidden inside a building that looked like a bank — but wasn’t.

This was Vault 9.

A private data fortress owned by Victor Tembo, a man whose face barely existed online… but whose money touched everything from weapons to politics to global lies.

Tonight, we were going in.

---

THE TEAM

I didn’t bring many people.

Too many hands made too much noise.

I came with just four:

Felix – My right hand. Heart of steel. He would guard the outside and lead the extraction.

Nova – Tech genius. She had the blueprint in her head.

K-Six – Security chief. Quiet. Deadly.

Marble – The 19-year-old hacker from Ghana. No fear, no filters.

We arrived in a black van with fake plates.

Nova wore a delivery uniform.

I wore a beard, glasses, and an old coat.

Nobody looked twice.

The plan was simple:

> Get inside.

Get the hard drive.

Get out in under 15 minutes.

---

Inside Vault 9

The building smelled like cold metal.

Clean floors. Silent guards.

Nova led the way through the side entrance, where a system glitch Marble created shut down the cameras for 17 seconds.

That was all we needed.

We slipped in fast.

Down the gray hall.

Through the server corridor.

To the final room: Level C – Cold Storage.

Inside that room was a black box the size of a microwave.

And inside that box?

All the records Victor Tembo had tried to delete.

Ash Empire's name.

My real accounts.

The truth.

Nova typed fast.

The door clicked open.

Marble moved in.

He reached the box and lifted it carefully.

Then he paused.

“I don’t like this,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“No sensors. No trip wires. It’s too clean.”

K-Six looked around. “It’s a trap.”

Before I could respond—

> The lights cut out.

---

The Trap

Red emergency lights flashed.

Doors slammed shut.

A loud alarm started ringing.

But not a normal alarm.

A silent alarm.

One only sent to phones and radios — not to the public.

I grabbed the black box.

“Move. Now!”

We ran back through the corridor.

But the hallway we came through was sealed.

New guards were already rushing in from both ends.

Felix’s voice came through my earpiece.

> “Jay, they’re coming in fast! I’m circling the van!”

Marble reached into his hoodie and pulled out a small metal ball.

He pressed it once.

The ball started to beep.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

Then he threw it.

BOOM!

A bright white flash swallowed the hallway.

The guards dropped, covering their faces.

We ran past them.

Smoke filled the air.

Nova hit a side panel and used a magnet to short-circuit the final door.

We burst out into the cold night.

Felix was already waiting with the van.

Doors open.

Engine hot.

We jumped in—

And drove into the dark.

---

Inside the Van

Everyone was breathing hard.

No one spoke for a few seconds.

Then Marble looked at me.

“We got it,” he said.

He plugged the black box into his custom laptop.

Lights blinked.

Data flowed.

Nova checked her screen.

And slowly, her mouth opened in shock.

“This… this is everything,” she said. “Every erased deal. Every false report. Every lie they pushed against us.”

Felix let out a small laugh. “We’re back.”

I nodded.

But deep down, I felt something else.

> This was too easy.

Victor Tembo didn’t make mistakes.

So why now?

Why let us take the box?

Unless…

---

Back at Carter Tower – Abuja

We landed quietly.

No press.

No news.

Just a private drop and a silent ride home.

Inside the war room, Nova plugged the black box into our offline server.

Marble sat beside her, fingers dancing fast.

Data filled the screen.

Documents. Videos. Voice recordings.

Everything the Shadow Table wanted to keep hidden.

We had proof now.

Real proof.

We could clear our name.

Fix our accounts.

Show the world we were never liars.

But then…

The screen went black.

---

The Sting

Nova tried to reboot.

“Something’s wrong,” she said.

Marble froze.

“This isn’t normal…”

A message appeared on the screen.

> “Good job, Jason.

Now we know what scares you most.

Trust.”

– No Face

Felix stood up.

“What the hell is this?”

Then the system went crazy.

One by one, our hard drives started to burn.

Not smoke.

Burn.

Nova screamed, pulling the cable.

Too late.

All the data…

Gone.

The black box?

Empty now.

It was never real.

---

Betrayal

I looked around the room.

Heart pounding.

One of us had been followed.

Or worse…

One of us had talked.

I turned slowly.

Looked at each face.

Felix. Nova. Marble. K-Six.

Someone brought them to us.

But who?

K-Six’s eyes narrowed.

Marble looked confused.

Nova was near tears.

Felix clenched his jaw.

> “They baited us,” I said. “And now they know how we fight.”

Amber ran in.

“They’ve taken down our main server farm in Cape Town.”

Deek followed behind her.

“They’re pushing false news again. Hard. This time… even our allies believe it.”

The room went quiet.

We had moved first.

We had struck hard.

But now…

> The Shadow Table struck back.

---

Alone Again

That night, I stood on the same rooftop.

Wind blowing.

City lights below me.

But this time?

No peace.

Only questions.

Who betrayed me?

How deep did the Shadow Table go?

And how much time did I have left before they erased everything?