Aerys listened without breathing.
“In the parking lot, a black car pulled up beside me. Your father got out. Two men got out with him. Security types. Big men.” Emeka swallowed. “They grabbed me before I could run.”
Aerys gripped the edge of the chair.
“They took me to an old warehouse at the edge of town. Your father told me I had one last chance to vanish quietly. There was an old car waiting there. He ordered me to drive it to the bridge outside the city, leave my phone, my ID, my wallet—everything—inside it, and walk away. He said if I obeyed, I would live. If I didn’t…” Emeka looked at her then. “He made sure I believed he would kill me.”
Aerys shook her head once, a helpless gesture against horror.
“I did what he said,” Emeka continued. “I drove the car to the bridge. I left everything inside. Then his men arrived behind me. They poured fuel over it. Set it on fire. I watched it burn with my whole life in it.”
Aerys could not speak.
“Your father came by one last time,” Emeka said. “He threw an envelope at my feet. Five million. Said I was dead now. Said that was what the police would believe. What you would believe. Then he warned me that if I ever came back or tried to contact you, he’d make sure I died for real.”
Aerys’ tears fell freely now.
“I was injured during all of it,” Emeka said quietly. “One of the men hit me. Hard. I fell against metal. I was half-conscious by the time they left. Later there was smoke, confusion, hospitals, bills… I survived, but not well.”
“And you never came to me.”
He gave her a shattered look. “To say what? That your father had buried me alive? That the funeral you cried through was a lie? He had money, power, lawyers, police friends. I had fear and a broken body.”
Aerys stood slowly. There was a strange new stillness in her now, the kind that comes after enough shock turns grief into clarity.
“My father did this,” she said.
“Yes.”
“He made me mourn you. He stole our child. He stole eight years.”
Emeka’s eyes softened just a fraction. “Yes.”
She looked at him with a grief so deep it was almost beyond tears. “I am so sorry.”
He closed his eyes. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” he said after a long pause. “I know you didn’t build this lie. But you lived inside it.”
That was fair. Cruel, but fair.
Aerys wiped her face and straightened her shoulders. “Then I’ll tear it down.”
His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to my father.”
Emeka’s face changed instantly. “No.”
“Yes.”
“He is dangerous.”
“I know that now.”
“He will destroy you if he can.”
Aerys’ voice dropped low and steady. “Then he’ll have to try.”
Before Emeka could stop her, she grabbed her keys and left the trailer.
This time she did not cry on the drive.
She was beyond tears.
She drove straight to her father’s mansion.
The house stood in one of the wealthiest parts of the city, framed by tall white columns, clipped hedges, and a fountain that looked designed more for display than joy. Growing up, Aerys had thought the place felt powerful. Now it felt like a monument to control.
She did not knock. She used her old key.
The front door swung open.
“Father!” she called.
Her voice echoed against marble and glass.
A few moments later, Austin Okafor appeared at the top of the staircase in a silk robe, looking composed, elegant, untouched by the kind of truth that was blowing lives apart a few miles away.
“Aerys,” he said smoothly as he descended. “What a surprise. Why are you shouting?”
She stared at him as if seeing a stranger wearing her father’s face.
“Emeka is alive,” she said.
He paused only slightly. So slightly most people would have missed it.
Then he continued walking.
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