Chapter 8 When Gods Bleed

hapter Eight: When Gods Bleed

Zara stood on the roof of a decommissioned broadcast tower overlooking Abuja, the city glittering beneath her like a dream about to be ripped apart.

Her earpiece buzzed.

"Target confirmed," Leo's voice said, quiet and cold. "She's here."

Below, a black SUV pulled up to the underground parking deck of an elite government-funded safe zone-off the books, scrubbed from databases, monitored by the very people they once worked for.

Ayanda Bassey stepped out.

Unbothered. Unharmed.

Unapologetic.

Zara's jaw clenched. "She's walking like the world's not on fire."

"Because she thinks we're ash."

Zara pulled the scope into view, training it on Ayanda's head as she crossed into the building.

"Give me the word," she whispered.

"No," Leo said. "We go in together. Clean. Measured. Surgical."

Zara lowered the rifle, heart thudding.

She had imagined this moment too many times. Her mentor turned executioner. The woman who built her, sent her into Leo's life like a knife, and then tried to throw her away when she got too close to her mark.

"You still want her alive?" she asked.

Leo was silent for a beat.

"Only if she talks."

They entered through the old tunnels-a drainage channel beneath the lot, repurposed during the civil unrest years as a covert escape route. Zara moved first, silent in black. Leo followed, pistol drawn, eyes sweeping every shadow.

The compound was heavily secured-biometric locks, glass elevators, voiceprint recognition-but Ayanda was arrogant. She believed she'd already won.

That was her first mistake.

They reached sublevel two. Security cams were dead.

Leo nodded. "We've got twelve minutes before backup arrives."

Zara typed fast, hijacking the access panel.

"You're getting good at this," he muttered.

"I was always good," she said. "You just didn't know who I really was."

He looked at her, not smiling.

"I do now."

The door hissed open.

Inside, Ayanda was alone.

She sat in a chair with a tumbler of dark liquor, scrolling through her tablet as if this were just another quiet night in a nation on fire.

When Zara entered, gun first, Ayanda didn't look up.

"Hello, child."

Zara's finger twitched.

"I'm not your child," she said.

Ayanda glanced up. "No. You're something far more disappointing."

Leo stepped in behind her.

Ayanda raised a brow. "So this is the king you betrayed your country for?"

Leo said nothing. Just closed the door behind them and flipped the deadbolt.

Ayanda rose from her chair slowly, the glass in her hand steady, her expression unreadable. She looked elegant as ever-gray tailored suit, silver bangles, a smooth bob that hadn't changed since the day Zara met her in that cold SIRS facility years ago.

"I taught you to be more surgical than this," she said, sipping. "You've let emotions cloud your discipline."

Zara took a step closer, gun aimed at her mentor's chest. "No. You taught me to kill for people who never intended to let me live."

"And yet, here you are. Alive. Furious. And clinging to a man with blood on his hands and a target on his back."

"Funny," Zara said. "You sound jealous."

Ayanda smiled. "Of a weakness? Hardly."

Leo moved beside Zara, his silence louder than any bullet. He didn't speak-not yet-but the fury in his eyes could've turned steel to fire.

"We know about Project Mamba," he said.

Ayanda didn't react. "Do you?"

Leo tossed a drive onto the table. "Names. Test subjects. Internal memos. You created operatives, burned them, then buried them in foreign prisons and unmarked graves. You built a war machine."

"And what did you build, Mr. Madu?" she asked smoothly. "A drug empire? A child-soldier network in Port Harcourt? Don't pretend you have clean hands just because you wrapped them around her waist."

Zara's breath hitched.

Leo stepped closer to Ayanda, unflinching. "We leaked your files. The world knows. What happens next is just... cleanup."

Ayanda's gaze flicked toward Zara. "And what about her? What do you think happens to someone like her when the dust settles?"

Zara spoke then, calm and certain.

"She becomes the match they should've never struck."

Ayanda placed her glass down carefully. "You came here for a kill. But you won't do it."

"Try me," Zara said.

"I don't need to," Ayanda replied, reaching toward the table.

Zara's gun snapped up instantly.

"Don't," Leo warned.

Ayanda froze, fingers hovering just over a thick leather file.

"You think I kept no leverage?" she said softly. "You think I survived this long without preparing my own little escape hatch?"

Zara narrowed her eyes. "What's in it?"

Ayanda gave a bitter smile. "Everything. A dead man's key. Protocol 17. The real reason you were sent to Leo Madu in the first place."

Zara hesitated.

Leo's hand grazed her arm. "Don't."

"I need to know."

Ayanda pushed the file toward the edge.

"Open it," she said.

Zara grabbed it-gloved fingers flicking the latch-and opened it to find a photo.

A man. Nigerian. Civilian.

Dead.

And beneath it-

Her signature.

Stamped on an authorization form she had no memory of signing.

"What is this?"

Ayanda's voice dropped to a whisper.

"The first time you killed for us wasn't in Congo, Zara. It was in Abuja. You were fifteen."

Zara stared at the form.

Leo looked at her. "Zara-"

"I don't remember this," she said.

Ayanda stepped forward. "We erased it. You had a break. Trauma. We thought it better you never knew."

Zara's knees went weak.

Leo caught her.

Ayanda's voice sliced through the moment. "You think you can destroy me, girl? I made you. You've always been a ghost. You just forgot whose hand held your leash."

Zara looked up slowly.

And smiled.

"No," she said. "You just reminded me whose throat to cut."

And without hesitation-

She pulled the trigger.

The shot echoed like judgment.

Ayanda dropped to her knees, a clean hole through her shoulder. Not dead. But broken.

Zara stood over her, calm now-eyes sharp, gun still raised.

"That was mercy," she said. "Next time, I don't miss."

Blood spilled onto the white floor. Ayanda looked up, lips curled in something like amusement, pain barely dulling her poise.

"You think you've won," she rasped.

Zara knelt beside her. "I think you're no longer in control."

Leo stepped forward, silent until now. "There's a data drop scheduled in ten minutes. Final records of Project Mamba. Every cover-up. Every name. It's over."

Ayanda laughed once, bitter and wet. "You think the system cares about the truth? They'll deny it. Reframe it. You'll be fugitives until the end of your miserable lives."

Zara leaned in, her voice a razor. "Then we die louder than anyone else ever has."

Ayanda's eyes closed. Her body slumped to the floor.

Leo turned to Zara. "We move. Now."

They wiped the room-no prints, no tech, just blood and smoke. The fire alarm went off ten minutes later, set remotely. A perfect distraction.

By the time emergency services arrived, Ayanda was unconscious, bleeding, and half the digital world was already screaming about the final file leak.

PROJECT MAMBA: UNAUTHORIZED ASSET PROGRAM EXPOSED

"An elite Nigerian intelligence group used underage assets for domestic and foreign missions before systematically erasing their memories and identities."

"More than twenty deaths linked to disavowed operations."

"Director Ayanda Bassey implicated in cover-up."

"Key whistleblowers remain at large."

They crossed the border into Benin by nightfall.

Leo drove. Zara stared out the window, her body aching, her chest quiet for the first time in years.

"She's not dead," he said eventually.

"No," Zara replied. "She gets to live in the world she tried to burn."

Leo gave her a glance. "That was the first time you called the shot."

Zara nodded slowly. "Because I wasn't acting for anyone else."

They drove on in silence.

At the safehouse, tucked into a nameless cliff town with no signal and no questions, Zara stood on the rooftop as dusk painted the world red.

Leo joined her. His shirt was still damp from blood. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

After a moment, she said, "I don't know who I am anymore."

He brushed her knuckles with his. "You're someone they tried to erase."

Zara looked at him. "And you?"

Leo's voice was soft. "The man who killed the part of himself that could live without you."

They didn't kiss. Not yet.

But in that moment-on the edge of war, memory, and survival-they finally understood:

They were both monsters.

But they'd learned how to bleed.

And gods who bleed... can burn empires down.