The Camaraderie Chronicles

Order Yoruba Demon: Obinna

WYL | 10

Wed, 20 May 2026 22:00:45 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

ROLA

December 1999

Two years in America.

I turned eleven in November. My birthday didn’t fall during Thanksgiving week this time, so Mummy made puff-puff and a boxed cake from the grocery store, the kind you only had to add eggs and oil to. We had a small party in the apartment—just the three of us, plus Abigail and her mother.

Mummy found me a dress from the church donation box, pink with white lace at the sleeves. It was a little tight under the arms and too long at the hem, but when I put it on, I stood in front of the mirror longer than usual.

For the first time in a long while, I thought I looked pretty.

Two years.

In some ways, it felt like forever. I could barely remember Lagos now, could barely summon the details of our compound or my school or the face of Aunty Funke. Those memories were fading, replaced by new ones: the subway, the corner store, Abigail’s laugh, the shade of gray that Brooklyn’s sky turned in winter.

In other ways, it felt like no time at all. Like we had just arrived, were still arriving, would always be arriving. Strangers in a strange land, never quite settling, never quite belonging.

Things were better, though. Objectively better.

Mummy had been promoted at the hotel. She was a supervisor now, which meant slightly better pay and slightly more regular hours. We had even moved into a bigger apartment in the same building—two real bedrooms instead of one.

Toba’s “room” was really a converted storage closet, barely wide enough for a mattress and a small shelf bolted to the wall, but he claimed it proudly anyway.

“We live in a three-bedroom apartment,” he would say whenever he wanted to annoy Mummy.

I had friends at school now. Real friends, not just Abigail. Girls who invited me to birthday parties and passed me folded notes during class. They called our apartment phone to ask for help with homework or projects, and sometimes just to talk.

Nobody really commented on my accent anymore either. Toba said I was starting to sound American now, which felt both exciting and a little sad.

Sometimes I would catch myself saying words differently than Mummy did and feel guilty after, like I was slowly misplacing parts of myself. But mummy was proud.

And Toba was doing better too. He was in ninth grade now—high school—and the bullying had mostly stopped. He had grown taller over the summer, broader through the shoulders. His size made people think twice before trying him. And he wasn’t scared to fight back anymore either.

I was glad for that.

He had finally found his place somehow, somewhere between popular and invisible. The teachers knew his name. The boys on the basketball court called for him sometimes. People laughed at his jokes now instead of his accent.

But.

There was always a but.

As much as I tried to act normal, the nightmares hadn’t stopped.

Not every night anymore, but often enough. Once or twice a week, I would wake up gasping, my heart racing, the man from the stairwell behind my eyes. His hands. His breath. The moment before I bit him, when I was certain—absolutely certain—that I was going to die.

The doctors said this was normal. Mummy had taken me to a free clinic after the third month of nightmares, worried that something was wrong with me. The doctor—a tired-looking woman with kind eyes—had explained about trauma, about how the brain processed fear, about how these things took time to heal.

“She needs to feel safe,” the doctor said. “Support her. Let her know she’s protected. The nightmares will fade eventually.”

They did fade, a little. But they never disappeared entirely. Even now, almost a year later, I could be fine for weeks and then suddenly—out of nowhere—the dream would come. The stairs. The hand. The breath. And I would wake up screaming, and Toba would be there, holding me, whispering that it was okay, that it wasn’t real, that nothing was going to hurt me.

“I’ve got you,” he would say. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

And I would press against him and let his heartbeat slow mine, let his warmth drive away the cold terror, let his presence fill the void the nightmare had opened.

Sometimes I wondered if I would ever be able to sleep without him. If I would ever feel safe on my own, in my own bed, without his arm around me and his breath against my hair.

Sometimes I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

And when the nightmares came, there was only one cure.

“Toba?”

A rustle from the closet-bedroom. Then footsteps. Then my door opening, his silhouette in the frame.

“Nightmare?”

“Yeah.”

He crossed to my bed without another word. Lifted the covers. Slid in beside me. His arms came around me, warm and solid and safe, and I pressed my face against his chest and breathed.

“Same one?” he asked.

“Always the same one.”

“You’re safe now. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

“No one’s going to hurt you.”

“I know.”

But knowing wasn’t the same as feeling. And when his arms were around me, I felt safe in a way that no amount of knowing could replicate.

“Toba?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want you to sleep in the closet anymore.”

His arms tightened slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean... every night. Sleep here. With me. It’s cold in the closet and lonely and—” I hesitated, searching for the words. “And I need you. I sleep better when you’re here. I feel safer.”

“Rola, Mummy said—”

“Mummy’s not here at night. She’s always working. And I’m tired of being scared in the dark.”

He was quiet for a long moment. I could feel him thinking, weighing, the options.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Until the nightmares stop.”

“What if they never stop?”

“Then...” He didn’t finish the sentence. Maybe because he didn’t have an answer. Or maybe because the answer make me sad if he said out loud.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Go to sleep.”

“You too.”

“I will.”

But he didn’t. I knew he didn’t. I could feel him holding me, feel the tension in his arms, feel the way he listened to every sound in the building, ready to fight anything that threatened me.

My brother. My protector. My home.

* * *

The days fell into a pattern. School, homework, dinner, television if Mummy was feeling generous with the electricity, sleep. On weekends, church—the Nigerian Pentecostal congregation that had adopted us, where Mummy raised her hands and cried during worship. Bored, I sat in the children’s section trying to understand what Jesus had to do with us, with our lives, this city and everything that had happened since we got off that airplane.

Toba came to church too, but he didn’t participate the way Mummy wanted him to. She would scold him in whispers before service, sometimes sharp enough to feel like threats, saying he was inviting the devil into his life with that attitude.

So he sat in the back when he came to church.

Arms crossed. Shoulders stiff. Watching everything and everyone with obvious indifference.

When the pastor talked about faith and trust and God’s plan, Toba’s jaw would tighten. And when the church erupted into “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” around him, he stayed silent.

“Why don’t you like church?” I asked him one Sunday after the service, as we walked home through streets that were emptier than usual because even Brooklyn seemed to rest on Sundays.

“I don’t dislike it.”

“But you don’t believe it either. I can tell.”

He was quiet for a moment.

“I believe in things I can see,” he said finally. “Things I can touch. Things I can protect.”

“Like what?”

“Like you. Like Mummy. Like this.” He gestured at the street around us, the buildings and cars and people. “I believe in what’s real. What’s here. I don’t need a God to tell me right from wrong.”

“But Mummy says—”

“Mummy needs to believe in something bigger than this.” His voice wasn’t unkind, just matter-of-fact. “She needs to think there’s a reason daddy didn’t care about us and why we came here. That it’s part of some plan. Some purpose.”

“Maybe there is a reason.”

“Maybe. Or maybe things just happen. Maybe the universe doesn’t care about us at all, and we have to make our own meaning.”

I thought about that. About a universe that didn’t care. About making our own meaning in a world that didn’t offer any.

“What’s your meaning?” I asked.

He glanced at me, a small crooked smile twisting his tight pink lips.

“You,” he said simply. “You’re my meaning. Keeping you safe. Making sure you’re okay. That’s the only thing I care about.”

I should have felt loved. Should have felt grateful. And I did—those things were there, underneath.

But something else was there too. Something that made my chest and tummy warm. So warm I wanted to be closer to him, as close as two people could possibly be.

I was eleven years old.

I didn’t understand what we were becoming. Didn’t understand the boundaries between us were blurring. Day by day. Night by night. Didn’t understand that the safety I felt in his arms was beginning to transform into a flame that would eventually consume us both.

All I knew was that the world was large and frightening and full of people who might hurt me. And in that world, there was only one person who made me feel truly safe.

Toba.

My brother. My everything.

* * *

Mr. Henry started coming around more often.

Not to our room—Mummy would never allow that. She would never let a man see the cramped space where we lived, the mattresses on the floor, or the hot plate we cooked on because the building’s kitchen was too far away and too dirty. But he appeared at church every Sunday, always finding his way to Mummy’s side during fellowship. And sometimes, during the week, he would show up at the building.

“I was in the neighborhood,” he would say, standing in the hallway, a bag of groceries in his hands. “The plantains at the African market were so fresh, I bought too many. Please, take some.”

Or: “My sister sent garri from home. I cannot finish it alone. For your children.”

Or: “Sister Adunni, your daughter mentioned the heater is broken again. I know a man who can fix it. Let me make some calls.”

Mummy always protested. Always said it was too much, that she couldn’t accept, that he was too kind.

But she always accepted. And sometimes, when she thought we weren’t watching, she would touch the things he brought—the bag of rice, the tin of palm oil, the yams wrapped in newspaper—with something like wonder. Like she had forgotten what it felt like to have someone take care of her.

I was eleven now. Old enough to understand what was happening.

“He likes her,” I told Toba one night, after Mummy had gone to bed early—exhausted, as always, but smiling slightly from the soup Mr. Henry had dropped off that afternoon. “Deacon Henry. He really likes her.”

“I know.”

“Do you think she likes him back?”

Toba was quiet for a long moment. We were in my room—our room, really, since he slept here every night now—lying side by side in the darkness.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that Mummy is scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Of wanting things. Of hoping. Of letting someone in and having them hurt her.”

“Like Daddy hurt her?”

“Yes. Like Daddy. Like everything that made her run away and come here.”

Mummy was Daddy’s second wife. According to what Toba had heard, Daddy’s family had wanted him to marry her, but he had already gone ahead and married another woman—one who had given him a child before Mummy ever entered the picture. Whenever mummy did something he didn’t like, daddy insulted her easily, swearing at her in Yoruba and calling her names.

She fought with the other wives too, never backing down when words were thrown at her. People in our compound said she was “strong,” but Toba and I saw the parts of her that strength was covering.

Even now, I noticed the way she flinched sometimes when men raised their voices. She kept everyone at arm’s length. Even us. Her children.

“Maybe it would be good for her,” I said. “To have someone. Mr. Henry seems nice.”

“Nice isn’t the same as safe.”

“What do you mean?”

Toba rolled onto his side, facing me. In the faint light from the window, I could see the outline of his face—the strong jaw he was growing into, the serious eyes.

“I mean that Mummy gave herself to someone once. To Daddy. And look at what it cost her. Her youth. Her freedom. Her whole life in Nigeria. Everything.” He paused. “I don’t think she has it in her to risk that again. Even for someone nice. Even for someone who brings groceries, fixes heaters and makes her laugh.”

“That’s sad.”

“It’s safe. There’s a difference.”

We lay there in silence for a while. From the next room, I could hear Mummy’s breathing—deep and even, finally resting.

“Toba?” I yawned.

“Yeah?”

“Are you ever going to let someone in? When you’re older? Are you going to... find someone?”

The question hung in the darkness between us. I felt him tense beside me, felt the shift in his breathing.

“I already have someone,” he said finally. His voice was low and strange. Almost a whisper.

“Who?” I whispered back.

He didn’t answer. Just reached out and took my hand, threading his fingers through mine.

“Go to sleep, Rola.”

I wanted to push, wanted to make him explain. But his hand was warm in mine, and his presence beside me was solid and safe, and somewhere between one breath and the next, I fell asleep.

* * *

Title reveal

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WYL | 09

Tue, 19 May 2026 09:21:42 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

TOBA

June 1999

Our apartment was unbearably hot.

New York summers, I was learning, were almost as brutal as Lagos—but different. In Lagos, the heat was dry. You could fight it with shade and cold water. Here, the humidity pressed down like a weight, thick and suffocating, soaking through your clothes and into your bones.

The room had no air conditioning. We had a small fan that Mummy bought at a garage sale—a plastic thing that oscillated back and forth, pushing hot air from one corner to another. Someone at church had told her to put a bowl of ice in front of it, but the ice melted so fast we might as well have been pouring money down the drain.

“I’m dying,” Rola announced from her spot on the bed. She was lying on top of the covers, wearing the shortest shorts and the thinnest tank top she owned, her arms and legs spread wide to expose as much skin as possible to the useless fan.

“You’re not dying.”

“I’m definitely dying. This is what dying feels like. Hot, sticky and miserable.”

“You’ve never died before. How would you know what it feels like?”

“I’m very intuitive.”

I laughed despite the heat. Rola had gotten funnier over the past months, becoming more American in her humor. Learning to use sarcasm as a shield the way the kids at school did. I liked this version of her, even as I missed the softer, more innocent version from Lagos.

But Lagos was a long time ago now. Almost two years. Sometimes it felt like a dream, like something I had imagined. The compound with its coconut tree. Kids playing football on the street. The sound of motorcycles and impatient drivers honking. All of it fading, day by day. Replaced by the reality of this room with its brick wall view, its broken drawer and heat that never let up.

“Toba?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m hungry.”

“There’s rice from yesterday.”

“I don’t want rice from yesterday. I want something cold. Ice cream.”

“We don’t have ice cream.”

“I know.” She sighed dramatically. “But I can dream.”

I got up, went to the refrigerator and opened it. Inside were the remains of yesterday’s dinner, a half-empty carton of milk, and three eggs. Not exactly a feast.

“What if I made fried eggs?” I suggested. “And toast? The bread isn’t too stale yet.”

“That’s hot food. I want cold food.”

“Cereal then. With the last of the milk.”

She scrunched up her face, acting like she was thinking hard about it. I loved that face. Loved the way she took small decisions seriously, as if they mattered.

“Fine,” she said finally. “Cereal. But you have to eat with me.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care. I don’t want to eat alone.”

So I made two bowls of cereal—the cheap kind that came in big bags instead of boxes. We sat on the bed together, eating in silence, the fan pushing hot air past us, sounds of the city drifting through the open window.

This was our life now. Small moments. Simple meals. The two of us, together, surviving.

“Toba?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever think about going back to Lagos?”

I paused, my spoon halfway to my mouth. It wasn’t a question she asked often. We had an unspoken agreement not to talk too much about the past, about what we had left behind.

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But we can’t go back. You know that.”

“I know. I just... sometimes I miss it so much it hurts. The heat here is bad, but at least in Lagos the heat made sense.” She gesticulated with her spoon, waving it this way and that. “Here everything feels wrong. Like how can we be freezing one moment and the next, we’re sweating like Christmas chicken? And the sun doesn’t go down until nine in the night!”

I held back a laugh.

“I still don’t think we’re supposed to be here,” she concluded before spooning more cereal into her mouth.

“We’re supposed to be wherever we are,” I said. “That’s how it works. We’re here now, so this is where we belong.”

“But what if I never feel like I belong? What if I always feel like a stranger?”

It was a big question. Too big for a summer afternoon in a hot room. But I tried to answer it anyway.

“Then you find the things that make you feel less like a stranger,” I said. “People. Places. Moments. You build belonging out of small pieces. That’s what everyone does.”

“What pieces do you have?”

I looked at her. My sister. My responsibility. My whole world, really, whether I admitted it or not.

“You,” I said. “You’re my piece. As long as I have you, I belong.”

Her mouth curved into a bright, warm smile that made the heat almost bearable.

“You’re my piece too,” she said. “My only piece.” When she went for a wink, we both giggled at her twitching.

We finished our cereal. Watched some TV—a cartoon marathon on one of the channels we got for free, the antenna Mummy had rigged up from coat hangers pulling in fuzzy images of talking animals and superheroes. Rola laughed at the jokes, even the ones that weren’t that funny, and I watched her more than I watched the screen.

At fifteen, I was starting to understand things I hadn’t understood before. That the world was harder than it looked. That people could be cruel for no reason. That the gap between who you were and who you were supposed to be could feel like an ocean.

But when I was with Rola, none of that mattered. When I was with her, the ocean shrank to a puddle. Cruelty faded to background noise. The world became manageable. Survivable. Almost okay.

Was that normal? I didn’t know. I had nothing to compare it to. Other boys at school talked about their siblings like they were nuisances, obstacles, people they tolerated rather than loved. “My sister’s so annoying,” they would say, rolling their eyes. “I wish I was an only child.”

I couldn’t imagine feeling that way about Rola. She was annoying sometimes, sure—what ten-year-old wasn’t? But underneath the annoyance was something deeper. Something that felt less like sibling affection and more like... necessity. Like she was air, water and food. I couldn’t survive without her.

Mummy came home around six, exhausted as always, carrying a bag of groceries from the discount store. She kissed both our foreheads, asked about our days, heated up yesterday’s rice for dinner. We ate together at the small table, the fan still pushing hot air around, the sounds of the building mixing with the sounds of our spoons against bowls.

“I got a raise,” Mummy said halfway through the meal.

We both looked up.

“A small one,” she added quickly, before we could get too excited. “But enough. I’ve been looking at bigger apartments. Two bedrooms. Maybe we can move by the end of summer.”

“Really?” Rola’s face lit up. “My own room?”

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

I should have been happy. More space. More privacy. The chance to sleep without Rola’s elbow in my ribs, her hair in my face, her body pressed against mine in the narrow bed.

But fear twisted in my chest at the thought.

“The two-bedroom places are more expensive,” I said. “Are you sure we can afford it?”

Mummy gave me the look she gave me when I was being too adult, then smiled wanly.

“Let me worry about what we can afford,” she said.

“But mummy, on the long run, can we—”

“You just focus on school. Both of you.”

We finished dinner. Washed the dishes. Watched more TV until it was time for bed.

When darkness finally came, bringing with it a slight—very slight—cooling of the air, Rola curled up next to me like she always did now, and I held her like I always did. I tried not to think about a future where we might have separate rooms. Separate beds. Separate lives.

This is temporary, I told myself. We won’t always live like this. We won’t always need each other this much.

But even then, I knew I was lying.

We fell asleep together, two pieces of a whole that didn’t make sense without each other.

* * *

Title reveal

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Can you guess the full meaning of either WYL or WTLCTD?

WYL | 08

Sat, 16 May 2026 22:00:59 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

ROLA

March 1999

“You don’t go down there anymore,” Mummy said, standing at the sink, peeling potatoes with quick, practiced hands. I hated potatoes now because it felt like she had replaced yams with them. Yams used to be ordinary in Lagos. Here, they felt like prized possession you only saw in memory.

“Don’t play with those girls on the corner,” she continued. “You stay with Abigail now. You hear me?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Abigail is a good girl. From a good family. You go to her house, or she comes here. That is all.”

Her voice made it sound simple. Like friendships were things you could assign the way you assign chores.

I nodded again.

Nothing was the same after the incident.

Not the street. Not Mummy’s voice when she said “corner.”

That was what we called it now—”the incident.” A clean, clinical word. As if giving it a neutral name could strip away the terror, the violation, the feeling of his hands on me and his breath in my face and the certainty, absolute and total, that I was going to die in that stairwell.

The police never caught him. Two weeks after it happened, a detective called to say they were “deprioritizing” the case. No witnesses. No camera footage. The description I gave—white male, forties, brown coat—matched a thousand men in Brooklyn. The bite mark I left on his hand would scar, but unless they found him for something else, there was no way to trace it back.

“We’ll keep the file open,” the detective said. “If anything comes up.”

Nothing ever came up. He was still out there, somewhere. Walking the same streets. Maybe looking for another girl to grab in another stairwell. I tried not to think about it, but some nights, when I couldn’t sleep, I imagined him. Wondered if he thought about me. Wondered if he remembered the taste of his own blood when I bit through his flesh.

I hoped he did. I hoped the scar ached every time the weather changed.

I couldn’t walk past the spot anymore. Every day, going up and down the stairs to and from our apartment, I had to pass the landing between the first and second floors. And every day, my heart would start pounding and my palms would start sweating and I would run—actually run—up or down until I was past it, until I was safe.

Except nowhere felt safe anymore.

The world had cracked open and shown me what was hiding underneath. Monsters. Real monsters, not the ones in stories, not the ones you could defeat with magic words or brave deeds. Real monsters who looked like ordinary people, who walked the same streets, who could grab you when you least expected it and—

I couldn’t finish the thought. Couldn’t let myself imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t bitten him, if I hadn’t run, if I hadn’t screamed and made it to the door in time.

Mummy changed after the incident. She tried to come home earlier, though it meant less money. She walked me to school in the mornings, even when it made her late for work. She checked the locks obsessively—three times, four times, five times before she was satisfied. At night, I heard her praying, asking God for protection she wasn’t sure He would provide.

But the biggest change was Toba.

He was everywhere now. Always watching. Always present. Even when he was at school and I was at school, he called the main office at lunchtime to make sure I was there. He met me outside my building every afternoon, standing on the sidewalk like a soldier on guard duty, scanning every face that passed until he saw mine.

At first, I was grateful. The fear still lived in my body like a second heartbeat. Having Toba there, having him close, made me feel like I could breathe again. Like maybe the world wasn’t as dangerous as it had revealed itself to be.

But as the weeks passed, I started to notice other things.

The way he always positioned himself between me and the door. The way his eyes tracked my movements around the room, even when I was just getting a glass of water. The way he held me at night—every night now, because I couldn’t sleep without him.

“Toba?”

“Hmm?”

We were in his bed. My bed now too, really, since I hadn’t slept in my own bed since the incident. It was late—past midnight—and Mummy was working the night shift. The building was quiet except for the usual sounds: pipes clanking, distant TV’s, the ever-present hum of the city outside.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll wait outside the door.”

This was how it was now. He waited outside the bathroom while I peed. He stood at the kitchen corner while I made my cereal. He followed me to the window when I wanted to look outside.

Part of me felt suffocated.

But a bigger part of me felt loved.

No one had ever paid this much attention to me. Not Mummy, who loved me but was always working. Not Daddy back in Nigeria, who had looked at me like a disappointment from the day I was born. Not my friends, not my teachers, not anyone.

Only Toba. Only my brother.

From the kitchen window, I could see the corner where Deidra and the other girls jumped rope.

Some afternoons, when Toba was in the shower or on the phone with one of his school friends, I would stand there with my forehead pressed to the cold glass and watch them. The ropes turning. The girls counting. Sometimes Deidra would look up, a small frown on her face, scanning the building like she was trying to remember which window was mine.

I never waved.

I didn’t know how to wave from inside a body that no longer knew how to be ten.

Once, just once, I heard her voice through the cracked window — Rola? You up there? — clear as a bell on a still afternoon, the sound carrying up the brick. I stepped back from the glass and pretended I hadn’t heard. Pretended I wasn’t home. Pretended I was someone who didn’t know the rhythm of double-dutch, didn’t know what it felt like to laugh for two hours without thinking about anything.

After a few weeks, she stopped looking up.

Toba was the center of my world now. The sun I orbited around. The only thing that made me feel safe in a universe that had proved it wasn’t.

“Toba?”

“Yeah?”

I had come back from the bathroom. He was sitting up in bed, waiting for me, a silhouette against the faint light from the window.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For... everything. For being there. For not leaving me alone.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he reached out and took my hand, pulling me back toward the bed.

“I told you I would protect you,” he said. “I meant it.”

“I know.”

“Nothing bad is ever going to happen to you again. I promise.”

I climbed into bed beside him. Pressed myself against his warmth. Let him wrap his arms around me and hold me close.

I was ten years old. I didn’t understand what was happening. Didn’t understand the way my heart beat faster when he held me like this. Didn’t understand the complicated tangle of fear and safety and something else that lived in my chest whenever I was near him.

I only knew that I felt protected. That I felt loved. That I felt, for the first time since the incident, like maybe everything would be okay.

And home was Toba.

Home would always be Toba.

***

Toba also became more protective—he would check on me multiple times a night, waking from sleep to make sure I was still there, still breathing, still safe.

“You don’t have to keep checking,” I told him one night, after he had sat up for the third time to look at me. “I’m okay.”

“I know.”

“Then why—”

“Because I need to know. I need to see it.” His voice was fierce in the darkness. “I need to know that you’re real and you’re here and nothing happened to you while I wasn’t paying attention.”

I didn’t argue. How could I? He was afraid for me. He loved me. And in those weeks, when the nightmares came every night and I woke up screaming, his fear felt like the only thing holding me together.

Mummy noticed the change too. She saw us clinging to each other, saw the way I couldn’t let Toba out of my sight, saw the way he hovered over me like a guardian angel.

“You need to give each other space,” she said once, gently. “You’re not little children anymore. You can’t be attached at the hip forever.”

But she didn’t push. She was too tired, too overwhelmed by work and bills and the endless demands of survival. And maybe she thought our closeness was normal, a result of the trauma, something that would fade as I healed.

It didn’t fade.

It grew.

Spring turned to summer. The nights got warmer. The apartment got stuffier. And Toba and I got closer, in ways that felt natural and inevitable, in ways I didn’t question because I didn’t have the words to question them.

I was ten years old. He was fourteen.

We didn’t know what we were becoming.

We just knew that we needed each other.

And need, I was learning, was a force stronger than reason. Stronger than rules. Stronger, maybe, than anything.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

WYL | 07

Thu, 14 May 2026 22:01:28 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

TOBA

February 1999

It happened on a Tuesday.

Years later, I would remember that detail with strange clarity—the day of the week, the weather outside (cold, grey, threatening snow that never came), the quality of light in the classroom window. The mind holds onto these things even in chaos. The mind creates anchors in ordinary details when the extraordinary is too much to process.

I was at school when it happened, sitting through a math class I didn’t need because I had learned all this years ago in Lagos, watching the clock tick slowly toward 3 PM when I could finally go home. The teacher, Mrs. Henderson, was explaining fractions with the patient condescension of someone who assumed everyone in the room was a step behind. I had solved these problems at eight years old. I could have solved them in my sleep.

My mind was wandering the way it often did during these hours. Thinking about dinner—would Mummy have time to cook, or would it be another night of cold sandwiches eaten standing up? Thinking about the history essay due next week—American Revolution, a subject I found fascinating and strange, this country’s origin story of fighting for freedom while enslaving millions. Thinking about nothing in particular, just letting time pass, counting down the minutes until I could leave this building and its humiliations.

Then the classroom door opened and the principal’s secretary appeared.

Mrs. Carlisle was her name. A thin woman with reading glasses perched on her nose and grey hair pulled back in a bun so tight it looked painful. I’d seen her a dozen times, always behind her desk in the front office, always looking harried and slightly annoyed. But now her face was different. Tight with urgency, maybe, or fear.

“Adetoba Oni?” She murdered my first name but I knew she was asking for me. “You need to come with me.”

The other students turned to look at me. Some with curiosity. Some with eager malice that hoped I was in trouble, that relished the prospect of the African kid being marched out of class for some unknown offense. Darnell Thompson was grinning—I’m sure he was composing the jokes he would tell later.

I got up, but she said to grab my things.

I gathered my things and followed the secretary out, trying to keep my face neutral, trying not to show the fear that was already building in my chest. In Nigeria, being called to the principal’s office meant a caning. Here, I didn’t know what it meant, only that it couldn’t be good.

The walk down the hallway felt endless. Our footsteps echoed on the linoleum. Mrs. Carlisle said nothing, and I was too afraid to ask.

The principal’s office. Wood-paneled walls, framed certificates, an American flag in the corner. And my mother, sitting in one of the chairs meant for students, which was wrong—she should have been at work, she was always at work, she couldn’t afford to miss even an hour—and she was crying, which was worse. Mummy never cried in public, she waited until she thought we couldn’t hear.

The principal was talking, his mouth moving, words coming out that I couldn’t quite hear through the rushing in my ears.

“...your sister... incident... police have been called...”

Rola.

Something had happened to Rola.

The words landed like blows. Sister. Incident. Police. Each one hitting harder than the last, until I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stand there with my heart trying to escape through my chest.

“What happened?” My voice didn’t sound like mine. “What happened to her?”

The next hour was a blur of fragments.

The taxi ride home—Mummy and I crammed into the back seat while the meter ticked higher and higher, money we couldn’t afford to spend, money that would come out of groceries or electricity or something else essential. Mummy was still crying, silent tears streaming down her face, and I held her hand because I didn’t know what else to do. The driver kept glancing at us in the rearview mirror, his expression somewhere between sympathy and annoyance. We were a drama he hadn’t signed up for.

Police cars were outside our building. Two of them, lights flashing red and blue, drawing neighbors to their windows like moths to flame. People were watching from doorways, from fire escapes, from the sidewalk across the street. Mrs. Chen from the third floor. The teenagers from 4B who always played music too loud. The old woman from the first floor who never smiled. All of them watching, all of them curious, all of them grateful that the drama was happening to someone else’s family.

The climb up three flights of stairs that felt like three hundred. My legs were shaking. My hands were shaking. Everything was shaking, the whole world trembling on its axis, rearranging itself into something I new. Each step was an eternity. Each landing was a mile. And the closer we got, the more afraid I became of what we would find.

The door to our room, which was already open, which should never have been open. The lock was intact—no forced entry, the police would say later—but the door was ajar, light spilling out into the dim hallway, exposing our private space to anyone who walked by.

And Rola.

She was sitting on the bed, wrapped in a blanket, a female police officer next to her speaking in a low, gentle voice. When she saw me, her face crumpled and she started to cry—really cry, the kind of sobbing that comes from somewhere deep, somewhere broken.

I crossed the room in three steps and pulled her into my arms. She clung to me like she was drowning and I was the only solid thing in the ocean. Her whole body was shaking.

“What happened?” I asked, my voice coming out harder than I intended. “What happened to her?”

The policewoman explained. Calmly. Professionally. Like she had explained things like this before, to other families, in other small rooms.

Rola had been walking home from school. The normal route—down Atlantic Avenue, past the bodega, turn left at the laundromat, three blocks to our building. Abigail had been sick that day, so Rola was alone.

A man had followed her.

White. Older. Wearing a coat too big for him and shoes that didn’t match. Smelling of alcohol and rotten stuff.

He followed her for two blocks before she noticed. Then she started walking faster. Then he started walking faster. Then she was running, her backpack bouncing against her shoulders, her lungs burning, her heart pounding.

She made it to the building. Made it inside. Made it to the stairs.

But he was faster.

He grabbed her on the landing between the first and second floors.

I couldn’t listen anymore. My hands were shaking. My vision was going red at the edges. Every word the policewoman spoke was a knife sliding between my ribs.

“She’s okay,” the policewoman said.

Look at her! I wanted to scream. Look at my sister shaking in my arms! How could you possibly say she’s okay?

It was obvious Rola was not okay.

“She bit him,” the policewoman continued. “She bit him hard that she drew blood. He let go and she ran. She did exactly the right thing.”

The right thing. As if there was a right thing when a grown man grabbed you in a stairwell. As if there was any response that could make what happened acceptable.

They never caught him. The police took a description—white male, forties or fifties, brown coat, no other identifying features—and added it to a file that would probably never be opened again.

Just another predator in a city full of predators, one officer said, not even bothering to hide his indifference.

Mummy blamed herself. I could see it in her face as the police left, as the neighbors’ curiosity faded, as the ordinary sounds of the building resumed around us. If she hadn’t been working so much. If she had walked Rola to school. If she had arranged for someone to pick her up. If, if, if.

But I didn’t blame Mummy.

I blamed America. I blamed this city, this neighborhood, this building with its broken locks and its indifferent residents and its stairwells where children could be grabbed by strangers. I blamed myself for not being there, for being at school doing math problems I didn’t need while my sister was running for her life.

That night, after Mummy finally fell into an exhausted sleep, I sat on the edge of my bed and looked at Rola.

She was in her own bed, where Mummy had insisted she sleep, but she wasn’t sleeping. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling, her body absolutely still. The way a rabbit freezes when it senses a predator nearby.

“Rola?”

No answer.

“Rola, can you hear me?”

Her eyes moved. Found my face. In the dim light from the window, they looked enormous. Terrified.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“He was going to—” Her voice caught. “He was going to—”

“He didn’t.”

“But he was going to.”

I crossed the small space between our beds. Sat on the edge of hers. Took her hand in mine.

“Listen to me.” I made my voice as steady as I could, even though everything inside me was screaming. “No one is ever going to hurt you. Do you understand me? No one. Not ever. I won’t let them.”

“You weren’t there.”

“I know. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Rola. But I’m here now. I’m here, and I’m never going to let anyone touch you again.”

“How can you promise that?”

I looked at her—my baby sister, ten years old, who had just experienced something no child should ever experience. Who had been grabbed by a stranger in a stairwell and had fought her way free through pure animal instinct. Who was lying in this bed, in this room, trusting me to make her safe in a world that had just proved it wasn’t safe at all.

“Because I will kill anyone who ever tries,” I said.

I meant it.

At fourteen years old, having never thrown a punch that landed properly, having never won a fight in my life, I meant it with every cell in my body. Every fiber. Every atom.

Anyone who tried to hurt my sister would have to go through me first. And if they got through me, I would come back. I would find them. I would make them pay.

“Toba?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

I didn’t hesitate.

“Come on.”

She crossed to my bed. Climbed in beside me. Pressed her body against mine, her head on my chest, her hand clutching the front of my shirt like I might disappear if she let go.

And I held her. Wrapped my arms around her and held her as tight as I could without hurting her. I could feel her trembling—little shudders that ran through her body like aftershocks.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you. Not ever again. Not as long as I’m alive.”

She didn’t respond. But slowly, so slowly, the trembling stopped. Her breathing deepened. Her grip on my shirt loosened.

She fell asleep.

And I lay awake all night, holding my sister, staring at the darkness, making plans.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

WYL | 06

Tue, 12 May 2026 22:01:31 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

ROLA

November 1998

The church held a dinner for all the immigrant families.

I had never heard of Thanksgiving before coming to America. The concept seemed strange to me—a whole day devoted to eating too much food and saying thank you for things. In Nigeria, we said thank you before every meal. We said it when someone gave us something, when someone did something kind, when God answered our prayers. We didn’t need a special day for it.

But Mummy said this was important. “It’s an American tradition,” she explained while braiding my hair that morning—it made me homesick for Lagos even though she was right there. “We are Americans now. We should learn their traditions.”

So she dressed us in our best clothes—the ones from the church donation box—and walked us to the community center attached to the church. It is a building made of cinderblocks painted yellow, trying very hard to be cheerful.

The room was full of people I half-recognized from Sunday services. Other Nigerian families, mostly, but also people from Ghana and Senegal and places with names I couldn’t pronounce. All of us immigrants. All of us far from home. All of us gathered around long tables covered in food that looked nothing like anything I was used to.

“What’s that?” I whispered to Toba, pointing at a brown, glistening thing at the center of the biggest table. It looked like a chicken had been blown up to the size of a small dog and then shellacked with all the oil in the world.

“Turkey, I think.”

“It looks scary.”

“It tastes like chicken. But different. Drier.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “A kid at school told me. His family has it every year.”

I studied the turkey suspiciously. Next to it were bowls and platters of other strange things—orange mush that I later learned was mashed sweet potatoes, something lumpy and brown called “stuffing” (though I couldn’t figure out what it was stuffed into), a dish of green beans drowning in what looked like mushroom soup, and a bowl of cranberry sauce that was so red it seemed almost angry.

We found seats at one of the long tables, squeezing in between the Johnson family—whose daughter Abigail had become my closest friend in school—and the Isholas, who had just arrived from Nigeria last month. They kept looking around with the same bewildered expression I remembered from our first weeks here.

“Rola!” Abigail scooted over to make room for me. “I saved you a seat. Did you see all this food? The Americans make so much food. My mother says it’s wasteful, but I don’t care. I’m going to eat until I burst.” She chuckled, her face filled with mischief.

“Is it good?”

“Some of it. The turkey is boring but the pie is amaziiiiing. Wait until you try the pumpkin pie. It’s like nothing you’ve ever had.”

Pastor Ifeanyi stood at the front of the room and raised his hands for silence. He was a small man with a big voice, and when he spoke, everyone listened.

“Let us say grace,” he announced. “On this day of Thanksgiving, we have much to be grateful for. We thank God for bringing us safely to this country. We thank Him for the opportunities He has given us. We thank Him for this community, for each other, for the food on this table and the roof over our heads…”

He went on for a while. Next to me, Abigail’s stomach growled so loudly that she clapped her hand over it, embarrassed. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

Finally, finally o, the prayer ended and we were allowed to eat.

I tried everything, just like Mummy told me to. The turkey, which was indeed dry and needed more salt, maggi and pepper than was available. The mashed potatoes, which were creamy and strange. The cranberry sauce, which was so sweet it made my teeth ache. The stuffing, which had an interesting texture, like bread but not bread. And the pie—the pumpkin pie that Abigail had promised me—which was unlike anything I had ever tasted, creamy like custard and spicy with puff-puff’s nutmeg.

“Do you like it?” Mummy asked, leaning over to wipe a smear of orange from my chin.

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Good.” She smiled. “This is our first Thanksgiving. We have many things to be thankful for.”

“Like what?”

“Like you.” She touched my cheek gently. “And your brother. And God’s grace that brought us here safely.”

I looked across the table at Toba. He was eating mechanically, silently, his eyes fixed on his plate. He had been quiet all day, quieter than usual, and I knew something was bothering him. But when he felt me watching, he looked up and his face changed. He smiled at me and mouthed: Are you okay?

I nodded.

He nodded back.

And for one moment, in the middle of all these strangers eating strange food and giving thanks for things I wasn’t sure I was thankful for, hope sparked in my chest. Maybe, despite everything—the small room with the brick wall view and cold that never seemed to stop—living in America would be okay. Maybe we could build something here. Maybe the three of us, together, could survive this.

Maybe, I thought with a smile, watching Mummy laugh at something Mrs. Johnson said, while Toba snuck an extra piece of pie onto my plate after mummy said I’d had enough.

Maybe this place could become home.

* * *

After the dinner, Abigail and I snuck outside to get away from the adults. The evening was chilly but not unbearable. We sat on the steps of the community center, looking up at the sky that had few stars out.

“Do you like it here?” Abigail asked. “In America?”

I pretended to think about it.

“Sometimes,” I said. “Sometimes I hate it and I want to go back to Nigeria more than anything. But sometimes... sometimes it’s okay. Like today. Today was nice.”

“Yeah.” Abigail pulled her jacket tighter around her. “Today was nice.”

“Do you ever miss home?”

“All the time. I miss my grandmother. And my friends from school. And the way the rain sounded on our roof during rainy season.” She was quiet for a moment. “But I can’t go back to Jamaica. My family can’t go back. So I try to find things to like about here instead.”

“Like what?”

“Like pizza. And the library—did you know you can borrow books for free? As many as you want? And...” She glanced at me sideways, a small smile on her face. “And friends. Like you.”

I smiled back. “Like you too.”

We sat there for a while longer, two immigrant girls on the steps of a church in Brooklyn, learning how to be grateful for small things in a big, strange country. Learning how to survive. Learning, slowly, how to belong.

When Mummy called for me, I went inside feeling lighter than I had in month even though tomorrow I would wake up in that small room with its brick wall view and feel sad again. Cold would seep into my bones and I would cry for home the way I sometimes did, late at night when I thought no one could hear.

But tonight, I had pie in my belly, a friend who understood and a brother who loved me.

Tonight, was perfect.

* * *

The days after Thanksgiving felt different.

It was as though we got together to remind ourselves to stay thankful through the cold, gray December weather that made you want to stay in bed forever.

I started paying attention to things I hadn’t noticed before. The way the light hit our window in the morning, turning the brick wall golden for a few minutes before the sun moved on. The sound of Mrs. Garcia singing in the apartment above us. She sang in Spanish—I didn’t understand it—and it was beautiful. The smell of bread from the bakery two blocks over, drifting through the streets on cold mornings.

“You seem happier,” Mummy said one evening, looking at me with curiosity. “What changed?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Everything.”

She didn’t push. She rarely did anymore—too tired from work, too worn down by the constant struggle of keeping us alive. But I caught her smiling to herself as she went back to folding laundry, making me wonder if she was remembering something from her own childhood.

Abigail and I became real friends that winter. Not just school friends who sat together at lunch, but friends who told each other secrets. She taught me about American things I didn’t understand—why everyone cared so much about Christmas shopping, what a snow day was, how to make hot chocolate from a packet. I taught her Yoruba words, the ones Mummy still used when she was too tired to speak English, and she taught me patois phrases from her Jamaican grandmother.

“You’re lucky,” Abigail said one afternoon, as we walked home from school together. The first real snow of the winter was falling, soft flakes that melted on our cheeks. “You have your brother.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you’re not alone. You have someone who’s always on your side. My older brother moved out when I was six. I barely remember him.”

I thought about Toba. About waiting for him every day after school. How he made sure I ate dinner before he did. Thought about him holding me at night when the nightmares came. His presence made everything bearable.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m lucky.”

“Do you guys fight?”

“Sometimes. Not really. Not like other siblings.”

“That’s weird.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean all the siblings I know fight all the time. Like, they can’t be in the same room without arguing. But you and Toba...” She trailed off, searching for the right words. “You’re like best friends instead of brother and sister.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Because she was right, and I hadn’t thought about it that way before. Toba and I didn’t fight. Not really. We disagreed sometimes, had small arguments about stupid things, but the whole sibling warfare I saw in movies and heard about from other kids—the hair-pulling, name-calling, room-invading chaos—that wasn’t us.

“We’ve been through a lot together,” I said finally. “Coming to America. Leaving everything behind. It’s just us and Mummy now. I think that makes us... different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.” I shoved my hands deeper into my coat pockets. “We need each other. Not just the way families do. More than that. Like… if something happened to him, I don’t know who I would be anymore.”

Abigail was quiet for a moment.

“That sounds intense,” she said carefully.

“It is.” I glanced at her, worried I had said too much. “Is that weird?”

“A little.” She smiled so I knew she wasn’t making fun of me. “But not bad weird. I think it’s kind of beautiful, actually. Having someone who knows you that well. Someone you can count on no matter what.”

“Yeah.” I returned her smile, relieved. “It is beautiful.”

“Lucky you.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence, snow drifting around us in soft spirals, the city muffled and hushed under winter.

I didn’t know then how complicated that luck would become. How the closeness I treasured would twist into something else, something that would either save us or destroy us.

I only knew that loving him felt as natural as breathing.

We turned onto Story Avenue, and that’s when I saw her.

Deidra was on her stoop with two of the older girls, their breath rising in small clouds, a jump rope coiled between them. Her parka swallowed her whole, and her knit cap sat crooked over her ears.

She saw me too. Lifted her chin in acknowledgment.

I did the same.

“Who’s that?” Abigail asked.

“A girl from the corner. She taught me double-dutch in summer.”

“I didn’t know you knew people around here.”

I kept walking. “She’s just a girl from the corner.”

But even then, I turned back before the corner disappeared, just to see if she was still watching me.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

WYL | 05

Sun, 10 May 2026 22:01:07 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

TOBA

September 1998

Eighth grade was different.

Not better—different.

I had learned how to survive in this school now. Learned its rhythms and its rules, the ones that actually mattered, not the ones printed in the student handbook. I knew which hallways to avoid between classes. I knew which stairwells were safe and which were controlled by boys whose names I didn’t know but whose faces I had memorized. I knew which bathrooms you could use and which would get you robbed or beaten or both.

I had also grown. Four inches over the summer, sprouting up like the plants Mummy sometimes talked about growing on a balcony we didn’t have. My shoulders had broadened. My voice had deepened, cracking sometimes at unexpected moments but mostly deep and solid. I wasn’t the scrawny new kid anymore. I was… I honestly didn’t know. Just that the other boys looked at me differently.

Darnell still called me “African.” Still made monkey sounds when I passed. Still tried to shake me down for money I didn’t have. But the physical attacks had stopped. Maybe because I had gotten bigger. Maybe because he had gotten bored. Maybe because word had spread about what happened in June—the day I finally hit back.

I didn’t win that fight. Not even close. But I had proved that I would fight, that I wouldn’t just curl up and take it anymore. Sometimes showing that you had something worth protecting—even if it was just your pride—made the predators move on to easier prey.

The classes were easier now too. My English had improved dramatically over the summer, absorbing American TV in the laundromat where Mummy sometimes took us, reading free newspapers people left on the subway, listening to how the other kids talked and copying their rhythms, their slang, their ways of making words sound lyrical.

I could code-switch now. When I was tired or angry, the Nigerian accent came out—the rounded vowels, the musical rises and falls of Yoruba-influenced English. But when I needed to blend in, I could flatten my voice to sound more Brooklyn. More… American. It wasn’t perfect, and I kept learning.

Still, school was a place to survive, not enjoy. A place to get through. The real part of my day came after. The walk home. Unlocking the door to find Rola waiting for me.

“How was school?” she’d ask from her spot on the bed, legs crossed, homework spread around her even though she didn’t really need help with any of it. She was smart—smarter than me—but she liked the ritual of us doing homework together. Liked having something to share.

“Fine.”

“Did anyone bother you?”

“No.”

“Good.” She’d pat the space beside her. “Come help me with this math problem.”

I’d drop my backpack and sit next to her.

Her math homework was easy—multiplication tables that I had mastered years ago in Lagos—but I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I went through each problem with her, patient and slow, watching her work through the logic, praising her when she got it right, gently correcting when she got it wrong.

This was what our afternoons looked like now. Homework first. Then TV if we had electricity and cable, which we usually did thanks to a neighbor who had figured out how to steal it from the building’s main line. Then dinner—whatever Mummy had left for us, reheated on the hot plate, eaten on the bed because we didn’t have a table.

And always, always, Rola close beside me. Her small body leaning against mine. Her warmth the only warmth in this gray room.

“Toba?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

I should say no. I knew I should say so. Mummy had started talking about how Rola was “getting too big” to share a bed with her brother. How we needed to “start being proper.” How I should sleep on the floor or in the closet we had converted into a tiny bedroom for exactly this purpose.

But Mummy wasn’t here. She was working the night shift at the hotel, wouldn’t be home until nearly dawn. And Rola’s voice had that quality it got when she was afraid.

“Why?” I asked.

“I had a bad dream last night.”

“What about it?”

She was quiet for a moment. Her hand found mine and squeezed.

“I don’t remember exactly,” she said. “I just remember being scared. And I woke up and you weren’t there and the room was so dark and I could hear sounds from outside and I didn’t know what they were and I—” Her voice broke slightly. “I just want to feel safe, Toba. I feel safe when you’re there.”

How could I say no to that?

“Okay,” I said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Her smile was like sunrise—sudden and warm and making everything else seem less gray.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’re the best brother in the whole world.”

“I’m your only brother.”

“So? You’d still be the best even if I had a hundred brothers.”

I laughed. And she laughed too. In that small room with its brick-wall view, broken drawer and a smell that stuck no matter what mummy burnt, we were two kids being silly together. Brother and sister. Best friends. Each other’s whole world.

That night, she curled up beside me in my narrow bed, her head on my chest, her hand gripping my shirt like she was afraid I would disappear if she let go. And I lay awake for a long time, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of her against me, wondering when holding my sister had started to feel like the only important thing in my life.

Mummy came home just before dawn. I heard her key in the lock, heard her footsteps, felt her pause in the doorway. Looking at us. Her two children, tangled together in sleep.

I kept my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Waited for her to say something. To separate us. To remind me that this wasn’t proper.

But she didn’t. She just stood there for a long moment, then turned away and went to her own bed.

Maybe she was too tired to fight. Maybe she saw something peaceful in us that she didn’t want to disturb. Maybe she understood, in some way I couldn’t articulate, that this was what we needed. Each other. The only stability in a world that kept shifting under our feet.

Whatever the reason, she let us be.

And I was grateful.

* * *

The next morning, Rola woke up before me.

I felt her stirring against my chest, felt her sit up slightly, felt her eyes on me. I pretended to stay asleep, curious what she would do.

She didn’t get up. Didn’t leave. Just lay there, looking at me, her breath soft and even.

“I know you’re awake,” she said quietly.

I opened my eyes. She was propped up on one elbow, watching my face with that serious expression she got when she was thinking.

“How did you know?”

“Your breathing changed.”

“Maybe I was dreaming.”

“You weren’t.” She paused. “I watch you sleep sometimes. When I can’t sleep. It helps.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know what it meant that my ten-year-old sister watched me sleep. Didn’t know if it was normal or strange.

“Why does it help?” I asked.

“Because you look peaceful. You look like nothing can hurt you. And if nothing can hurt you, then nothing can hurt me too.”

I sat up, facing her. In the morning light filtering through the window—gray light, city light, nothing like the golden Lagos mornings I remembered—she looked smaller than she was. Fragile.

“Nothing’s going to hurt you,” I said. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can. I am.”

“But what if—”

“No.” I took her hands in mine, squeezed them tight. “No what ifs. I’ll protect you. Always. Whatever it takes.”

She searched my face, looking for doubt, for lies, for the cracks that adults always had when they made promises they couldn’t keep.

She wouldn’t find any.

Because I meant it. Every word. I would protect her with my life, with my breath, with everything I had. She was my sister. My responsibility. My reason for existing.

I didn’t know, then, how dangerous that kind of devotion could become.

I didn’t know that love, taken too far, can become its own kind of prison.

I only knew that I would do anything for her.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

WYL | 04

Fri, 08 May 2026 23:31:16 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

ROLA

June 1998—Summer

Mummy was never home.

That was the summer I learned what it meant to wait. What it meant to watch minutes tick by on the small clock Mummy had bought at the dollar store—a plastic clock with a picture of a sunflower on its face, cheerful and wrong in this gray room. What it meant to count the hours until someone came back, even though you knew it would be a long time.

Every morning, Mummy left before the sun was fully up. I would hear her moving around in the early darkness, trying to be quiet, failing. The creak of the floorboards. The running of water in the bathroom down the hall. The rustle of her putting on the cleaning uniform—a blue dress with white trim that made her look like someone I didn’t know. Not my mother, but a worker. A servant. Someone who cleaned up after other people for money.

“I will be home late,” she said every morning, bending down to kiss my forehead. Her lips were always dry. Her breath always smelled like the mints she ate to hide the fact that sometimes she didn’t eat anything else. “Be good for your brother.”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Don’t leave the room.”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Then she was gone. The door closed behind her. The lock clicked—three clicks, because Mummy checked it three times now, ever since we moved here. And then it was just me and Toba and the small room that smelled like last week’s soup and the candle Mummy burned to cover up the smell.

The days were long in summer.

In Lagos, summer was everyday. And it meant freedom. Running through the compound, playing with the other children, eating mangoes so ripe that the juice ran down our chins and attracted flies. It meant Aunty Funke teaching me to braid hair on the veranda, her fingers quick and sure as she wove patterns I could never replicate. It meant the sound of my mother’s laughter, back when she still laughed, before everything got so… serious. So America.

Here, summer meant this room.

At first, Toba and I tried to stay busy. We had a routine, of sorts. Wake up when the sunlight coming through the window (such as it was, blocked mostly by the brick wall) told us it was morning. Eat whatever breakfast we could find—cereal if we had milk, bread if we didn’t, sometimes just crackers from the box Mummy kept on the shelf. Do the homework our teachers had assigned for summer, even though school was out and no one would check.

Then we would read. Toba would read to me from the books the church had given us—old books, worn books, books with pages missing and covers torn. Stories about children in places nothing like Brooklyn, having adventures nothing like ours. I would listen and imagine myself into those stories, pretend I was climbing mountains or sailing ships or solving mysteries instead of sitting in a room that got hotter every day as summer deepened.

But the days were long. So long. And the room was small. So small.

By July, we stopped pretending we weren’t miserable.

“Toba?”

“Hmm?”

He was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, one arm thrown over his eyes. The fan we had bought at a thrift store was turning slowly, pushing hot air from one corner of the room to another without actually cooling anything.

“I’m bored.”

“I know.”

“I’m so bored I think I might die.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“I might. People die of boredom sometimes. I read about it.”

“You did not read about that.”

“I might have.”

He removed his arm from his eyes and looked at me. I was sitting on the floor near the window, pressing my face against the glass to feel what little coolness it offered, looking at the brick wall that was my entire view of the outside world.

“Can we go outside?” I asked.

“Mummy said no.”

“Mummy’s not here.”

“Mummy said no.”

“Mummy won’t know. She never knows. She comes home so tired she can’t even—” I stopped myself. It felt disloyal to say what I was thinking. That Mummy was too exhausted to pay attention to us. That we could probably burn the building down and she wouldn’t notice until the fire department woke her up.

“Can’t even what?” Toba asked.

“Nothing.”

He sat up, looking at me more closely now. I knew that look. It was the look he got when he was trying to do things or lie about things he shouldn’t. Weighing options. Calculating risks.

“One hour,” he said finally. “And we stay on this block. We don’t talk to anyone. If anyone asks where we’re from, we say nothing. We don’t know English. We don’t understand. Got it?”

“Yes!” I got up and hopped. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“I said, we don’t understand English. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I’m serious, Rola.”

“I know.” I whine, then smile.

We went outside.

The world was bigger than I remembered. Bigger and louder and brighter and more alive. Summer in Brooklyn meant kids on stoops and fire hydrants spraying water into the streets and music from open windows and the smell of food cooking—different food, unfamiliar food—and people everywhere, talking and laughing and living lives I knew nothing about.

We walked to the end of our block and back. Then we did it again. Then again. My legs were happy to be moving. My lungs were happy to be breathing air that didn’t smell like last week’s soup. My heart was pounding with joy or no, it might have been fear.

“Yo!”

We both froze.

A group of kids were gathered on the corner—mostly girls around my age, plus a few younger boys, playing double-dutch with a jump rope. One of the girls, dark-skinned and beautiful with braids decorated in colorful beads that clicked when she moved, was waving at us.

“You new here? I ain’t seen you around before.”

I looked at Toba. He shook his head slightly. Don’t talk. Don’t engage. Just keep walking.

But the girl was already walking toward us, curious and fearless. I envied her courage and knew then I wanted it for myself.

“I said, you new here? Where y’all from?”

“We moved here in January,” I heard myself say. The words came out before I could stop them, before I could remember that we weren’t supposed to talk to anyone. “We’re from Nigeria.”

“Nigeria?” Her eyes widened. “For real? Like Africa Nigeria?”

“Yes.”

“That’s so cool! I’ve never met anyone from Africa before. I’m Deidra. What’s your name?”

“Rolake. But you can call me Rola.”

“Ro…lah-kay?” she tried carefully, her forehead scrunched with concentration.

“More like Roh-lah-keh,” I corrected softly. “But Rola is easier.”

“Roh-la,” she repeated.

I nodded, already getting used to hearing my name bend itself into new shapes on this side of the world.

“That’s really pretty,” she said with a grin. “Do you wanna jump rope with us? I can teach you double-dutch.”

I looked at Toba again. His face was unreadable, but after a moment, he nodded.

“Okay,” I said.

We stayed for two hours.

Deidra taught me double-dutch, which I was terrible at, tripping over the ropes again and again while the other girls laughed—not mean laughter, but the kind that comes with encouragement. “You’ll get it! Just watch the rhythm! Jump when the rope hits the ground!” And I taught them a clapping and bending game from Lagos, one the children in our compound played, and they were terrible at it too, and we all laughed together.

For two hours, I forgot about the small room and the brick wall and the gray sky. For two hours, I was just a girl playing with other girls on a summer afternoon, and it was almost like being happy.

When we finally went back upstairs, Toba locked the door behind us and leaned against it, breathing hard.

“That was stupid,” he said.

“I know.”

“We could have gotten in trouble.”

“I know.”

“Mummy said not to leave the room.”

“I know.”

“We can’t do that again.”

“I know.”

But even as I said it, I knew we would. Because I had felt something today that I hadn’t felt since we left Lagos. I felt hope. Belonging. The first hint that maybe, just maybe, this place could become home.

Toba must have seen it on my face, because his stern expression softened.

“It was fun though,” he admitted with a knowing smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” His smile turned into a wide grin. “It was.”

* * *

That night, I told him about Deidra. About how she had asked about Nigeria without making fun of it, about how she thought Africa was cool instead of embarrassing, about how she had invited me back to play whenever I wanted.

“She sounds nice,” Toba said. We were lying in bed, the heat finally breaking as evening cooled the city. Through the window, I could hear the distant sounds of summer—kids still playing outside, music from someone’s radio, the endless rumble of traffic.

“She is nice. She said we could be best friends.”

“Do you want that?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about it. What did best friends do? In Lagos, I’d had friends—girls from school, neighbors from the compound—but they were different. They shared my world, understood my references, spoke my language in every sense. Deidra

was from a different universe. Could people from different universes be best friends?

“You should try,” Toba said quietly. “You need friends your own age.”

“I have you.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?”

He was quiet for a moment. The darkness made it easier to say things we might not say in daylight.

“Yes,” he said finally. “I’m your brother. That’s... permanent. But friends teach you different things. They help you become who you’re supposed to be.”

“Who am I supposed to be?”

“I don’t know yet. That’s what you have to figure out. And you can’t figure it out if you’re always with me.”

His words made me sad. Not because they were wrong, but because they felt like goodbye when I wasn’t ready to let go.

“I don’t want to figure it out without you,” I said.

“You won’t have to. I’ll always be here. Just... not always this close.”

I didn’t understand what he meant then. Didn’t understand why he was already preparing me for distance, for space, for a future where we wouldn’t share every moment.

Years later, I would realize he was trying to protect me. Trying to teach me to survive without him before he understood how impossible that would become.

But that night, all I felt was the familiar weight of his arm across my shoulders, the rhythm of his breath, the certainty that no matter what happened, he would be there.

Always.

* * *

Church was the one place Mummy seemed almost happy.

Every Sunday, no matter how tired she was, no matter how many double shifts she had worked that week, she woke us up early and made us put on our best clothes—the ones from the donation box that almost fit—and walked us to the Nigerian Pentecostal church three blocks away.

The church was small, a storefront with folding chairs and a wooden cross on the wall, but when Mummy stepped inside, something in her face changed. The tightness loosened. The exhaustion lifted, just a little. She would close her eyes during worship and raise her hands and sing in Yoruba, and for those few hours, she was someone I remembered from Lagos. Someone who laughed. Someone who believed that things could be good.

After service, the congregation gathered in the small fellowship hall—really just the back half of the room, separated by a curtain—for food and gossip. The aunties would fuss over Toba and I, pinching our cheeks and asking about school and saying things like “Your kids are so well-behaved! You’re doing an amazing job o!”

It was during one of these fellowship meals I first noticed Mr. Henry.

He was tall—taller than Daddy had been, with broad shoulders and a gentle face. His skin was dark, darker than Mummy’s, and when he smiled, his whole face participated. Not just his mouth, but his eyes, his cheeks, even the small lines around his forehead.

He was talking to Mummy.

I watched them from across the room, where Toba and I were eating our plates of rice. Mr. Henry said something, and Mummy—Mummy made a strange sound. The sound was so unfamiliar it took me a moment to recognize it. Mummy was laughing.

“Who is that man?” I asked Toba.

He glanced over. “Deacon Henry. He lost his wife last year. Cancer or something.”

“He’s making Mummy laugh.”

Toba looked again, more carefully this time. His expression shifted—something I couldn’t read passing across his face.

“So?”

“So... When last did you see mummy laughing?”

“Maybe she’s being polite.”

But it didn’t look like politeness.

When Mr. Henry handed Mummy a second plate of food—”Sister Adunni, you must eat o. In the presence of God there is fullness of joy and tummies!”—she accepted it with a smile that reached her eyes.

I didn’t know what to feel. Part of me was happy to see Mummy happy, even if just for a moment. Part of me felt something else—a strange unease, like watching a door open that should stay closed.

On the walk home, Mummy hummed to herself. A Yoruba hymn from the service, the melody floating up into the summer air.

“Mummy?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“That man. Deacon Henry. Is he your friend?”

The humming stopped. Mummy’s face did that thing it did when she wanted to explain something she didn’t think I’d understand.

“He is a church member,” she said carefully. “A good man. He needs a friend. I do too, So… we talk sometimes.”

“He made you laugh.”

“Did he?” She sounded surprised, as if she hadn’t noticed. “Well, it is good to laugh. Especially when life is hard.”

She started humming again, but softer now. More to herself.

I looked at Toba. He was watching Mummy with that unreadable expression still on his face.

That night, after Mummy was asleep, I whispered to Toba in the darkness.

“Do you think Mummy likes him? The deacon?”

“Go to sleep, Rola.”

“But do you think—”

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Go to sleep.”

But I couldn’t sleep. I lay there listening to Mummy’s breathing from across the room, wondering what it would mean if she had someone. If she wasn’t so alone. If there was another person in our small world, taking up space, changing how things are.

I decided I didn’t want it. Didn’t want anyone else. We were fine as we were— mummy, Toba and me—just the three of us.

We didn’t need anyone else.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

Yoruba Demon: Obinna | Prologue

Camaa Pearl — Thu, 07 May 2026 20:45:53 GMT

this is an unedited work of art.

Photo by Leon-Pascal Jc on Unsplash

OBINNA

GETTING TO THE TOP IS child’s play. Staying there? It demands blood, surveillance, sacrifice, and the occasional burial of morals. In daddy’s opinion, power is held by instilling fear, not by exhibiting refinement. And life experiences have taught me that daddy is always right. If he has experienced these things, scaled through them, and become the man he is, why should I listen to poor, wretched inspirational speakers who have nothing to show for all their talk? I swear, I don’t know why daddy hasn’t written a book on godfatherism, working with people, or making money from nothing. I’m assuming he doesn’t want to take food from hungry writers posing as billionaires. Everyone understanding their lane is paramount to their success, another thing daddy will say.

I’m scrolling through offshore payment authorizations on my phone and waiting for updates, when a call buzzes through my other phone.

It’s a call I must pick.

“Uncle Obi!” My nephew’s voice explodes in my ear.

I exhale, softening at the sight of him in pjs. “Kamso, you should be in bed.”

He giggles, then his sister, Kodi, grabs the phone. “We miss you, Uncle Obi! Come over tomorrow!”

“I will,” I say, even though I haven’t had an unscheduled tomorrow in five years.

“Uncle Obi, I have a question for you.”

“Nooooo!” Kamso counters, demanding I come over ASAP.

They both begin fighting for the phone and who should speak next. Kodi claims she placed the call, so she’s right to ask her pressing question.

A quiet reprimand from Joy, their nanny, has them in order and Kodi goes ahead with her question.

Sigh.

Kodi wants to know if birds get tired.

Not a general inquiry about avian stamina. A specific, urgent question about whether, when birds fly, they ever just... get too tired. Stop. And fall out of the sky.

“Because Uncle Obi, the sky is very far.”

Man, what a long day. Getting up to stretch, I sit on my desk’s edge and take off my cufflinks. I might as well start winding down.

“The sky isn’t far.” I say.

“Huh?” Kamso cries.

“The sky is everywhere. You’re in the sky right now.”

Silence. Seven-year-old silence, which is different from adult silence. Adult silence means calculation. Seven-year-old silence means the universe is being restructured.

“I’m in the sskkkyyyy?”

“The sky starts at the ground and goes up forever. You’re at the bottom of it.”

More silence as she processes this. In the background, Kamso is making explosion sounds—meaning he’s either playing with action figures or trying to distract his sister.

“Kamso!” Joy’s voice, a patient but strained whisper, crackles through the speaker, eliciting a smile from me. She has earned her salary tonight. I’ll bet she’s been fielding questions about birds, colors and the nature of the sky for six hours straight.

“So birds never get tired?” Kodi asks.

“They rest. They find trees—they’re very good at finding places to rest.”

“What if there’s no trees?”

“Then they find… rooftops.”

“What if there’s nothing else?”

This child.

“Then they keep flying until there is. Because that’s what birds do. They keep going.”

“Uncle!” that’s Kamso’s breathless, urgent voice. “Did you know that sooome birds can sleep while they flyyyy?”

“Albatrosses. Yes.”

“Eiiiii?! How do you know that?”

“I know many things.” I scoff. “I’m your uncle.”

“You don’t know everything.”

“Name one thing I don’t know.”

I hear the gears turning. Nine years old, already trying to outsmart me. That trait comes from his father, my step-brother-in-law, who was quite upset about losing a ludo game.

“You don’t know...” Kamso says slowly, building suspense, “...what Kodi’s favorite color is.”

“Orange.”

“Whhhhat?! How did you—”

“It was purple last time. She changed it to orange after she saw the sunset over Grandpa’s compound. She told me.”

“Hmmph. She tells you everrrrything.”

“She trusts me. You should try it. Ngwanu, give the phone to Madam Joy and go to bed.”

Joy reclaims the phone. “Good evening, sir.”

I can hear her smile through the phone. Joy has been with my step-sister’s family for five years. She knows me. Knows that whenever the kids call their favorite uncle, he’ll pick or call back as soon as he can.

“Kodi is asking if you’re bringing pizza when you visit.”

“Tell her I’m bringing pizza so big it won’t fit through the door.”

Kodi screams in the background. Joy laughs. Kamso starts arguing about the physics of pizza-sized-doorways.

Smiling, I let the sound wash over me.

The smile disappears the moment Chuks appears in the doorway.

He doesn’t speak. His stiff shoulders, set jaw, and clasped hands says it all.

“Joy, I have to go.”

“Okay sir—take care, sir. I’ll put them to bed now.”

I hang up. The office goes quiet—just the hum of the air conditioning.

“She’s ready?” I ask.

“Yes, sir.”

I stand. Check my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window. Charcoal shirt, open collar, sleeves rolled to the forearm. Looking like a man about to have a casual dinner. Hmm.

To moisturize my lips, I run my tongue over them. “How long did it take?”

“Three days. She fought the approach—wouldn’t take meetings, wouldn’t return calls. Her colleague tried to broker a conversation; she refused. So we... escalated.”

“Hmm.”

Chuks’s face remains neutral. “She’s been told you want to discuss her investigation. That you’re willing to answer questions on the record.”

“She doesn’t believe it.”

“Because she’s a journalist.”

“Good thing you brought her here anyway.”

I offer a wry smile as I place my silver cufflinks—a gift from my mother, Hafsa—into the drawer. Every year on my birthday, she sends a new pair with a note: Obinnaya, dress like the man you’re becoming, not the boy you were.

“One moment.” I say, the softness from my earlier call evaporates like mist under sun. Flipping screens on my monitor, I watch the still image of the lady waiting for me.

With all the stress it took to get her here, this better be quick.

“Okay, let’s go.”

The holding room is three floors down, not a basement. Nothing so dramatic. A converted office space with no windows, soundproofing in the walls, and furniture chosen for function rather than comfort. One table. Two chairs. A single light overhead, warm but bright enough to see every detail.

I designed the room myself. It’s not for torture—I’m not my father, and I don’t employ those methods. It’s for… conversations. Conversations people don’t want to have until they have no other choice. A room I occasionally enter out of necessity.

She’s tall.

That’s the first thing I notice as I step in. Even seated, there’s a length to her—legs crossed at the ankle, spine straight, shoulders back. She’s in a blazer and slacks, professional clothes for what she probably thought would be a normal day. Her hands rest on the table in front of her, and I notice the cuffs.

Polished metal. Not cruel—I insist on that—but effective. Attached to a bolt in the table, allowing movement but preventing escape.

And the black silk blindfold I chose silk because compared it’s alternatives, it is soft and leaves no marks. A detail that’s important when the person you’re holding is a public figure who might, eventually, describe this experience on live television.

She doesn’t flinch when I walk in. Or turn toward the sound of my footsteps. She’s just sitting there. Waiting.

Like she has all the time in the world.

Chuks positions himself by the door while I take the chair across from her.

Up close, she’s different than I expected. I’ve seen her on screen—the special segments, the hard-hitting interviews, dismantling politicians and executives. On camera, she’s beautiful. Styled. Lit. Controlled.

Here, she’s different.

Her braids are pulled back tight. No makeup—or whatever she was wearing has been sweated off during the escalated persuasion. Her jaw is cutting, her cheekbones keener.

“Miss Nentawe.”

“Mr. Okwuluoka.”

Forget the fancy TV voice; this one’s got a Northern accent, likely Ngas, with the distinct Plateau cadence.

I push back from my seat and rise, the scrape of the chair soft against the floor. Crossing to her, I stop behind her, close enough to catch the subtle hitch in her breathing.

My fingers find the silk of the blindfold, tracing the knot at the back of her head. She goes still at my touch but doesn’t pull away.

The blindfold falls.

She blinks against the light, lashes fluttering as her eyes adjust, then lift. They find mine just as I settle back into my seat across from her.

Oh boy e… see eyes.

Gray-brown irises that should be warm brew a cold storm that contains anger, defiance, and reckless courage that makes people win Pulitzers, or get assassinated.

She’s an interesting pawn piece that’s making a storm in a teacup and needs to be reminded she’s irrelevant. An inconvenience that could be smashed like an annoying mosquito. It will do all of us good if she stuck to celebrity gossip or student activism articles.

“You’ve been difficult to reach,” I say.

She lifts her chin; lips curled in disdain. “So, you had your minions harass and kidnap me.” She leans forward slightly, the cuffs catching the light, then tuts. “This is not helping your case, Mr. Okwuluoka.”

Minions. I nearly laugh at the audacity. No one calls my security team minions. No one speaks to me like this when they’re cuffed to a table in a room I control.

“I invited you for a conversation. You declined.”

“I declined because I don’t negotiate with the subjects of my investigations. A principle you might consider adopting.”

“Investigation.” I spit the word. “You’ve been digging into PuntPlay’s licensing for weeks. Calling my office. Emailing my legal team. Requesting documents that aren’t public. You’ve talked to my competitors, my regulators, my former employees. You’ve built a file on me that’s probably thicker than my tax returns. Plus, don’t get me started on that unprofessional mini-documentary stunt where you bad-mouthed my family.”

Her expression doesn’t change, but recognition flickers in those storm-cloud eyes. Interest, maybe?

“I’m a journalist. That’s what journalists do.”

“Most journalists want headlines. That’s not what you’re gunning for. You want architecture.”

The flicker again. Brighter this time.

“You’ve been watching me.”

“You’ve been investigating me. Don’t act surprised that I returned the favor.”

She’s good. I knew she was good from the questions she was asking, but sitting across from her now, I can see the machinery. How she catalogs information in real time.

“If you want to answer my questions, there are simpler ways to arrange an interview.”

“I don’t want to answer your questions.”

“Then why am I here?”

I lean back. Cross one leg over the other. Take my time.

“You’re here because you’re becoming a problem. Your investigation is touching parts of my business that I’d prefer stayed untouched. Not because they’re illegal—they’re not—but because the narrative you’re building is... inconvenient.”

“The truth is often inconvenient.”

“The truth is complicated. The version you’re building is simpler. And simple one-sided stories are dangerous.”

She tilts her head. Studying me the way I’ve been studying her.

“You kidnapped me to complain about my framing?” She tugs at the cuffs, glaring at me.

“I invited you to discuss your perspective. The cuffs are a precaution.”

“You’re used to people being afraid of you,” she says.

“Reasonable. I’m used to people being reasonable.”

She scoffs. “Define reasonable.”

“Understanding that some stories aren’t worth telling. That some investigations lead nowhere good. That the man sitting across from you has the resources to make your life very uncomfortable if you continue down this path.”

The anger crystallizes. Her eyes go from cold storm to glacial. “Is that a threat, Mr. Okwuluoka?”

“It’s information. What you do with it is your choice.”

She holds my gaze.

I’ve had this conversation before. With regulators, competitors, politicians who thought they could touch my businesses and walk away clean. By this point in the conversation, they’re usually calculating the cost of resistance. Weighing their principles against their mortgages. Looking for exits that lets them keep their dignity.

This one’s not looking for an exit. She’s looking for an opening.

She eventually blinks.

“You know what I think, Mr. Okwuluoka?”

“Enlighten me.”

“I think you brought me here because you’re scared.”

Me. Scared?

“I think you’re scared because I’m asking questions nobody else is asking. Not the easy questions like is PuntPlay profitable? How much is Mr. Obinna Bernard Okwuluoka worth? Does the Odogwu play golf with politicians? The hard questions. The architecture questions, as you put it. Where the money comes from. Where it goes. What’s being built underneath the surface.”

She leans forward, the cuffs clinking against the table.

“And I think you’re scared because I’m not going to stop. Not because you threatened me. Not because you kidnapped me. Not because you have resources and connections and a father whose name opens doors.” Her voice drops. Hardens. “I’ve been investigating systems my entire career. Systems that exploit people. Systems that eat the vulnerable and call it business. You think I’m afraid of you? I’ve sat across from warlords and oil barons and men who make you look like a schoolboy playing dress-up.”

My jaw tightens. I can feel Chuks’s attention from the doorway—he knows this isn’t going the way I planned.

She’s not done.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to uncuff me. You’re going to have your driver take me home. And I’m going to continue my investigation, because that’s what journalists do. And when I find what I’m looking for—and I will find it—I’m going to put it on national television, have it all over social media—the internet. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Sitting back, she folds her hands and locks eyes with me.

Crickets.

I should be angry. I should be recalculating, finding the angle, the leverage, the pressure point that will make her bend. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m good at.

Instead, I’m thinking about her height. The way she seemed to unfold when she sat back, like a praying mantis settling after a strike. She’s taller than I expected—the photos don’t capture it. In heels, she’d look down at me.

I’m thinking about her voice. The weight it carries.

I’m thinking about the way she said schoolboy playing dress-up.

I’m experiencing some sort of heat, annoyance, fascination. A pull toward her like gravity—

Abegi!

I crush the reaction before it finishes forming.

Everyone has a price.

That’s what I believe. That’s what I know. I’ve built an empire on it—understanding what people want, finding the gap between their principles and their needs, sliding into that gap until they give me what I’m after.

Look at this one looking at me like she doesn’t have a price.

Scoffing, I stand.

She tracks the movement but doesn’t tense, simply watching me with those storm-cloud eyes, like she has some street cred I should be aware of.

I walk around the table and stop behind her chair.

Her breathing stays steady; the rise and fall of her shoulders, controlled, even. She’s trained herself not to react. Trained herself to be still when stillness is the only weapon left.

I reach for the cuffs, pull the key from my pocket, and turn it in the lock. They fall open.

She doesn’t move immediately. When she does, she tests her wrists—rolling them, checking for damage.

Tsk. There won’t be any. I don’t leave marks.

Then she stands.

And stands.

Barefeet—they took her heels when they brought her in—she’s almost my height.

She meets my gaze. “Why?” she asks.

“Why what?”

“Why let me go? You threatened me. Laid out all the consequences. Made your case. And now you’re releasing me.”

I consider lying. Consider giving her the strategic answer—that I’ve made my point, that the intimidation will work eventually, that I’m playing a longer game.

Instead, I tell her the truth. “Because you were right.”

She narrows her eyes. “About which part?”

“About me being scared.”

I’ve never said those words out loud. Not to Chuks, not to Jidenna, not to Tayo—shit—not to anyone who could use them against me.

But she already has all the weapons she needs. One more won’t make a difference.

“I’m not scared of you,” I clarify. “I’m scared of what you represent. Journalists who ask good questions. Who don’t take payments or make deals. Who look at an empire and see the cracks instead of the shine.” I pause. “There aren’t many of you left. However, I’ll suggest you look beyond PuntPlay, the regulations. There’s a lot you might find.”

She remains silent, observing me.

“Chuks will arrange your transportation home,” I say. “Your heels are in the car. Your phone has been returned to your bag—we didn’t access it, you can check. This is Midas Towers in VI—you’re not in some no man’s land. And Miss Nentawe?”

She’s already walking toward the door, but she pauses. Turns.

“I’ll be watching your work with interest.”

Although her expression doesn’t change, her posture slightly shifts. “I’m sure you will, Mr. Okwuluoka.”

She walks out.

I stand in the empty room, the cuffs still open on the table, the silk blindfold pooled on the floor like skin shed.

Everyone has a price.

I’ve believed that since I was fourteen years old, watching Uncle Ladi negotiate with governors, learning the math of power. It’s served me well. Helped me built multiple businesses from nothing.

But she looked at me like the equation doesn’t apply to her. Like she’s outside the system I’ve spent my life mastering.

And the worst part—the part I’m not ready to examine—is the way that made me feel. Not angry or threatened.

More like… interested.

Chuks appears in the doorway. “She’s in the car, sir. No incidents.”

“Good.”

“Do you want surveillance continued?”

Do I? The smart play is yes—keep watching, keep gathering leverage, find the price she doesn’t think she has.

“No. Pull the team.”

Chuks’s eyebrows rise fractionally. The closest he comes to expressing surprise.

“Sir?”

“She’ll come to me. Sooner or later.” I pick up the blindfold. Run the silk through my fingers. “And when she does, I want it to be her choice.”

Chuks nods.

I leave the holding room, picturing her in one of my cars, heading home sixteen floors down. I can bet she’s already planning her next step.

Schoolboy playing dress-up, huh?

My phone buzzes.

Message from Jidenna.

Did you feel it?

I stare at the words, thinking about cold-stormy eyes.

Me:

Yes.

44 chapters to go…

WYL | 03

Thu, 07 May 2026 02:05:30 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

TOBA

March 1998 — Public School 147

The boys were waiting for me by the fence.

I saw them as soon as I came out of the building—three of them, all bigger than me, all wearing clothes that marked them as belonging here in ways I never would. Baggy jeans that sagged low on their hips, held up by belts they didn’t actually use for holding anything up. Puffy jackets in bright colors—red, blue, black—with logos I didn’t recognize but understood meant something. Clean, white, expensive-looking sneakers probably worth more than everything in my closet combined.

Darnell Thompson was in front, as always. He was the leader of this particular group of boys who had decided, for reasons I still didn’t understand, that I was their favorite target. Maybe because I was new. Maybe because I was African, which apparently was something to be ashamed of in this country. Maybe just because I was there and they were bored and cruelty was a form of entertainment.

I could run back inside. Find a teacher. Report what was about to happen. The school had rules about bullying—I had seen the posters in the hallways, bright colored with encouraging slogans about respect and kindness and telling an adult if someone bothered you.

But I didn’t.

In two months at this school, I had learned that rules were just words. They existed on paper and on posters and in the mouths of teachers who said all the right things but couldn’t actually protect anyone. The boys who ruled these halls knew this. They knew exactly how much they could get away with and how to do it without getting caught.

And I had learned something else too: showing weakness made everything worse. If I ran to a teacher, they would find me later. If I hid in the bathroom, they would wait. If I showed fear, they would feed on it like dogs on meat.

So I kept walking. Head up. Eyes forward. Pretending I didn’t see them, even though every cell in my body was screaming at me to run.

“Yo, African!” Darnell stepped into my path, forcing me to stop. “Where you going, African?”

“Home.”

“Home?” He looked at his friends, grinning. “You hear that? He said home. What, you got a hut back in Brooklyn? You got a little mud hut with a grass roof?”

His friends laughed. One of them—a smaller kid whose name I didn’t know, who followed Darnell around like a shadow hoping to absorb some of his power — started making sounds. “Ooh ooh ooh, ahh ahh ahh.” Acting like a monkey from a movie about jungles and savages. He looked like a fool.

My hands curled into fists at my sides. Heat rose in my chest—same heat that got me in trouble three times already at this school. Same heat that led to Mummy being called to the principal’s office, that made her cry when she got home because she couldn’t afford to lose work over “your nonsense, Toba, why can’t you just keep your head down?”

“I don’t live in a hut,” I said. My voice came out steady, which surprised me. “We have buildings in Nigeria. We have cities. Lagos is bigger than New York.”

“Lay-gus?” Darnell stepped closer. “The fuck is Lay-gus? Sounds like a disease. You got Lay-gus? That shit contagious?”

More laughter. The circle was tightening around me now. I could feel them pressing in, cutting off my escape routes, herding me like prey.

“Let me go,” I said, trying to move past Darnell.

He shoved me. Not hard enough to knock me down, but hard enough to make a point. His hand flat against my chest, pushing me back.

“Nah, nah. You don’t get to just walk away, African. Not until you pay the tax.”

“What tax?”

“The tax for walking on our sidewalk. The tax for breathing our air. The tax for coming to our country and taking our shit.” His face was close to mine now. I could smell his breath—minty, like chewing gum. I doubt he has ever experienced hunger, to go to bed with an empty stomach because there simply wasn’t enough food. “Give me your lunch money.”

“I don’t have lunch money.”

“Bullshit.”

“I don’t. I bring food from home.” This was true. Every morning, Mummy woke up early to pack my lunch—concoction rice in a plastic container, or bread with sardines, or sometimes just bread with nothing, depending on how much money we had that week. She couldn’t afford to give me money for the cafeteria. The cafeteria food cost more than we spent on dinner for all three of us.

“Then give me the food.”

“I already ate it.”

Darnell’s eyes narrowed. His expression hardened.

“You lying to me, African?”

“No.”

“I think you lying.” He looked at his friends for confirmation. “Y’all think he lying?”

“He lying,” they chorused in unison.

Darnell stepped even closer. Close enough that I could see the individual pores on his nose, the slight asymmetry of his eyes, the scar on his chin that someone had probably given him the same way he was about to give one to me.

“Empty your pockets.”

I didn’t move.

“I said empty your fucking pockets.”

My heart was pounding. My palms were sweating. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to do what he said, to give him whatever he wanted, to make this stop.

But something else was rising in me too. Something that had been building for two months of this—two months of being called African like it was a slur, of being mocked for my accent, of watching my mother cry and my sister shrink and our whole family become smaller and smaller in this country that didn’t want us.

“No.”

The word came out before I could stop it.

No. I balled my fist standing my ground.

Darnell blinked. Surprised, maybe, that the African boy with the strange accent and the strange clothes had something like defiance in him.

Then he hit me.

His fist connected with my stomach first, driving the air out of my lungs, folding me in half. I tried to stay up, tried to keep my feet, but someone kicked my legs out from under me. I fell had on the cold pavement, and they were all on me at once. Kicks to my sides. To my back. A sneaker glanced off my head. I curled into a ball, arms wrapped around my face, trying to protect the important parts while they took what they wanted from the rest.

It lasted maybe thirty seconds. Maybe a minute. Time stretches when you’re on the ground getting kicked by boys who hate you for reasons you don’t understand.

Then a sharp, shrill whistle and suddenly they were gone. Running. Scattering. Leaving me on the pavement with my jacket torn and my lip bleeding. Something broke inside me that had nothing to do with my ribs.

A teacher appeared. Ms. Rodriguez. She taught social studies and always wore sweaters with cats on them. She was saying something, asking something, but the words weren’t reaching me. I just lay there, looking up at the gray sky, tasting blood in my mouth, thinking;

This is America... This is supposed to be better.

* * *

The walk home took twice as long as usual.

Every step hurt. My ribs ached. My head throbbed. My lip was swelling, pulsing with my heartbeat. The backpack on my shoulders felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, the straps digging into bruises I couldn’t see.

I stopped at the corner of our block, leaning against a building to catch my breath. The afternoon was fading, the gray sky darkening toward evening. Soon Mummy would be getting ready for her night shift, if she wasn’t already gone. Soon Rola would be alone in that room, waiting for me.

I couldn’t let them see me like this. Couldn’t let her see me like this. How do I encourage her that this place has nice people?

I sat down on someone’s front steps and tried to fix myself. Used the back of my hand to wipe the blood from my lip, but it just kept coming. Tried to straighten my jacket, but the tear in the sleeve was too obvious. Tried to arrange my face into something that wouldn’t scare her.

Twenty minutes I sat there. Maybe thirty. Waiting for my body to stop shaking. For my eyes to stop stinging. For the rage and the shame and the helplessness to settle into something I could carry without breaking.

Then I got up and walked the rest of the way home.

The stairs to our building were the hardest part. Three flights. Each step a reminder of what had been done to me. By the time I reached our floor, I was breathing hard, sweating despite the cold.

I unlocked the door. Stepped inside. Tried to smile.

Rola was sitting on our bed, cross-legged, drawing in a notebook with the crayons Mummy found at the church donation box last week. She looked up when I came in, and her whole face changed.

“Toba!” The joy of seeing me. Then: “What happened to your face?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Ahn ahn, see blood.”

“It’s nothing. I fell. At school. On the playground.” The lies came easily. “It’s not a big deal.”

She didn’t believe me. I could see it in her eyes. But she didn’t push.

Instead, she got up and went to the bathroom down the hall, returning a minute later with a wet paper towel that she pressed gently to my lip.

“Hold still,” she said.

“It’s fine—”

“I say hold still.”

I held still.

She dabbed at the blood, her touch careful, tender. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. Nine years old, playing nurse, taking care of her older brother like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“A little.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“I know.” She dabbed some more. “But I’m still sorry.”

I watched her face as she worked. So serious. So careful. So much older than she should have to be. Nine years old and already learning that the world was hard and that the people you loved couldn’t always protect you from it.

“Don’t,” I said, “don’t tell mommy about this. Okay?”

“Why not?”

“Because she has enough to worry about. She works all day and all night and she still can’t—” I stopped.

Rola didn’t need to know about our money problems. About the bills that piled up faster than Mommy could pay them. About mommy crying last week after counting coins and one dollar papers on her bed, trying to figure out how to make the numbers work.

“She still can’t what?” Rola asked.

“She just… she has a lot on her mind. This is small. I can handle it.”

Rola looked at me for a long moment. Then she nodded.

“Okay,” she said. Then smiled, bright and beautiful. “Our secret.”

“Our secret.”

She finished cleaning my lip, then stepped back to examine her work. Apparently satisfied, she went to throw away the paper towel. When she came back, she sat next to me on the bed—close, her body touching mine.

“Toba?”

“Yeah?”

“I hate this place.”

I put my arm around her. Pulled her close. Let her press her face against my shoulder the way she’d done at the airport, on the airplane, every time she was scared.

“I know,” I said. “Me too.”

We sat like that for a long time, two children in a room that was too small, in a building that was too cold, in a country that didn’t want them. Holding onto each other because there was nothing else to hold.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

WYL | 02

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:25:50 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

ROLA

January 1998 — Brooklyn

The room was small.

I stood in the doorway, still wearing my jacket because it was cold even inside, and looked at the space that was supposed to be our new home. I had expected something from the movies — big windows and tall ceilings and furniture that matched. Mummy had said America would be better. She had said we would have a good life.

This did not look like a good life.

One room. Maybe three meters by four meters, though I wasn’t good at measurements yet. A window on the far wall that looked out at something — I couldn’t see what from the doorway. Two beds pushed against opposite walls, their frames metal, their mattresses thin and covered in faded floral sheets that didn’t match. A mattress on the floor between them, no frame, just a mattress lying there like someone had forgotten to finish setting up.

The kitchen was a corner. Not a separate room, not even a separate area — just a corner with a hot plate and a small refrigerator that hummed too loud, like it was working very hard to do very little. There was a counter the size of a school desk, and above it, three cabinets with doors that didn’t close all the way.

The bathroom, Uncle Chidi explained, was down the hall. Shared with the other families on this floor.

“How many other families?” Mummy asked.

“Four. Maybe five. It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

Uncle Chidi just shrugged.

I walked slowly into the room, looking at everything, trying to understand. The walls were painted a color that might have been white once but was now something yellower, sadder. There were marks on the walls — scuff marks and stains and, in one corner, what looked like words written in pencil that someone had tried to erase but hadn’t fully succeeded. The ceiling had a brown stain in the shape of Africa, and I wondered if that was a sign, if the building itself was trying to tell us something.

“It’s temporary,” Mummy said. She was still standing in the doorway, as if crossing the threshold would make this real in a way she wasn’t ready for. “When I find a good job, we will move somewhere better.”

“When is that?” Toba asked.

“Soon.”

That word again. Soon. It meant nothing and everything. It meant Mummy didn’t know but didn’t want to admit it. It meant we were supposed to be patient and grateful and not ask too many questions.

I walked to the window and looked out.

The view was not a street, the sky, or even a small patch of grass. It was a brick wall. The side of the building next door, so close I could count the individual bricks if I wanted to, so close that if I opened the window and stretched out my arm, I might be able to touch them.

In Lagos, our compound had a courtyard. It wasn’t fancy — just a patch of dirt with a few struggling plants and a coconut tree that produced fruit every few years when it felt like it — but it was open. I could see the sky from anywhere in the compound. I could watch clouds move overhead and guess what shapes they were making. I could feel the sun on my face and know, at least, that I was not trapped.

Here, I would have to press my face to the glass and look straight up to see even a slice of sky. And what I would see would be gray. Gray like the airport. Gray like the buildings. Gray like everything in this country.

“Rola.” Mummy’s voice was tired.

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Come help me unpack.”

I turned from the window. Toba was already opening one of the bags, the small suitcase with the broken wheel, pulling out clothes and trying to find places to put them. There was a closet — I could see a door in the wall that must be a closet — but when Toba opened it, it was barely big enough to stand in. Maybe four or five hangers could fit. Maybe.

There was a chest of drawers against one wall. I went to open it and found that one of the three drawers was broken — the bottom had fallen out, leaving a wooden frame with nothing inside. The other two worked, sort of, though they stuck when you tried to pull them and made a scraping sound that hurt my ears.

We unpacked in silence.

There wasn’t much to unpack. The Ghana-Must-Go bag was gone, so we had only what fit in the suitcase and the duffel and the cardboard box. Clothes. A few books. Mummy’s Bible and the small statue of the Virgin Mary that she placed on a shelf above the hot plate, the only decoration in the whole room.

When the bags were empty, Mummy sat down on one of the beds. Not slowly, like you sit when you’re choosing to rest, but dramaticaly, like her legs just gave out. She looked older than she had in Lagos. Smaller. Like the journey had compressed her, squeezed out essence from her and left behind this tired, frightened woman I’m struggling to recognize.

“Tomorrow,” she said, “I will go out and look for work. Toba, you will stay with your sister. You will not leave this room. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Rola, you will be good for your brother. You will not make trouble.”

“Yes, Mummy.”

“Good.” Mummy closed her eyes. “Now let me rest. We will eat later.”

But later didn’t come. At least, dinner didn’t.

Mummy fell asleep in her clothes, curled on her side on the bed she had claimed, still wearing the shoes she had worn on the airplane. Her breathing deepened, and I watched her for a while, this woman who had brought us all this way, who had risked everything on the promise of something better.

Was she dreaming? Are her dreams in English or Yoruba?

Toba sat down on the other bed — our bed, I realized, the one we would share — and patted the space beside him.

“Come.”

I went. Sat next to him. Close, because the room was cold despite being indoors, and because I didn’t want to be far from him, and because there was nowhere else to go.

Outside the window, sounds I didn’t recognize drifted in. Sirens — we had sirens in Lagos too, but these were different, a different pitch, a different urgency. Voices mumming in rapid languages I couldn’t identify. Thumping bass music that made the window vibrate slightly.

The walls were thin. I could hear the people next door — or above us, or below us, it was hard to tell — talking, laughing, a television playing, a baby crying. The building was full of lives pressed close together, and none of them knew we existed.

“Toba?”

“What?”

“I don’t like it here.”

He didn’t answer right away. I thought maybe he would tell me I was wrong, that it would get better, that I should be grateful we were here at all. That’s what adults always said. Be grateful. Be patient. Be good.

But Toba wasn’t an adult. He was thirteen, which sometimes felt very old and sometimes felt like nothing at all.

“I know,” he said finally. His arm came around my shoulders, pulling me close. “I don’t like it either.”

“So why did we come?”

“Because staying was worse.”

I thought about that. About Lagos. About our compound and our school and the way life was there — familiar, known, even when it was hard. About Daddy, who was never really ours, who looked at us like mistakes he wished he could undo. About his other wives and their children. About Mummy’s tears at night when she thought we were sleeping.

“Is this better?” I asked.

Toba was quiet for a long moment.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it’s different. And sometimes different is the first step to better.”

I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that this gray room with its thin walls and its broken drawer and its view of bricks was the first step toward something good. That Mummy’s promises would come true. That we would be happy here.

But looking around at our new home, I couldn’t see how.

So I just pressed closer to my brother and let him hold me, and eventually I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder, dreaming of coconuts, sunlight and a sky so blue, that it went on forever.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

WYL | 01

Camaa Pearl — Sun, 03 May 2026 00:27:01 GMT

Photo by Andrey Khoviakov on Unsplash

Toba

January 1998 — JFK Airport, New York

The cold hit me first.

Not the cold of harmattan season, which I knew — the dry wind that cracked lips and made skin ashy, that swept down from the Sahara and settled over Lagos like a blanket of dust. This was different. This cold had teeth. It bit through my jacket, the thin one Mummy bought at Balogun Market three weeks ago, the one the trader promised would be “strong for the abroad.” He had held it up to the light, shown us the stitching, sworn on his mother’s grave that it was “American quality.”

The trader lied.

I pulled Rola closer to my side as we walked through the terminal. She was shivering, her small body pressed against mine, her hand gripping my fingers so tight I could feel her nails through my palm. Her teeth were chattering — chattering, like the Tom and Jerry cartoons we used to sneak to watch at Uncle Dele’s house.

“Toba.” Her voice was small against the noise of the airport. “I’m cold.”

“I know.”

“When are we going to our house?”

“Soon.”

“You said that before. On the airplane. And at the other airport. The one with the long lines.”

“I know.”

“So when is ‘soon’?”

I didn’t have an answer for her. I didn’t know anything about what came next. All I knew was that we left Lagos four days ago — four days of waiting in airports and sleeping on plastic chairs and eating food that tasted like nothing and watching Mummy’s face get tighter and more afraid with every passing hour — and now we were here. America. The place Mummy had been dreaming about since she won the visa lottery eight months ago.

America will be better, she told us. She said it so many times it became a kind of prayer, a mantra she repeated when the doubts crept in. In America, we will have a good life. You will go to good schools. You will become somebody. Not like here, where your father’s people will never let us rest, where we will always be second wife, second children, second everything.

I believed her then.

I wanted to believe her now.

But as I watched my mother navigate the crowds — her wrapper slightly askew, the one she had adjusted three times already because she was self-conscious about wearing Nigerian clothes in this place full of people in jeans and sneakers, her face tight with exhaustion and fear — something shifted in my chest. A new realization settled there. Heavy. Permanent. The realization that Mummy was just as lost as we were. That she had no map for this new world. That she was improvising, hoping, praying that her children wouldn’t notice how terrified she was.

I noticed.

“Mummy!” I called out. She was getting too far ahead, weaving through the crowd of travelers, her eyes fixed on signs she could read but maybe didn’t fully understand. “Mummy, wait!”

She turned, and for a moment I saw her. Really saw her. Not as my mother, the woman who cooked and cleaned and prayed and worked, but as a person. A woman in her mid-thirties who had fled one life and was trying to build another. The lines around her eyes weren’t there six months ago. The gray at her temples that she usually covered with dye — she hadn’t had time to touch it up before we left, and now it showed, silver threads against black. She was clutching her handbag against her chest like someone might snatch it at any moment.

“Come,” she said, waving us forward. “We have to collect our bags. The sign says this way.”

“Is it far?”

“I don’t know. Just come.”

I guided Rola through the crowd, keeping my arm around her shoulders. People moved around us like water around rocks — fast, indifferent, focused on their own destinations. A businessman in a suit nearly knocked Rola over, didn’t even glance back. A woman with a rolling suitcase cut in front of us so sharply I had to pull Rola out of the way.

No one looked at us. No one smiled.

In Lagos, strangers would greet you. My color, where you dey go? They would offer directions even when you hadn’t asked, tell you about their cousin’s shop that sold the best whatever-you-were-looking-for, ask after your family even though they’d never met them. There was a texture to public life there, a warmth even in the chaos.

Here, everyone’s eyes slid past us as if we didn’t exist. As if we were ghosts. As if the color of our skin and the foreign cut of our clothes made us invisible.

This is America, I thought. This is supposed to be better.

The baggage claim area was massive — bigger than any room I had ever been in. Carousels turning slowly, bags appearing through rubber flaps and riding around and around until their owners collected them. We found the one that matched our flight number and stood there, waiting, watching.

Our bags came out one by one. The small suitcase with the broken wheel that I had to carry instead of roll. The duffel bag stuffed with clothes we wouldn’t need because we didn’t know what New York weather was actually like. The cardboard box wrapped in tape that held Mummy’s important papers — birth certificates, marriage documents, the precious visa approval letter.

But the big Ghana-Must-Go bag — the one with the red and blue stripes, the one that held most of our clothes and all of our memories — didn’t come.

Mummy stood there watching the carousel go around and around. The same bags passed us three times, four times, five times. A family in matching tracksuits collected their luggage and left. An old man with a cane grabbed his single suitcase and shuffled away. A young couple argued about whether they had packed enough, their words fast and sharp in a language I didn’t recognize.

Still no Ghana-Must-Go.

“Maybe they put it somewhere else,” I suggested.

“Go sit with your sister,” Mummy said. Her voice was flat. The voice she used when she was trying not to cry. “I will handle this.”

I took Rola to a row of plastic chairs against the wall. Orange plastic, cracked in places, bolted to the floor so no one could move them. She climbed into my lap without asking — she was too big for this, really, nine years old with long legs and arms that didn’t fold as easily as they used to — but I let her. I needed her weight against me as much as she needed my warmth.

“Toba?”

“Hmm?”

“Is Daddy going to come find us?”

The question landed like a slap. Like the time Adedeji Johnson — a boy at my school, the one whose father was rich and who thought that gave him the right to bully anyone — had pushed me down in the schoolyard and laughed while I bled.

My arms tightened around her.

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“Because Daddy doesn’t know where we are. Mummy made sure of that. And even if he knew—” I stopped myself. She was nine. She didn’t need to know everything. Didn’t need to know about the nights I heard Mummy crying through the thin walls. Didn’t need to know about the bruises Mummy tried to hide with long sleeves and high collars. Didn’t need to know that our father was a man who kept three wives and beat two of them and ignored the third entirely, which was somehow worse.

“Even if he knew what?” Rola pressed.

“Even if he knew, he wouldn’t come. He has his other family. We were never... we were never really his.”

Rola was quiet for a moment. I could feel her processing this, turning it over in her mind. She was smart — smarter than me. She felt things deeply and understood things intuitively that I had to work to figure out.

“I miss my bed,” she said finally.

“I know.”

“The one with the mosquito net. Remember how it had that hole in the corner and you said a bat was going to come through and bite me?”

“I was joking.”

“I had nightmares for a week.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She pressed her face against my chest. “I miss Aunty Funke.”

“I know.”

“She always saved me the biggest piece of chicken. Even when Daddy’s other children came to visit and they wanted everything for themselves. She would keep a piece for me and give it to me later.”

I remembered. Aunty Funke was not really our aunt — she was just a woman who lived in the compound, a distant cousin of someone who was a distant cousin of someone else, the way family worked in Nigeria, sprawling and interconnected and never quite what outsiders expected. But she had been kind to us. Kind in small ways that cost her nothing but meant everything.

“I miss—” Rola’s voice cracked. “I miss home.”

I pressed my cheek against the top of her head. Her hair was plaited in cornrows that Mummy did five days ago, tight and neat, but already starting to frizz from the travel. She smelled like the cheap soap from the airplane bathroom — industrial, chemical, nothing like the black soap Mummy used to make us use at home — and something else underneath. Something that was just Rola. My sister. My responsibility.

“I’ll take care of you,” I said quietly. So quietly I wasn’t sure she could hear. “I promise.”

She heard.

“Promise promise? Or just saying-it promise?”

“Promise promise.”

She nodded against my chest. Satisfied. Trusting.

And I sat there in that plastic chair in that massive airport in this cold, strange country, my sister in my arms, making a vow I didn’t fully understand. A promise that felt like a chain wrapping around my chest. Something that would bind me no matter where we went or what happened next.

I didn’t know then how much that promise would cost me.

I didn’t know that keeping it would break us both.

Mummy came back twenty minutes later. Her face was composed, but I could see the devastation underneath. The cracks in her careful mask.

“The bag is lost,” she said.

“Lost?”

“They don’t know where it is. They said it might come tomorrow. Or the next day. Or—” She stopped. Took a breath. “They gave me a form to fill out. They said they would call.”

The bag had everything. My school uniforms from Lagos, which I wouldn’t need anymore but I wanted to keep those. Rola’s favorite dress, the yellow one with the white flowers that she wore to church every Sunday. The photo album with pictures of Grandma, who died last year, who we would never see again. The doll that Aunty Funke gave Rola for her seventh birthday, the one with the brown skin, yellow dress, and the braided hair that Rola named “Binta” and slept with every night.

Gone. All of it gone.

“It’s okay, Mummy,” I said. “We don’t need that stuff.”

Mummy looked at me. For a moment, I thought she was going to argue. To tell me that we did need it, that our whole life was in that bag, that without it we were starting with even less than nothing.

But she didn’t. She just nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go. Your uncle is waiting.”

Uncle Chidi wasn’t really our uncle. He was Mummy’s cousin’s husband’s brother, which in Nigeria made him family enough. He had been in America for twelve years, had a car and an apartment in Brooklyn and a job doing something with computers that I didn’t understand. He was our landing pad. Our first connection to this new world.

He was waiting outside the terminal, leaning against a car that looked older than me, smoking a cigarette despite the cold. When he saw us, he dropped the cigarette and crushed it under his foot.

“Sister mi!” He embraced Mummy, then looked at me and Rola. “Ahn ahn, see how big they have grown! Come, come, let’s go. It’s too cold to be standing here.”

We piled into the car — Mummy in front, me and Rola in the back. The seats were cracked leather, cold against my legs. The car smelled like cigarette smoke and something sweet, like air freshener trying to cover something worse.

Uncle Chidi pulled away from the curb, and I got my first real look at America.

Gray. That was my first impression. Everything was gray. Gray sky, gray buildings, gray pavement, gray slush on the side of the road where snow had melted and refrozen and melted again. Even the people seemed gray — bundled in dark coats, hunched against the cold, moving fast with their eyes down.

Rola pressed her face to the window.

“Where are the tall buildings?” she asked. “In the movies, America has tall buildings. The ones that touch the sky.”

“That’s Manhattan,” Uncle Chidi said. “We’re going to Brooklyn. It’s different.”

“Different how?”

“You’ll see.”

We drove for a long time. Past highways and bridges and neighborhoods that all looked the same to me — rows of brick buildings, metal fire escapes zigzagging down their faces, windows lit yellow against the gray afternoon. Signs in languages I couldn’t read. People on corners, hands in pockets, breath visible in the cold air.

Finally, we stopped in front of a building that looked like all the others. Brick. Fire escapes. A metal door with a small window at the top.

“This is it,” Uncle Chidi said. “I found you a room on the third floor. It’s not much, but it’s clean. And the landlord doesn’t ask too many questions.”

I didn’t understand what that meant at the time. Didn’t understand about visas and green cards and the complicated dance of legality that immigrants had to navigate. I just understood that we were here, in front of this building, and that somewhere inside was a room that was supposed to be our new home.

Mummy thanked Uncle Chidi. She thanked him too much, too profusely, in that way that told me she was embarrassed by our need. By how much we depended on his kindness.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “Family takes care of family. That’s how we survive in this place.”

He helped us carry our remaining bags up three flights of stairs. The stairwell smelled like cooking — unfamiliar spices, unfamiliar foods — and something else. Mold, maybe. Or just old age. The building settling into itself. I was too young to know but I could smell it.

The room was at the end of a long hallway. Uncle Chidi unlocked the door and stepped back to let us in.

I looked at Mummy. She was staring at the room with an expression I couldn’t read.

And I understood, in that moment, that our new life was about to begin.

* * *

PS: This is not a love story… this is what love did to them.

Introducing WYL

Camaa Pearl — Sat, 02 May 2026 14:03:29 GMT

This is a trilogy I’ve been working on for the longest time. It’s not your typical romance—it starts light, turns dark, and then finds its way back to the light. It doesn’t quite fall into dark romance, so I’ve come to think of it as a grey romance. I won’t be giving trigger warnings, but the description below should give you an idea of whether you want to continue with the story.

I first mentioned it to the Camaraderie Lounge last year, and they said, finish it and give it to us. Since then, I’ve gone back and forth—considered using a different pen name, considered not publishing it at all, even thought about releasing it quietly without marketing.

But through all of that, Rola and Toba’s story has refused to stay buried. It wants to be told.

So I’m going to tell it—properly. With the right cover, a full series rollout, and a title reveal (it was initially called Part of Me).

Working series description

This is not a love story. This is what love did to them.
Toba was thirteen when they fled Nigeria. Rola was nine. In their mother’s absence and America’s indifference, they built a world of two — first as siblings, then as something else entirely.
What follows is not redemption. Not excuse. Just the truth of how two children became inseparable, then impossible, then strangers trying to remember who they were before they became each other’s ruin.
Spanning two decades, from Brooklyn to the Gulf of Mexico to a mother’s deathbed, this is a novel about the shapes trauma takes — and the people we become to survive it.

Interested?

I’ll be sharing snippets publicly, but the full story will be for paid subscribers in the Cam Circle. I look forward to having you in the circle.

Camaaraderie Love Notes

Camaa Pearl — Fri, 01 May 2026 12:14:40 GMT

This is a space for the things I see, the messages I receive, and the moments that make me pause—because not too long ago, I was the author who hoped for this kind of connection.

Now, it finds me.

Consistently.

From you.

They've always been there from my very first book. Kind words. Screenshots from social media. Responses to the Camaraderie Chronicles. Late-night and early morning messages about scenes that stayed with you. The recommendations you share when you didn’t have to.

I see it all. I feel it all.

Thank you for reading me.

Thank you for choosing my stories.

Thank you for passing them on.

This space is for you, me, love and words that carry me through the lonely writing and EDITING hours.

Welcome to the Camaraderie Love Notes 🤍

The Camaraderie Chronicles 4.30

Camaa Pearl — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 21:21:42 GMT

April has been nothing short of amazing!

From Conyers, GA to Utica, NY to Tannersville, PA—I’ve been meeting new readers, discovering new authors, and introducing people to my world. The smiles, the conversations, the “Girl!!! You’ve been cooking” moments… I don’t take any of it lightly.

I even made it into someone’s Little Black Book of Authors (which still feels a little unreal, not going to lie).

Truly, I’m so grateful to God for this season. It feels like a dream I’m finally walking in.

If you missed any of it, I’ve posted recap videos on my Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube—feel free to binge and come along for the ride.

Next stop is the Flemington Summer Book Fest, May 24. If you’re nearby, come find me—I’d love to meet you and talk books (and probably overshare a little 👀).

Yoruba Demon: Updates

And yes… I’ve been writing.

While you’ve been reading Implication (and if you haven’t—Leo and Ash are still waiting for you), I’ve been deep in Yoruba Demon: Obinna.

Obinna and Rot?

They’re a lot.

Drama. Tension. Back and forth. Manipulation and deception. They’ve been keeping me fully occupied, and I know they’re going to do something to you when you meet them.

We’re looking at a late May / mid-June release.

And I might have a little surprise planned with it… a Yoruba Demon short featured in the 2026 RomanceinCNY Anthology. Now that I have my rights back, I’m expanding it and... stay tuned for a cover reveal!

Can’t wait to share it with you.

Reach out if you would like to pre-order/order in bulk—book clubs, groups, et. al.

For now, I’m heading back into my writing cave.

But tell me—what’s new with you?

Download Now

GRAB IMPLICATION NOW!

Website | Amazon | TikTok Shop (US) (yes, I opened it again!

Read FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

If you loved Bottom Belle, you’re going to DEVOUR this one.

ONE SMALL FAVOR?

Reviews are everything for indie authors. If you read and love Implication and Yoruba Demon: The Brotherhood, leaving a quick review on Amazon or Goodreads helps more than you know. Even just “loved it! 5 stars” makes a difference.

Will I See You?

I’m really excited—and honestly grateful—to be out and about meeting readers and fellow authors. If you’re in any of these areas, please come say hello!

I’ll be at these in-person events this year:

~~February 21 -~~ ~~Romance Your Shelf,~~ ~~Mendham, New Jersey, USA~~
~~April 11 & 12 -~~ ~~Conyers Book Festival, Conyers, Georgia, USA~~
~~April 18 -~~ ~~Romance in CNY, Utica, New York, USA~~
~~April 25 -~~ ~~Get Lit in the Poconos, Tannersville, Pennysylvania, USA~~
May 24 - Flemington Summer Book Fest, Flemington, New Jersey, USA
July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA
August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
September 5 - Love Bants & Signatures, Ontario, Toronto, Canada
September 26 - Mercer County Library Book Festival, Hamilton, New Jersey, USA
October 3 - Collingswood Book Festival, Collingswood, New Jersey, USA
November 14 - Royal Book Bash, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
November 15 - The Black Girl Book Fair Tour, Washington, D.C., USA

Save the dates and grab tickets, I’d love to meet you if you’re nearby!

My next letter will be about Obinna’s release date and pre-orders. Till then…

Happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO

So you want to know about the Yoruba Demons Billionaire Club

Camaa Pearl — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:52:14 GMT

Curious about the club's formation? Here's a lirru something I put together while I give Obinna and Rot's their happily ever after.

Yoruba Demon: The Brotherhood is available on ALL retailers (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, B&N, etc) and currently FREE on my website (for a limited time).

All I ask is that you spread the word and drop a review on platforms of your choice after reading.

Thank you!

Download Now

GRAB IMPLICATION NOW!

Website | Amazon | TikTok Shop (US) (yes, I opened it again!

Read FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

If you loved Bottom Belle, you’re going to DEVOUR this one.

ONE SMALL FAVOR?

Reviews are everything for indie authors. If you read and love Implication, leaving a quick review on Amazon or Goodreads helps more than you know. Even just “loved it! 5 stars” makes a difference.

THANK YOU

For being here. For reading. For every DM, every comment, every “when’s the next book?!”

This is why I write.

Now go fall in love with Leo and Ash. I’ll be over here refreshing my reviews like a normal, non-obsessive person.

P.S. — Already finished? Book 3 is coming. 😏

Will I See You?

I decided to make this month all about Implication!

I won't have copies of Implication at Conyers Book Festival, but if you're around, stop by for other books, a signature and to say hi!

I’m really excited—and honestly grateful—to be out and about meeting readers and fellow authors. If you’re in any of these areas, please come say hello!

I’ll be at these in-person events this year:

~~February 21 -~~ ~~Romance Your Shelf,~~ ~~Mendham, New Jersey, USA~~
April 11 & 12 - Conyers Book Festival, Conyers, Georgia, USA
April 18 - Romance in CNY, Utica, New York, USA
April 25 - Get Lit in the Poconos, Tannersville, Pennysylvania, USA
May 24 - Flemington Summer Book Fest, Flemington, New Jersey, USA
July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA
August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
September 5 - Love Bants & Signatures, Ontario, Toronto, Canada
September 26 - Books Books Books, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
October 3 - Collingswood Book Festival, Collingswood, New Jersey, USA
November 14 - Royal Book Bash, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
November 15 - Event in Washington DC (more info coming)

Save the dates and grab tickets, I’d love to meet you if you’re nearby!

My next letter will be about Obinna’s release date. Till then…

Happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO

SHE'S HERE. Implication is LIVE!

Camaa Pearl — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 18:18:44 GMT

IMPLICATION IS LIVE!

Remember when you finished Imagine That and immediately slid into my DMs asking “WHEN IS THE NEXT ONE?!”

Well, baby. It’s here. Leo and Ash are ready for you.

Here’s what early readers are saying!

THE SETUP:

Ashionye “Ash” Pogoson doesn’t do relationships with ‘young boys’. She does gallery openings, designer outfits, and keeping her family’s business running while pretending everything is fine.

Leo Nwokoye doesn’t do pretending. He does art that makes people uncomfortable, questions that make Ash squirm, and looking at her like he needs her smile to survive.

When a life forces them together, Ash has two options: maintain her carefully constructed walls... or let the one man who sees through them tear them down.

She’s going to try very hard to choose option one.

She’s going to fail.

WHAT YOU’RE GETTING:

✨ Reverse age-gap

✨ Forbidden romance

✨ Midlife reinvention

✨ Emotional scars + healing

✨ Annoyance ➜ lovers

✨ 18+ spicy scenes

✨ Art world drama

✨ Slow-burn tension

✨ Cameos from characters in Camaa Pearl’s world

GRAB YOUR COPY:

Website | Amazon | TikTok Shop (US) (yes, I opened it again!

Read FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

If you loved Bottom Belle, you’re going to DEVOUR this one.

ONE SMALL FAVOR?

THANK YOU

For being here. For reading. For every DM, every comment, every “when’s the next book?!”

This is why I write.

Now go fall in love with Leo and Ash. I’ll be over here refreshing my reviews like a normal, non-obsessive person.

P.S. — Already finished? Book 3 is coming. 😏

Will I See You?

I decided to make next month all about Implication!

I’ll have limited copies on hand, so if you’re in Conyers, Georgia; Utica, New York, and Poconos, Pennsylvania, be sure to stop by and say hi!

I’m really excited—and honestly grateful—to be out and about meeting readers and fellow authors. If you’re in any of these areas, please come say hello!

I’ll be at these in-person events this year:

~~February 21 -~~ ~~Romance Your Shelf,~~ ~~Mendham, New Jersey, USA~~
April 11 & 12 - Conyers Book Festival, Conyers, Georgia, USA
April 18 - Romance in CNY, Utica, New York, USA
April 25 - Get Lit in the Poconos, Tannersville, Pennysylvania, USA
July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA
August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
September 5 - Love Bants & Signatures, Ontario, Toronto, Canada
September 26 - Books Books Books, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
October 3 - Collingswood Book Festival, Collingswood, New Jersey, USA
November 14 - Royal Book Bash, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
November 15 - Event in Washington DC (more info coming)

Save the dates and grab tickets, I’d love to meet you if you’re nearby!

My next letter will be about Implication’s release. Till then…

Happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO

Implication Is Almost Here!

Camaa Pearl — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 10:15:40 GMT

Not to alarm you, but the first quarter of 2026 is almost over… and my first book of the year launches in 10 days!

Implication drops on March 31, and whew—this story will have you smiling one minute and bawling the next. If you love deeply emotional romances with complicated characters and moments that linger long after the last page, this one is for you.

If you haven’t already, now’s the perfect time to preorder your copy. And if preorders aren’t your thing, go ahead and clear your weekend—because once it drops, you’ll want the time.

Sneak Peek

I thought it would be fun to share a another moment from the book with you.

I shake my head, trying to dispel the thoughts. This is Ash. My boss? My friend? I don’t even know what to call her anymore. What I do know is that this growing attraction is risky. She’s not someone you approach lightly, and I’ve already learned my lesson about diving headfirst into relationships. I’ve learned the hard way what happens when I mistake intensity for invitation.
She pours more wine and—why is she having more wine than the delicious spread before us? Is she looking for courage?
Oh my days… Is she nervous? Bracing herself? And for what—me? The night? The fact that we’re alone on an island with doors that lock and expectations that don’t need words?
I spiral, fast and ugly.
Is she drinking because she expects something from me?
Because she needs liquid courage to tolerate me?
God—am I already back in a cycle I promised myself I was done with?
“This might be my favorite meal of the year,” I say, forcing the words out like a life raft.
She shrugs, sipping her wine. “Don’t whine me. We’re barely halfway through the year. I’ll take the compliment. Receiving credit for a job well done is appreciated.” She grins but it is forced and tight around the edges.
Ever since that call… I study her for a bit, noticing the tension in her shoulders. I wish she’d be more relaxed around me.
“Are you saying you don’t get enough credit for all you do?” I ask gently.
Her lips curve again, smaller this time. It still doesn’t reach her eyes. “Are you trying to psychoanalyze me?” She holds my gaze, hers unflinching.
Uh-oh…
Have I crossed a line? I’ve never looked past the polished Ashionye of BAG, the woman who always has it together. Now I’m seeing cracks, and she clearly doesn’t want me to poke at them.
I back off. “Is that what this feels like?”
“Leo,” she said, “stop with the small talk.”
I scoff, cutting into the snapper. “Small talk is the weather. Or arguing about paint colors. This?” I gesture between us. “This is dinner with a woman I respect, on an island she flew me to, and me trying to understand who she is when she’s not working.”
She pours herself more wine.
“You like red wine?” I ask, trying again.
“And what will you do with that information?”
I meet her eyes. “Figure out if I’m such bad company you’re already regretting this trip—or if you’re planning to get drunk tonight and didn’t think to invite me along.”
She huffs. “I’m not trying to get drunk.”
I lift a brow.
“I have a high tolerance,” she adds, chin tipping up.
“Cool.” I smile faintly. “I don’t. I’ll be lightheaded after two glasses.” Then I soften my tone, because this isn’t a battle I want to win. “But I’d appreciate it if you ate more. You barely touched anything all day. Even on the flight.”
The private jet had been obscene in its excess—warm pastries, plated meals, silverware. I never knew people had buffet options when flying. We were in flight with some senator’s family. I’d eaten freely, distracted by a movie and the novelty of it all. Ash, meanwhile, had hovered at the edges of abundance. Finger foods. Snacks. Nothing that required commitment.
Now she looks like she’s trying to drown herself in wine.
And the wine isn’t even sweet. I’d choose juice or a smoothie any day, but schmoozing is part of my job. I’ve learnt to tolerate what the room expects of me and hold on to one glass for the duration of an event.
“Leo, I’m fine,” she says, stabbing at her food like it offended her.
“That’s more like it,” I tease gently when she forces a forkful into her mouth, chewing with pointed determination. “We’re here for a few days. I wouldn’t want anything happening to you on my watch.”
She snorts. “So it’s all about you.”
“Is that how you see it? Or is that what you want me to say?”
“Oh God.” She rolls her eyes, pushing her plate an inch away. “Can you stop with the questions?”
There it is. The crack.
The candles flicker like they’re listening. Something did change after that call. Before, she’d been light. Focused. Sketching with unspeakable joy and in another world.
Now she looks coiled. Ready to pounce on whatever I say.
I lean back, giving her space but not distance. “I’m not interrogating you, Ash.”
“Feels like it.”
“I’m worried,” I say, plain and unguarded. “And I don’t know what to do with that if you keep pretending nothing’s wrong.”
Her jaw tightens. Is she going to deflect again? Will it be a joke, a dismissal, shut me out? Instead, she exhales sharply and reaches for her glass, then stops halfway.
“I didn’t invite you here to babysit me,” she said.
“I know.”
“And I didn’t invite you here because I needed… rescuing.” Her voice wobbles on the last word.
“I know that too.”
She finally looks at me then. “Then why won’t you let it go? Relax and enjoy the moment and stop trying to—”
“Get to know you?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
I see through the lie immediately.
“Okay,” I say, shoving a piece of plantain into my mouth. It tastes like sawdust now. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed. Maybe I should’ve let the night stay light, let her drink, let the—

Ready for Leo and Ash?

Pre-Order Now

What’s in this letter?

A Sneak Peek from Implication (which you’ve read)
Life Update: The Weaning Chronicles
So You Want to Know About the Yoruba Demons Billionaire Club
Cover Reveal: Lagos Lovin’ Gets a Floral Glow-Up
On the Road (Will I See You?)

Make sure you don’t miss an email from me, add my email address margaret@margaretadetimehin.com to your contacts. By adding me you ensure my messages, special offers, and giveaways make it to your primary inbox!

So you want to know about the Yoruba Demons Billionaire Club.
You’ve heard the whispers. Seen the headlines. Maybe you’ve even met one of us at a party and felt that... energy. That thing we carry. The way we move through a room like we own it — because, often, we do.
You’re curious. I don’t blame you.
But before I tell you anything, let me clear something up: we didn’t start from nothing. This isn’t one of those stories where hungry boys from the trenches claw their way to the top. Most of us were born into money. Private schools. First-class flights before we could spell “turbulence.” Access that would make your head spin.
This isn’t a rags-to-riches story.
This is a story of rich kids who decided to get richer — together. And have a damn good time doing it.
My name is Femi Oke. Not Femi Banks — that’s my boy, different guy entirely. I’m one of the lowkey ones. The connector. The one who looked at two separate crews running the same playbook and said: why are we not building together?
Sit down. Get comfortable. This might take a while.
You want to know why Obinna — yes, that Obinna, the one who owns half the betting shops in West Africa — is in this club? Why a Hausa-Fulani prince like Abdul breaks bread with Igbo boys and British-Nigerians? Why we have Irish-Nigerian brothers like Kenny and Kunle at the table? Why a woman like Kemi isn’t just allowed but essential? Why Ayo, the ultimate nepo baby, fits right in?
You want to know where the rules came from? The tenets? Why we move the way we move?
Then let me take you back. Way back. Before the empires. Before the headlines. Before the women who thought they could change us — and the ones who actually did.
Let me tell you how the Yoruba Demons Billionaire Club was founded.

Are you ready?!

I’ve also been dilly dallying into Obinna’s book while wrapping up Implication, and I decided to put together a short piece about Yoruba Demon: Obinna and some of the other… interesting demons you’ll be meeting soon. Let’s just say the streets are very much alive in that story.

If everything goes according to plan, you’ll see it in next month’s letter, so keep an eye out for it. For now, let’s focus on the 10 days left before Implication releases!

Life Update: The Weaning Chronicles

Hopefully, within those same 10 days, I’ll also be officially done with weaning his little one.

Yep, we’ve been on this weaning journey since December ’25, and let’s just say we’ve fallen off track more times than expected. But as of writing this to you, we’re five days strong. For context, the longest we’d gone before this was two days.

And let me tell you, that first day? I thought I was going to dieeee. I was hot, cold, feverish, aching—going through it—all because I don’t want to breastfeed anymore.

Every time something like this happens, I reach the same conclusion: women are incredible beings with actual superpowers.

Cover Reveal: Lagos Lovin’ Gets a Floral Glow-Up

Okay, I have to gush for a second.

The Lagos Lovin’ series just got the most beautiful floral cover redesign, and I’m honestly a little obsessed. The incredibly talented theBookJedi brought this vision to life, and the new covers feel so vibrant, romantic, and full of personality—perfect for the stories inside.

Seeing the series dressed up like this feels like watching your characters show up to a party looking too fine for their own good.

If you’ve already read the series, think of these as the collector’s edition your shelf didn’t know it needed.

The new floral editions are available now on Amazon, and if you’re coming to the Conyers Book Festival, I’ll also have copies on hand so you can see them—and grab one—in person.

Trust me, they’re even prettier up close.

Grab a Copy

Will I See You?

Next month is shaping up to be a busy one for me. I’ll be in Conyers, Georgia, then the following weekend in Utica, New York, and after that in the Poconos, Pennsylvania.

I’m really excited—and honestly grateful—to be out and about meeting readers and fellow authors. If you’re in any of these areas, please come say hello!

I’ll be at these in-person events this year:

~~February 21 -~~ ~~Romance Your Shelf,~~ ~~Mendham, New Jersey, USA~~
April 11 & 12 - Conyers Book Festival, Conyers, Georgia, USA
April 18 - Romance in CNY, Utica, New York, USA
April 25 - Get Lit in the Poconos, Tannersville, Pennysylvania, USA
July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA
August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
September 5 - Love Bants & Signatures, Ontario, Toronto, Canada
September 26 - Books Books Books, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
October 3 - Collingswood Book Festival, Collingswood, New Jersey, USA
November 14 - Royal Book Bash, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
November 15 - Event in Washington DC (more info coming)

Save the dates and grab tickets, I’d love to meet you if you’re nearby!

My next letter will be about Implication’s release. Till then…

Happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO

The Camaraderie Chronicles 2.27

Camaa Pearl — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 12:33:05 GMT

Hey Camaraderie!

I was made to believe this email dropped 12 hours ago.

What’s in this letter?

More Books?
Irreplaceable’s Cover Reveal
Event Recap: Coloring Books Launch
Will I See You?

More Books?

This wintery and blizzard-y month, I had the opportunity to retreat with my dearest author friend and oh! Ideas were flowing. Plans were planning. And dares were made!

I’ll be sharing updates on my other pen name, Margaret Adetimehin, who hasn’t released a book in years. Both Camaa Pearl and Margaret Adetimehin will be co-authoring new series. Hopefully, I’ll release the first books this year. These books have been incubating for the longest time. Can you guess what happens when literary fiction meets contemporary romance? I can’t wait for you to experience these stories.

Irreplaceable’s Cover Reveal

Now, back to the main reason you’re hearing from me…

It’s time for the cover reveal of the third and final book in the Catching Feelings series—Irreplaceable.

Irreplaceable is slated for release in August 2026. You may notice extended dates listed on some retailers—this is intentional. I’m giving myself the grace and flexibility to write without pressure, because life happens, and the story deserves the time it needs.

Before we get there, book two—Implication will be released on March 30 and is currently available for pre-order at a discounted rate.

Buy Now

I’ve written a character insight for Nduka, which will appear in the back matter of Implication, and it is deeply emotional.

I’d love to hear your thoughts—reply in the comments or via email.

Without further ado…

I present...

What do you think? I’m obsessed—completely in love.
Illustrated by the incredibly talented NelsonXP and designed by me, this cover captures chapter one… yes, the chapter—the one-night stand.
I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Event Recap: Coloring Books Launch

Oh, I attended my first event of the year—and it was amazing! I had the chance to connect with incredible readers and officially launch my Yoruba Demon Coloring Books (now available on my website and on Amazon—coming to bookstores soon!)

If you’re just hearing about this, I’ve been posting about it on my Instagram page for a while now. If you’re in the UK and want a copy, reply to this email, let’s discuss!

Yoruba Demon: Femi Coloring Book (Buy Now)

Yoruba Demon: Tunde Coloring Book (Buy Now)

Will I See You?

I’ll be at these in-person events this year:

~~February 21 -~~ ~~Romance Your Shelf,~~ ~~Mendham, New Jersey, USA~~
April 11 & 12 - Conyers Book Festival, Conyers, Georgia, USA
April 18 - Romance in CNY, Utica, New York, USA
April 25 - Event in Pennsylvania (more info coming)
July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA
August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
September 5 - Love Bants & Signatures, Ontario, Toronto, Canada
September 26 - Books Books Books, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA
November 14 - Royal Book Bash, Annapolis, Maryland, USA
November 15 - Event in Washington DC (more info coming)

Save the dates and grab tickets, I’d love to meet you if you’re nearby!

Newsletter Archive

Happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO