By the time she reached the trailer, two police cars were already there.
Emeka looked pale when she rushed inside. “What happened?”
“My father,” she said. “He called them.”
They barely had time to breathe before the knock came.
Aerys stepped outside and met the officers on the porch.
After tense minutes of questioning, suspicion, and careful lies told to buy time, the police left without arresting Emeka—but only just. The older officer warned her that if they were called back, things would go very differently.
When the door shut, the room exhaled.
Emeka did not.
“You lied for me,” he said quietly.
“Yes.”
He looked at her with confusion and hurt. “Why?”
Aerys stepped toward him. “Because I should have protected you eight years ago. I couldn’t then. I can now.”
Before he could respond, her phone rang again.
It was her mother.
Her parents had divorced years earlier, bitterly and publicly. Since then, Aerys’ relationship with Sarah had been distant but intact—the way adult daughters sometimes love their mothers while carrying too much shared history to be fully close.
“Aerys,” Sarah said, voice tight. “Come to my house. Right now. Bring Emeka.”
“What happened?”
“I found something.”
An hour later they were sitting in Sarah’s warm, modest study, a space so different from Austin’s mansion it felt like another country. Papers covered the desk. Old bank statements. Property records. Printed emails. A small digital recorder sat beside them.
Sarah looked from Aerys to Emeka and drew in a breath.
“I kept copies of everything during the divorce,” she said. “I never trusted your father with money, and thank God for that now.”
She slid a bank statement forward.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Fifty million transferred to a company called Valley Security Services three days after Emeka’s supposed death. Then another twenty million two weeks later.”
Aerys’ pulse jumped.
Sarah handed over a printed email.
Mr. Okafor, the matter has been handled as requested. The vehicle was disposed of at the location you specified. All identifying materials were included. The agreed story has been provided to the necessary authorities. Please send the final payment.
Signed: Adams Torres.
Emeka stared at the paper like it might vanish if he blinked.
“It’s him,” Sarah said. “I tracked him down. The company no longer exists, but the man does. I called him. At first he denied everything. Then I told him I had the bank records and email. He broke.”
Aerys leaned forward. “What did he say?”
“He’s willing to talk,” Sarah said. “He says Austin hired him and his men to force Emeka out, stage the fire, and make the police believe it was a fatal accident. He says Austin had friends in the morgue and at the station to smooth the story.”
Aerys sat back slowly, every piece of the nightmare sliding into place.
“This is enough,” she whispered.
“Enough to start an investigation,” Sarah said. “Enough to make him afraid.”
Emeka looked from one woman to the other, still almost unable to believe what hope felt like. “What do we do?”
Aerys’ answer came with perfect clarity.
“We confront him,” she said.
Sarah frowned. “That is dangerous.”
“He’s already moving against us. If we go quietly to the police first, he will throw money at the problem and buy time. No. We confront him with everything. We force his hand.”
“And if he refuses?” Emeka asked.
“Then we take it all public. Police. Press. Court. Everything.”
Sarah studied her daughter’s face and slowly nodded. “Then we go together.”
The next morning the city felt heavy, humid, restless.
Aerys rode to the mansion in silence with Emeka beside her and her mother in the back, gripping the folder of evidence as if it were a weapon. Sarah’s brother Richard met them there, carrying original ledgers and documents he had stored after the divorce.
Austin was in his study with a glass of whiskey in hand despite the early hour.
When he looked up and saw all of them together—Aerys, Sarah, Emeka, Richard—real fear flickered across his face for the first time.
“I told you to come alone,” he said.
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