FURE

Nova City sheds its corporate skin after midnight. The Ascent towers behind me, their lights dimming as the respectable go to bed. Ahead, the streets narrow, neon lights multiply, and the Undercity stirs to life like a creature waking from sleep.

“This is going to be incredible,” Ernest says from the passenger seat. My cousin has been vibrating with energy since I picked him up. “I’ve waited three months for this. Three months of background checks and interviews and—”

“And my name on the line,” I remind him. “If you embarrass me—”

“I won’t. I swear. I’m cool. I’m very cool.”

He is not cool. He’s practically bouncing.

I take the next turn onto a street with no name, past a building with no address. You don’t find Club Nova on a map. You find it because someone brought you, and they only bring you if you’re worth the risk.

My father’s gift, though he’d never phrase it that way. A networking opportunity, he called it, when he sponsored my membership five years ago. A place where deals happen that can’t happen anywhere else. I stopped attending regularly three years in. The masks felt suffocating. The anonymity felt like a lie.

But I kept the mask.

The Venetian piece sits heavy in my jacket pocket now. Black lacquer, gold trim, a gift from a client whose deal I closed at two in the morning in one of the private rooms. I should have thrown it away when I stopped coming. I kept it instead. Didn’t ask myself why.

I know why now.

The parking structure swallows the car. Ernest’s eyes are wide, trying to absorb everything—the unmarked elevator, the attendant who takes my keys without speaking, the air change when the doors close. Heavier. Charged.

“Remember the rules,” I say as we descend. “Don’t stare. Don’t approach anyone without invitation. Don’t—”

“I know, I know. You told me countless times.”

“Don’t embarrass me.” I slip on my mask.

The weight settles. The scowl settles with it—same expression that’s saved me in boardrooms and courtrooms and every uncomfortable social situation my father has ever thrust me into. Behind the mask, I can be anyone. Behind the mask, I don’t have to be Chief Edoja’s perpetually disappointing son, still unmarried at thirty-two, still chasing approval I’ll never receive.

The elevator opens. And I literally hear Ernest suck in air and forget to release it.

I don’t blame him. The transformation from the street to this is crazy. Outside, Club Nova is a forgotten warehouse in a forgotten block. Inside, it’s velvet and shadow, gold light pooling on surfaces that seem to drink it in. The music doesn’t play so much as it lives in the walls—a pulse you feel in your chest, your throat, the base of your spine.

Bodies move languorously as no one rushes here. No one needs to prove they belong. Regulars drift like predators, languid, certain. Staff circulates with drinks that never empty. Masks are everywhere—some elaborate, some simple, all serving the same purpose.

Anonymity. Freedom. Permission.

Shit.

“Put on your mask,” I say through clenched teeth.

Ernest fumbles with the simple black domino I’d sent to him. His excitement is gauche. Anyone can see he’s new. His eyes are too wide. Smile’s too eager. He’s practically vibrating as we cross the threshold, taking in the chandeliers dripping crystal, the servers in their fitted black, the air thick with expensive perfume and whispered secrets.

“This is—” he starts.

“Don’t,” I cut him off. “Don’t gawk. Don’t exclaim. These people can smell desperation, and desperation here is worse than poverty.”

He swallows hard. Nods. Tries to compose his face to look bored.

The club’s magic settles over me like a second skin. A subtle enchantment that makes everything feel both more real and less consequential. Names spoken here won’t be remembered clearly. Faces seen behind masks will blur in memory. It’s why the powerful come. It’s why they stay. The freedom of anonymity is worth more than money to men who have everything except the ability to be truly themselves.

A server appears at my elbow. “Counsel. It’s been some time.”

“It has.”

“Your usual table?”

“Not tonight. Just the bar.”

Ernest is craning his neck, taking in the room. Politicians I recognize from magazine covers. A CEO whose wife thinks he’s at a conference in Geneva. Old money who reside at the Harbor sitting in corners where they’ve sat for decades, watching newcomers with bored contempt.

And then there are the performers.

The Ladies and Lords of the House move differently from the guests. They carry the room’s attention like a garment, wearing it comfortably. They choose their partners, not the other way around. They see things no one else sees—what you want before you know you want it.

“Oh,” Ernest breathes. His gaze has snagged on a group near the stage. One of the women laughs and gestures him over.

“Go,” I say. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“That leaves a lot of room.”

He’s gone before I can respond, practically tripping over his own feet to reach them. I watch him fold into the group—a strip poker invitation, based on the cards being shuffled—and cringe internally. He’ll learn. They all do.

I turn back to the bar. Order a whiskey.

She’s not here tonight.

It’s an unwelcome thought, so I push it away.

I scan the room instead. Take inventory. The Curator is nowhere to be seen, but that’s normal—they appear when they choose to, and they choose rarely. The private elevator in the corner catches my eye. I’ve never used it. Asked about it once. “The Penthouse,” a colleague said. “You only know what goes on there when you’re invited.”

My whiskey sits untouched. The ice melts slowly. I should leave. I have briefs to review, a motion to draft, Oreva’s situation to handle. But I stay. Watch the dancers on stage. Watch the couples disappearing into private rooms. Watch the door like I’m waiting for someone.

Six months ago.

The memory surfaces unbidden, sharp as broken glass.

A woman with a nose ring that caught the amber light. Puffy lips curved into a smile that was equal parts invitation and challenge. Movements so practiced they looked effortless—hips swaying, hands trailing, every gesture premeditated to make a man forget his own name.

She’d selected me from across the room. Walked through the crowd like she was parting waters, never glancing back to see if I followed. Of course I followed. Every man in the room would have followed.

The private booth she led me to was small, intimate, lined in velvet so dark it swallowed sound. She’d pushed me into the seat and stood before me, just out of reach.

“Why so angry,” she’d said.

“I look angry?”

She’d let out a soft, tingling laugh. “You do… I’ve been watching you.”

The lap dance that followed left me hard for days. She knew exactly where to touch, where to avoid, how to build anticipation until I was gripping the armrests to keep from grabbing her. She whispered promises against my skin—what she could do, what she wanted to do, what she might consider doing if I came back.

Then she stopped. Right at the edge of everything. Pulled back with a maddening smile.

“Come back,” she’d said. “Maybe next time you’ll earn the rest.”

I’d left my business card tucked into her costume like a desperate fool. She never called. I told myself I didn’t care—that she was just another performer, another masked fantasy, another body in a club full of bodies.

I’m still telling myself that. Six months later, in a city of millions, and I still think about the curve of her smile. The scent of mint on her breath. The way she looked at me like she could see through every wall I’ve ever built.

Fuck it.

I down the whiskey in one burning swallow. Signal for another. The bartender pours. The ice cracks. The music transitions into a slower, darker rhythm and the crowd adjusts to match—bodies moving closer, conversations dropping lower.

She’s not here. She’s probably never coming back. She was one night of almost, and I need to stop—

The scent hits first. Mint. Vanilla… And white musk?

Then the voice, directly behind me, close enough that her breath moves the air against my ear.

“Want to use the bathroom?”

Every nerve in my body fires at once. I don’t turn around. Can’t turn around. My hand tightens on the glass I’m holding. I’m surprised it hasn’t shattered.

“That depends.”

“On?”

I set the glass down carefully. “On whether you’ll leave me hanging again.”

I can hear the teasing smile in her voice. “Only one way to find out.”

She walks away without waiting for my answer. Weaves through the crowd with practiced grace, not looking back, because she knows.

She knows I’ll follow her.

I’ll follow her till morning comes.

ROTKINEN

THE GENERATOR NEXT DOOR COUGHS to life at 6:47 a.m. I’ve been awake since 4:12, mind circling back to places I don’t want it to go.

A holding room. Polished cuffs. Silk against my eyes.

This Sunday morning is mine. Turmeric tea, silence, my nails, and nobody else’s emergency.

While the mask dries, I inspect last night’s work. Nude pink, neat, filed into cute squares. The left thumb has a tiny smudge near the cuticle that nobody but me would notice.

I notice. So, I fix it.

Some women do this for attention. I do this for the mirror. For the version of myself I constructed from rubble.

Schoolboy.

I meant it when I said it.

At work, on my social media pages where I post my Do Better documentaries and mini-docs, even in the column I earned in the nation’s favorite newspaper where every quarter I write about the systems eating at society—Obinna Okwuluoka is so young for what he does.

The people I usually investigate are older. Men and women with decades behind them. Which makes him unsettling. If he’s this powerful at his age, what kind of man will he be at fifty?

And, honestly, he’s not as tall as I expected. I’m five-eleven barefoot and I’ve never once bought flat shoes on purpose—so I spend most of my life looking down at grown men and watching them hate it. From his photos I assumed he’d be the exception, that he’d tower. He’s say… six-one or six-two, and in my heels I’d have half-inch on him.

I make my tea and carry it to the small table by the window.

After my release, I should have called someone. That’s what normal people do—call a friend, vent, get told they’re overreacting. But the last friend I had who knew about my uncle, who held me when the betting app notifications stopped and the eviction notices started, she moved to Canada three years ago. We mostly text on birthdays now.

I open WhatsApp. Tap my uncle’s name.

He picks up when I’m almost giving up.

“Rotkinen.” His face fills the screen. He’s in his security uniform—the navy blue one with the estate logo on the breast pocket. Behind him, I can see the gate of whatever Ajah mansion he’s guarding today.

“Good morning, sir.” I tilt the phone so he can’t see the remnants of the mask on my hairline. He teases me when he catches it, and we banter until he starts yawning.

“What’s for breakfast today?” I ask. “Come and inspire me.”

His pause tells me he knows what I’m indirectly asking. He shifts the phone and I catch a flash of his collarbone through the uniform collar. Keener than last month.

“Garri and groundnut,” he says.

“Haba, Uncle Cephas. That one is exam week food now. Serious talk uncle, ngha ma seme chinchin ne?”^[1]

“It is what I have I will eat. mang’tan a pin nyok ngan kat.”^[2]

It’s at the tip of my tongue to ask, are you gambling again? But I don’t, because he’ll deny it, and then I’ll push, and then he’ll do that thing where his eyes go flat and distant like I’m talking to a wall, and then I’ll feel like I’m twelve again—watching daddy do the same thing before he disappeared into a betting shop in Pankshin and didn’t come home for three days.

So, I say, “I’ll send you something to buy food. Real food.”

“Ehn… keep your money.”

“Ehn, send it back to me if you know my account number nau.”

His lips curve into a small smile. “Thank you. Small mummy.”

He says it like an accusation. Like mummy wasn’t the one who held him together after his wife left. Like she didn’t send him money every month, scraping it from a teacher’s salary that barely covered our own rent.

“Ngha rot ha^[3].” I end the call before my throat can do anything stupid.

I send him enough to eat for the rest of the month. That’s if he doesn’t feed it to whatever betting app has its teeth in him.

The thing about loving someone who gambles is that you become a gambler too. Every transfer, you’re placing a bet. Maybe this time he’ll use it for food. Maybe this time he won’t sit in a corner shop watching football scores. You know the odds. You play anyway.

That’s why I’m investigating a man whose empire runs on those odds. Obinna Bernard Okwuluoka. The man who kidnaps a journalist and uses silk. Whose company plasters every danfo, every billboard, every football jersey from Epe to Satellite Town. The company that probably has my uncle’s fingerprints somewhere in its user data. He funds youth programs and community outreach under CSR^[4], though I’d bet my next month’s salary he has no idea what half his CSR team actually does to make the company look good.

That man sat across from me and told me my investigation was “inconvenient.”

If he thought silk blindfolds and metal cuffs would scare me off, he miscalculated.

I’m scared. I’m also furious.

The fury is stronger.

I wash my mug. Dry it. Place it handle-right in the cabinet. Wipe the counter and fold the towel into thirds.

I’ve got work to do.

THE STUDIO IS A GHOST TOWN on Sundays.

Fluorescent lights reveal empty desks, the faint smell of Francis’s microwaved jollof from Friday lingers in the break room. I come in because I can think here. The apartment is for ritual. The studio is for war.

I’m prepping Friday’s segment—an education funding piece that’s solid but won’t set anything on fire—when Eucharia appears.

My editor moves like the weather. You don’t hear her coming. You just feel the atmospheric pressure change, and then she’s there, dropping a brown envelope on your desk like it’s a summons.

“Rotkinen.”

“Hi Eucharia.”

She taps the envelope. Her acrylic nails are perfect—French tips with stones, buffed smooth. They’re better than mine. I try not to stare.

“PuntPlay,” she says. “The mini-doc your followers are raving about.”

Although my pulse jumps, my face stays neutral.

“What about it?”

“The higher-ups are interested. There’s a new angle.” She pulls a chair, sits on it backward—Eucharia does things like that, sits on chairs backward, perches on desks, leans against walls at angles that shouldn’t be comfortable. “Obinna Okwuluoka. Born and mostly raised in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Founder. CEO. Old money father—the Okwuluokas of Ekwulobia. Political connections reaching into Aso Rock. The man is untouchable.”

She slides a photo out of the envelope.

I already know what he looks like. I’ve been in a room with him. He removed a silk blindfold from my face with steady, long fingers. I know what he smells like. His charcoal shirt, the understated cufflinks.

But I look at the photo anyway.

Dark suit, no tie, glass with amber liquid in his hand. Standing next to someone shorter, as he often must. Square jaw. Calculating eyes pulling me in.

I break the connection by looking at Eucharia.

“And?” I say.

“There are whispers. Match-fixing in the Finnish league—his club plays there. If we crack this, Rot, we go international. Not social media international. I’m talking network pickup. CNN. BBC.”

She’s watching me with those editor eyes. The ones that can tell if you’re hungry enough.

I am hungry.

But not for the reasons she thinks.

I almost tell her by almost saying: I’ve already met him. He kidnapped me weeks ago. He sat across from me and told me to back off. I told him I’d been investigating systems my entire career, and then he let me go. Uncuffed me himself. Told me he’d be watching.

I don’t say any of that.

Because saying it would involve me explaining why I didn’t report it. Explaining why I’m still investigating instead of filing charges. Explaining the part where he released me and I walked out confused instead of triumphant. Explaining why I’ve spent two weeks trying to put Obinna Okwuluoka in a category and failing every time.

“When do I start?” I say instead.

“You already have.” She stands, flips the chair back around. “File’s yours. Don’t let me down.”

She leaves the way she came.

I open the envelope. Financial summaries. Corporate structure. A list of subsidiaries I’ll need to cross-reference. A printed screenshot of an online forum where someone anonymous claims PuntPlay’s Finnish league results are “statistically impossible.”

I photograph everything. Upload to my encrypted drive. Label the folder: O. Okwuluoka.

Then I stare at his photo.

I’ve seen most of this file already—I pulled them before the kidnapping. But now I know things the file doesn’t capture. The exact shade of his eyes up close—darker than they photograph, calculating in a way that feels personal rather than professional. I know his voice doesn’t match his lanky stature. Deeper, more resonant, fills a room without being raised. I know his hands are careful—

I’m scared of what you represent.

Those were his words. Amongst other things.

He admitted he was scared. Of me.

And then he let me go.

Rich. Connected. Untouchable.

We’ll see.

I work for two more hours. Cross-referencing company registrations. Mapping the corporate structure—PuntPlay sits under Midas Venture Capital, which sits under Okwuluoka Holdings, which itself nests under three layers of offshore entities. Clean on the surface, but those structures cost serious money to maintain. Something is in there.

The Finnish league connection is thin but interesting. PuntPlay sponsors FC Kouvola, a third-division club. The forum post claims their last eight home results defied every predictive model. Could be luck. Could be a small club on a run. Could be worth pulling until it unravels.

I make notes in shorthand—a habit from Jos. I developed it in school while communal violence crackled at the edges of the city. It looks like Ngas script had a child with algebra. If someone ever takes my notes, they shouldn’t be able to make sense of a single line.

I leave the studio at half five, arrive home before seven, then decide to take a walk that doubles as a mini grocery restock.

On my way back, the hairs at my nape lift.

Someone is watching me.

Is it his people? Is he tracking me still? He said he’d be watching my work—does that mean watching me?

I keep walking. Don’t turn around. I learned a long time ago that turning around gives them power. I scan casually. Peripheral vision. Reflections in shop windows.

There’s a man walking thirty meters behind me. Baseball cap, dark shirt.

Could be Obinna’s security. Could be a guy I’ve been ignoring. Could be just a man on a regular Sunday evening walk.

I cross the street. Pause at Mama Sidi’s shop, pretend to look at the sachets of detergent hanging like bunting across the front. Use the reflection in the glass cabinet to scan behind me.

The man in the cap is gone. Or… was he never there? Maybe he turned a corner. Wait, is he standing somewhere I can’t see, waiting for me to start walking again?

Gosh, I’m being paranoid.

Except I was kidnapped two weeks ago, so maybe it’s not paranoia. Before, I’d felt it sometimes—the vigilance that comes with being a woman alone in Lagos, with having survived what I survived in Benin City.

My therapist—the one I saw for four sessions before I decided I was fine—called it hypervigilance. Said it was my nervous system staying ready for a threat that already passed.

I’m not breakable. I broke already. What’s left is the version that doesn’t break.

But my hand is shaking when I reach my door, and it takes me two tries to fit the key.

I go inside. Lock the bottom. Lock the top. Slide the bolt.

I stand in my dark apartment with my back against the door and breathe. My heart is going crazy. Auditioning for a heart attack.

Count.

Count!

Four in. Hold for seven. Out for eight.

After putting the groceries away, I prepare my bath—boiling water, pouring it into the tub until it’s too hot, the way I like it. Then I sink in until the water touches my collarbones and close my eyes.

Too late, I realize I should have brought my phone for music, because the water is too quiet. And in quiet, my mind wanders.

Breathe.

One. Two. Three—

A holding room. Silk against my eyes. His footsteps approaching. The click of the chair as he sat across from me. His voice: “Miss Nentawe.”

No. Not that. Further back.

A hand on my wrist. A boy’s hand, but strong. The sweet chemical scent that was all shades of wrong. A tablet dissolving under my tongue that I didn’t put there. The room tilting. The ceiling fan spinning slower and slower and—

I surface abruptly, water going everywhere. My elbow cracks against the edge of the tub and pain shoots up to my shoulder. I’m gasping. The bathroom is fogged. I get out of the tub. The mirror above the sink is a white blank. Why can’t I find myself in it?

Oh…

“I’m fine.” My voice bounces off the tiles. It’s a thin, sorry voice. Not the voice that told Obinna Okwuluoka I’d been investigating systems my entire career, that I wasn’t afraid of him, that men who made him look like a schoolboy had sat across from me before.

“I moved on.”

I pull the bath plug. The water drains.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” I mutter as I stand, wrap myself in a towel, avoiding the mirror.

My phone screams in the silence. My heart jumps.

I grab it.

Whew… my aunt.

“Aunty Paddy.”

“Rotki!” Her warm, familiar voice melts my heart. “You’ve finally picked! I’ve been calling, you no dey answer.”

“It is work,” I say, steadying my breathing by placing a hand to my tummy. “You know how it is.”

“Work, work, work,” she clicks her tongue. “Is it that work that’ll carry you when you fall sick? Kai. We have not seen your face since all these days fa. How you dey?”

I lean against the wall, slide down slowly until I’m sitting on the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine, Aunty.”

“Fine ke?” she scoffs. “Don’t tell me that one. Even your voice sef is somehow. You that I know.”

I swallow. “I’m just tired. Long day.”

“Hmm.” We stay silent for a while before she asks softly. “Are you eating well at all?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sleeping?”

I hesitate, smiling wanly. “I try.”

“Rotkinen…” She says my full name the way only she does, drawing it out like a prayer. “You this girl. You too dey carry everybody matter for head. You think say you strong pass everybody? Talk true, how you dey?”

I let out a small breath. “Aunty Paddy I’m fine. For real.”

“Ehen. You will say you are fine nau.” Another click of her tongue. “Come and stay with us small. Even if it’s one weekend. Come. I’ll make tuwo for you. You’ll relax your body. Laugh small. Na this same Lagos we dey o.”

I nod even though she can’t see me. “Okay. I’ll come.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Soon when? Don’t tell me soon-soon. Give me a day. If not, I will come and carry you myself.”

“Aunty—” I laugh softly.

“I’m serious. You think I can’t enter keke and find you?”

“You can.”

“Exactly.” Her tone softens. “Take care of yourself, okay? And don’t forget to pray. You are doing well, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good girl.” She pauses, before adding: “We are here. You’re not alone, eh?”

I exhale. Silent tears stream down my cheeks. “I know.”

“Okay. Go and rest. I will see you soon kwo?”

“Yes, Aunty. Soon.”

I pull on my nightgown. Check the front door—all three locks. Check the windows. Check the back door to the small balcony I never use.

Everything secured. Everything in its place.

I get into bed, slippers left perpendicular because that’s just how they go. Set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. Connect my phone to charge.

The room is dark. The air is still. My body won’t settle. I stare at the ceiling crack.

My mind, initially occupied with scheduling a visit to Aunty Paddy and the Ngas Women’s Association, soon drift towards the holding room. The chair. The soft, expensive silk pressing against my eyelids. I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear everything—his unhurried footsteps, the creak of leather as he sat, the feel of his eyes on me.

My body remembers the way my pulse jumped when he spoke. The way my skin prickled when his footsteps came closer. The way I sat straighter in that chair, hyperaware of every inch of myself, because I couldn’t see him but I knew—he was seeing me.

“Miss Nentawe.”

I reflexively press my thighs together, remembering the richness of his voice.

Sleep.

But the memory keeps coming. The zip ties—not too tight, tight enough. The vulnerability of being bound, being blind, being completely at someone’s mercy. My senses on high alert.

I turn onto my side. Then my back. Then my side again.

His hands were careful when he removed the blindfold—

Stop. Stop. Stop.

But my hand has already moved. It is resting on my stomach, over the thin silk of my nightgown.

I’m just finding a comfortable position. I’m not—

His voice: “I’m scared of what you represent.”

My fingers drift lower.

No. This is insane. He kidnapped me. Threatened my career. He’s the man whose company is probably bleeding my uncle dry, whose empire was built on the desperation of people like my father. I want to destroy him.

My hand slips under the fabric anyway, my mind going somewhere I have no business letting it go.

The first touch is electric. I’m swollen, sensitive, and the brush of my fingertips sends a jolt through me that makes my hips lift off the mattress. I’m wet. Dripping. And I hate it—hate my body for this, hate the memory for lodging itself somewhere primal and unreasonable.

But I don’t stop.

I circle slowly, the way I’ve done countless times before. Building sensation using pressure in measured increments, relying on a method I’ve mastered to give myself what I need when no one else can be trusted to.

In my head, it’s his voice edging me on.

“Miss Nentawe.”

“I’m used to people being reasonable.” That infuriating certainty.

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

I slide two fingers inside myself and my breath catches. I’m thinking about his hands now—the ones that removed the blindfold, the ones that held the polished cuffs. What would they do if they touched me? Would they be gentle like this? Unhurried? Would he take his time the way he took his time in that holding room, making me wait, making me wonder?

These thought… I don’t know where they’re coming from, but they’re doing the trick tonight.

I press my free hand against myself and abandon caution. The measured pace I began with unravels, replaced by urgency. Need takes over, stripping away grace until all that remains is the relentless pursuit of release.

His eyes, cold and calculating across that table. Looking at me like I’m playing with fire. Only for him to admit he was scared—of me, of what I represent. Scared of—

“Hmm… hmmm…”

My back arches off the bed, thighs clenching around my hand. The sounds leaving my mouth lives somewhere between a gasp and a moan, his name bitten off before it fully forms. Orgasm tears through me in waves—yes, yes—I ride it with my eyes squeezed shut, seeing nothing but silk, shadow and smirking lips.

When it ends, I lie there. Breathing. Wet fingers resting against my thigh.

Did I just have the best orgasm in months thinking about the subject of my investigation? What is wrong with me?

This isn’t attraction. This is trauma response. This is my wires getting crossed somewhere between terror and arousal because my brain doesn’t know the difference between the two. My therapist would have something clinical to say about it. Threat and desire activated overlapping neural pathways. Something like that.

But here, in the dark, with the evidence of my betrayal sticky between my thighs, the clinical explanation doesn’t help.

I want to destroy Obinna Okwuluoka. I also want—

No. I don’t want anything. This was a release. A physical necessity. It means nothing.

I get up. Wash my hands and the rest of myself.

When I finally sleep, I dream about dark eyes and a man who peeled silk from my face.

I wake up angrier than when I went to bed.

Good.

Anger is fuel. Anger gets things done.

^[1] Ngas for what are you eating today?

^[2] Ngas for Stop stressing me.

^[3] Ngas for I love you.

^[4] Corporate Social Responsibility

40+ Chapters to go…

Releases September 30, 2026.

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Order Yoruba Demon: Obinna

Back in 2020, I organized an anthology that was published in February 2021 called Nights at Club Nova. It featured short stories set inside an exclusive, mysterious nightclub where every patron underwent rigorous screening before entry, wore enchanted masks, and stepped into a world where magic, secrets, and desire intertwined.

My contribution to that anthology was a story titled The Lady of the House and I wrote as Temi Nenye.

It was erotic and so much fun to write.

But even after the anthology was published, Club Nova never really left me. The ‘nameless’ characters stayed with me, and the world kept expanding in my head. Last year, I finally gave in and decided to return—not just to rewrite The Lady of the House, but to reimagine the entire universe around it. The story grew. The mythology deepened. New characters demanded their own stories.

And that’s how House of Nova was born!

An urban fantasy erotic romance series where Lagos’ elite play dangerous games behind enchanted masks.

Five couples. One secret house. Desire has never been this deadly.

The planned series includes:

• Book One: TLH

• Book Two: TKS

• Book Three: TMH

• Book Four: TWH

• Book Five: TFH

I’ll be sharing snippets from The Lady of the House as I work on it, and I can’t wait to welcome you into this world.

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One last confession: these shorter projects have become my creative palate cleanser. Whenever my main novels become emotionally heavy or I feel burnout creeping in, I find myself returning to drafts I’ve long forgotten. It’s where I get to experiment, indulge my imagination, and tell stories that lean into obsession and desire before diving back into my plot-focused longer novels.

Welcome to the House of Nova where;

Every mask conceals a truth.

Every room holds a secret.

And every secret demands a price.

Just popping into your inbox with some exciting news...

You can now pre-order the paperback edition of Yoruba Demon: Obinna no matter where you are in the world!

Whether you’re in the US, UK, Canada, or Australia—or grabbing the hardcover in Nigeria, Ghana, or anywhere across Africa—you can now place your preorder through your favorite bookstore or retailer.

There’s more…

Collect the YDBC Member Cards

This is something I’ve been working on behind the scenes for a while, and I’m so excited to finally share it with you!

Thank you for the love you’ve been showing the YDBC members. Seeing you connect with these characters, talk about them, and welcome them into your hearts has been such a joy. I wanted to create something special that lets you keep a little piece of their world with you.

Here’s another reason to preorder through participating bookstores...

You’ll receive exclusive YDBC Member Cards—collectible keepsakes inspired by the Yoruba Demons Billionaire Club.

There are currently 8 cards to collect—2 for each of the four Yoruba Demons—featuring character highlights, fun facts, and exclusive artwork. As the series grows, so will the collection, making them the perfect keepsake for longtime readers.

These cards are available while supplies last. Once the current stock runs out, they’ll return with the release of another YDBC book, giving you a chance to continue building your collection with each new story.

Even if you’re an ebook reader, you can still collect the cards and build your YDBC collection one release at a time.

I genuinely can’t wait to see your collections grow over the next few years.

Help Bring Obinna to Your Shelves:

Request It. Read It. Recommend It.

In the meantime, we’re about 60 days away from release day! Help bring Obinna to your shelves by requesting it, reading it, and recommending it.

Don’t be shy about reaching out to your favorite local bookstore or library and asking them to stock Yoruba Demon: Obinna. Reader requests genuinely help books find their way onto shelves, and every recommendation makes a real difference in getting Obinna into more hands around the world.

If you’re part of a book club, you can also place group orders at a discounted rate, making it even easier to read and discuss Obinna together.

Here’s to an amazing new month ahead!

Your Weekend Read Is Waiting

Don't Leave Kunle Hanging

If you haven’t met him yet, Yoruba Demon: Kunle is still waiting patiently for you. His friends-to-lovers story is out now, and I’d love for you to show him some love. He’s also now available in paperback on Amazon and in my store, so you can grab your copy wherever is easiest for you.

As always, thank you for reading, sharing, reviewing, and making this journey so special.

Get Yoruba Demon: Kunle now

Will I See You?

I had a great time at Romanticonn and connected with so many new readers! Here’s my recap on IG.

Catch me at events before September 30th to grab early copies of Yoruba Demon: Obinna.

I’ll be at the following in-person events for the rest of the year:

• August 8 — Charmed and Bound at the Flemington Corn, Tomato & Beer Festival, Flemington, New Jersey, USA

• August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

• August 22 - Romance After Dark Fair, Columbus, New Jersey, USA

• August 29 - Harlem Book Fair, Harlem, New York, USA

• September 12 - Petersburg Book Fest, Petersburg, Virginia, USA

• September 18 - 20 - Love Among the Pages, London, Ontario, 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!

XoxO

Between smoky skies, whatever virus seems determined to make the rounds this summer, and the general drama of life, please remember to take care of yourselves. Wash your fruits and vegetables, stay hydrated, get some rest where you can, and don’t ignore the signs when your body asks you to slow down (speaking to myself too).

In short: take a deep breath in.

The world will still be there when you come up for air.

Life Updates: Big Girl Moves - Turning 2 in a Minute!

This little one will officially be turning two in a minute, and I can’t quite believe it.

She’s now insisting on walking through the store by herself, reaching for Mommy’s hand like she’s been doing it all her life. Can you believe it?

Now... I did end up chasing her down an aisle and immediately regretted not putting her in a trolley. But for those first three minutes? She absolutely nailed it.

These little milestones have a way of sneaking up on you, and I’m trying my best to soak them all in.

What’s new with you? I’d love to hear what’s been bringing you joy lately.

Thank You for Showing Up for Kunle

Thank you for every preorder, every direct purchase from my website, every review, every message, every post, and every recommendation.

This release has reminded me why I do this.

One thing that has especially meant the world to me is seeing so many of you choose to buy directly from my website. It’s hard to put into words, but it makes me feel seen. Knowing you intentionally chose to support me in that way has been one of my favorite parts of this release, and I’m incredibly grateful.

If you haven’t picked up Yoruba Demon: Kunle yet, this weekend is the perfect excuse to slow down, relax, and escape into a friends-to-lovers romance that’s been years in the making.

Get Yoruba Demon: Kunle now

Your Favorite Author be Feeling Like a Superstar

And speaking of feeling seen... Friends and family kept sending me screenshots and links asking if I’d seen it. Yep, I recently got featured (meaning yesterday featured) in Zikoko Magazine, and I felt like a superstar.

It’s one of those moments that makes you pause and appreciate how far you’ve come and how many people are cheering you on.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Now… let’s aim for The New York Times next. A girl can dream, right? 😉

Yoruba Demon: Obinna is Almost Here

September feels both far away and right around the corner, and I’m equal parts excited and nervous for you to finally meet Obinna and Rot.

Oh! And the official playlist is already out if you’d like to be a few steps ahead before diving into their story. Give it a listen and start soaking in the vibes.

Eeeek! I seriously can’t wait for you to enter their world.

Yoruba Demon: Obinna is almost ready for the printers, and if you’ve been thinking about preordering, now is the best time. The discounted preorder pricing on both the ebook and paperback won’t last forever, so this is your chance to grab your copy before release.

For those waiting on retailer links (Amazon US, UK, Canada, Japan, and more), I haven’t forgotten you! As soon as they’re live, I’ll send them your way—hopefully in my next newsletter.

I’m also excited to share that the list of participating bookstores across Africa keeps growing. If your favorite bookstore doesn’t have Yoruba Demon: Obinna on its shelves, don’t hesitate to ask them to place an order—it really does make a difference.

And if you’re interested in placing a bulk order for your book club, library, school, or organization, simply reply to this email, and we’ll make it happen.

Listen to the playlist

Get Yoruba Demon: Obinna now

Writing Update: Yoruba Demon: Kemi

While Obinna is getting ready for the world, I’ve already moved on to the next project.

I’m currently writing Yoruba Demon: Kemi, tentatively scheduled for release in December.

What can I tell you?

Drama.

Lots of drama.

And plenty of pidgin. 😂

Her love interest is Boma, a Bayelsa man, and the two of them are already proving to be a handful. I have a feeling they’re going to keep me entertained—and stressed—for the rest of the year.

See YOU in London, Canada

Some of you may remember that I was originally scheduled to attend Love Bants & Signatures in September. Unfortunately, that event has since been cancelled.

The good news? I’ll still be in Canada!

You can find me at Love Among the Pages in London, Ontario, from September 18–20.

If you’ve never been to a book signing before, consider this your sign to change that. They’re such a fun way to geek out over books, discover new authors, reconnect with your favorites, and meet fellow readers who love romance, books I mean, just as much as you do. I always leave these events with a full heart—and with books I didn’t mean to pick up, lol.

One small favor, though: I’ll be traveling light. If you’d like to purchase books from me at the event, simply reply to this email and let me know which titles you’d like me to bring so I can pack accordingly.

I hope to see you there!

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 for the rest of the year:

• July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA

• August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

• August 22 - Romance After Dark Fair, Columbus, New Jersey, USA

• August 29 - Harlem Book Fair, Harlem, New York, USA

• September 12 - Petersburg Book Fest, Petersburg, Virginia, USA

• September 18 - 20 - Love Among the Pages, London, Ontario, 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!

I’ll be sharing my writing and publishing goals for the remainder of the year in another newsletter soon. Oh, and how to grab/read Yoruba Demon: Kunle in paperback,

Until then, thank you for reading my stories, recommending them to friends, leaving reviews, and supporting these books in every way you do. Every review, every purchase, every share, and every kind word helps these stories find new readers.

Happy reading!

XoxO

Get Yoruba Demon: Kunle now

Yoruba Demon: Kunle is officially out in the world, and I still can’t believe I get to say that.

What started as a short story written for a charity anthology has grown into a full-length novel that completely stole my heart and is stealing the heart of early readers.

Here’s what early readers are saying;

Kunle and Jasmine reminded me that love isn’t just about grand gestures—it’s about showing up, choosing each other, and finding your way back, one step at a time.

Thank you for every preorder, every message, every share, every review, and every bit of excitement you’ve shown this ‘surprise’ book. As an indie author, your support means more than you know.

If you enjoy the book, I’d be so grateful if you left a rating or review on your favorite reading platform. It helps other readers discover Jasmine and Kunle’s story.

I hope you laugh, swoon, and fall in love with these two the way I did.

Get Yoruba Demon: Kunle now

Happy reading!

XoxO

JASMINE

SOMEONE FORGOT TO SHUT THE gates of hell, because this early-morning July sun in upstate New York is working overtime. It presses straight down on my scalp, while heat creeps up from the asphalt, seeping through the soles of my shoes. The Boilermaker 15K is yet to start, and I’m already drenched—sweat sliding down my arms, collecting at my spine, turning my sports bra top into a second skin.

With kids weaving through the crowd and spectators pressed along the barriers, I feel almost naked out here. My sports bra is doing the bare minimum, what with my sweaty skin. A couple of shirtless guys walk past, and I have to actively stop my brain from wishing I were a boy.

If I’m being honest, I’d love to rip this sports bra off and exist the way they do—unbothered, unselfconscious. And if I’m being really honest, it’s not just the sun making my skin prickle like this.

I adjust my face cap and tap my watch again, more out of habit than necessity. The numbers look good, but I need to work on my breathing. Scanning the crowd, I take slower, deeper, controlled breaths. This is the part I love and hate in equal measure: the seconds before the gun, when the streets are packed with cheering strangers, when my body feels coiled and ready, when anything feels possible. There’s the promise of pain, yes, but also the promise of that post-race high that makes me believe I could outrun the version of myself that’s been holding back.

The race should begin in—

“Jas?” A deep, unfamiliar masculine voice cuts through my wandering mind.

Great, I frown. I’m not the only Jasmine running today.

Still, curiosity gets the better of me. I turn toward the voice to see who’s lucky to be my namesake, only my stomach flips before my brain catches up. I blink once, then again, hoping my eyes are lying.

Nope. They’re not.

“Kunle? Kay?” I say, not sure if I’m asking or confirming.

A flash of disbelief crosses his face before it is quickly masked by amusement. His mesmerizing blue eyes lock onto mine, holding me hostage as his familiar crooked grin settles in. The same one I’ve seen at the end of races, in group photos with kids from various outreach programs, in moments when I’ve felt a tug of pride for knowing him.

“I knew it.” His voice still carries that teasing lilt I remember from college, only now it’s deeper, like it matured along with him.

How in the world did we finally end up in the same race?

I let out a soft laugh, shaking my head. “Wow. I didn’t know you ran the Boilermaker.”

He shrugs, then slides a hand into the pocket of his black shorts. The watch on his wrist reminds me that some people might never get smartwatches—and that I need to make money in this life and the next.

“I’ve been around,” he says. “Here and there. You know me—I can’t resist a good race.” He quirks his mouth. “And this one promises a good drink at the finish line.”

Smiling, I arch a brow. “So alcohol is the motivation, huh?”

Before he can respond, I feel a light bump against my arm—a not-so-subtle reminder that I’m not standing here alone.

“Oh.” I gesture between them. “Miranda, meet my friend from college. Kunle.”

Kunle turns to her, wearing that easy charm of his. He offers her a confident smile and handshake. “Hi, Miranda. Nice to meet you. Sorry if I interrupted—”

“Nice to meet you too!” Miranda beams, her gaze bouncing between us like she’s watching a tennis match. “I’m the gym friend,” she says proudly. “We drove down from Newark for this, and it’s been amazing.”

“Oh.” Kunle nods, clearly entertained.

Miranda keeps going, offering up information I would’ve preferred to keep tucked away—like the fact that I haven’t left Newark, or that I’m still actively hunting for a job that matches what’s on my vision board.

“Yeah,” Miranda continues, waving a hand. “She suggested it, and I haven’t been—” She pauses, scoffs, then corrects herself, “—I mean, we haven’t been. You’d think being a state away would make the decision easier.”

“Hmm.” Kunle smiles, looking at me. There’s a glint in his eyes that says interesting.

“Come to find out that people fly in from Kenya for this!” Miranda gasps. “I’m so glad Jas was like, ‘Mira,’”—she imitates my voice terribly—”‘we have to go.’” She grins. “I never really go out of state because what’s the point, but this? This is amazing.”

She finally turns back to Kunle. “What about you? Drove in or flew?”

“Flew in from California.”

My brows shoot up.

“Ooh … The Golden State,” Miranda chimes in, delighted. “That’s so cool—that this event brings people from everywhere.”

“It really does,” Kunle says, his smile widening. Laugh lines crease the corners of his eyes, softening his face. Then his attention shifts fully back to me. “It’s really good to see you here.”

He pauses. “What about you, Jas? Are you doing that multi-city race thing you said you wanted to try?”

His question leads to a long, loaded silence, where I’m suddenly hyperaware of everything—the way his dark eyes sweep over me, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the flex of his arms as he shifts his weight. My heart stutters. Sweat prickles along my spine. I’m acutely conscious of every stray curl under my cap, every inch of damp fabric clinging to me.

Feeling oddly shy, I look away. How does he even remember that throwaway comment?

“No shit,” he says softly. “You are.”

I look back at him, and he is smiling in … admiration?

College—Jasmine’s Junior Year

Another group project? Lord have mercy!

When I graduate, it will be only my name on my certificate, and no one will realize other people contributed to whether I passed or failed a project. Why can’t projects be non-scorable? Like in case you get paired with the wrong person.

These are the thoughts passing through my head when the professor makes the announcement in a class of seniors and juniors. And they get worse when he starts reading out names.

“Group F will be Jasmine Darko and …”

God please, let it be someone in my class. Let it be someone I flow with. Let it be—

“Olakunle Doyle.”

Oh.

I glance up automatically, scrunching my brows at the raised hand of my supposed project partner. There must be a mistake. Is this a prank? I think to myself as my brain registers an annoyingly composed, dark-haired guy.

Great, I didn’t catch his name. Maybe it was Ol’Mckinley Doyle the professor said, and I misheard it.

Ol’Mckinley and I make awkward eye contact across the lecture hall. He gives me a small, polite nod and a quick smile, which I return with the bare minimum enthusiasm before going back to my notebook. I have a strong feeling that I’ll end up doing most of the “group” work.

After class, he approaches me with a notebook tucked under his arm. He looks like the kind of guy who never panics before deadlines. Or anything, really. Why do I have to be stuck with a stranger?

“Jasmine, right?”

“Yes,” I say, nodding. “Ol’Mckinley?” I scrunch my lips and my eyes. “I’m sorry—I didn’t get the name when—”

“It’s Olakunle,” he says, smiling. “But you can call me Kunle.”

Was that an accent?!

“Looks like we’re stuck together,” he continues.

“Lucky us,” I reply dryly, faking a smile while my brain permutates and combines the visible and audible evidence. I’m a first-generation immigrant, but the community my parents created for me and my siblings exposed us to other immigrants. And from my deduction of how he said his Yoruba first name—and how he doesn’t look Nigerian—I’m feeling very lost.

Oh God, I sound very snobbish and assuming.

“Do you mind us splitting the project right now?” he asks.

“Like now?”

“If you don’t mind.”

“Umm … sure. Give me a moment.”

“No problem. I’ll be outside.”

After catching up with friends and bidding my course mates goodbye, I find him at one of the long tables outside the lecture hall. He’s got the syllabus spread out in front of him, lightly tapping his pen against the page.

“Hey,” I say, dropping my bag before sitting next to him.

“Hey,” he offers, glancing up. “First things first—how do you want to split this?”

Man is straightforward. Efficient. And … okay. Not so terrible. This might not be a bad pairing after all.

As we talk timelines and research angles, he pronounces my last name perfectly, the way my parents pronounce it whenever they’re introducing themselves or talking to customer service representatives.

“And Jasmine Darko hits submit.”

Darko.

Dar—as in dark—then koh as in go.

I look at him sharply. “You didn’t butcher that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Should I have?”

I narrow my eyes. “Most people do.”

“Well,” he says, “that’s a shame. I like the name. It’s a Ghanaian name, right?”

There’s something in his tone that makes me pause. Curious now, I press my lips into a smile, liking his flow.

“My parents are Ghanaian. You’re Nigerian?” I ask.

He blinks like what I said was confusing, before smiling wide. “Born and bred.”

You must be kidding me!

I laugh out loud and immediately regret it, curbing my excitement by pressing my lips together and forcing a serious face. But his expression remains amused instead of offended.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I just—wait. What? You’re Nigerian?”

“Lagos,” he says. “I grew up in Ikoyi.”

“I knew I heard something in your accent.”

He tilts his head. “What about it?”

“It’s—” I gesture vaguely. “Not what I expected when you corrected me about your name.”

“Ah.” He leans back, folding his arms. “There it is.”

I feel heat crawl up my neck. “No, I didn’t mean—”

“You meant you assumed I’d sound a certain way,” he finishes, still smiling. “It’s okay. Happens all the time.”

I study him more closely now. The confidence. The ease. The way he doesn’t rush to explain himself.

“I’m first-generation,” I say instead. “My parents moved here before I was born. We’re … very Ghanaian at home.”

He nods slowly. “That tracks.”

“Excuse you?”

He chuckles. “You’ve got the cadence. You switch when you’re emotional.”

I freeze. “I do not.”

“You do,” he says gently. “Especially when you’re confused—or would I say … annoyed?”

I open my mouth to argue, then stop. Because—damn it—he’s right.

“So,” I say, changing tactics, “how did you end up here? And who gave you these genes?”

“Diplomatic life,” he replies. “My father’s Irish. He was working in Nigeria when he met my mother. She’s a Yoruba princess.”

I roll my eyes; he catches it, and we both laugh.

“Does that work every time?” I ask.

“Yes,” he chuckles, holding his belly. “But really, she is a princess. My full name is Olakunle Adefolawe-Doyle.”

“Okay … Nigerian prince.”

We laugh.

“I promise you, I’m not that Nigerian prince.”

We chuckle again, earning the curious stares of other students.

“Anyways,” he continues when our humor settles, “we moved around a lot—Nigeria, London, Brussels. And I adapted too.”

“Hence the play with accents?”

He shrugs.

“I have another question for you. I know this sounds like an interview right now, and I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be. I’ll only answer if I want to.” His mesmerizing blue eyes strips me of all nervous energy floating around me.

“Cool, cool,” I say, licking my lips. “My question is … growing up and moving around a lot, did you feel like you belonged anywhere?”

He studies me as he thinks through my question, and I offer the friendliest smile I can cook up, curiosity licking at my brain.

“Yes,” he says finally. “Eventually. You learn that culture isn’t where you’re born—it’s what you choose to carry with you.”

Deep …

“Okay,” I smile slowly. “I like you a little more now.” I pinch the air with my thumb and middle finger.

“That’s a good thing—but wait, did you like me before this like?”

I laugh, shaking my head. “Has anyone ever told you that you have a way of getting under one’s skin?”

“I do?” he asks, offering me a lopsided grin.

I’m not answering that. It will only make his head swell and explode.

I gather my notes and place them in my bag. “Don’t play with me. You’re easy to talk to. And don’t read much into it.”

He gathers his notes too and stands. “I won’t. But I will say this—”

“Yes?” I raise a brow waiting for him to use a stupid line.

“I’m glad I got paired with you.”

I don’t know why that makes my chest warm, but it does.

15+ chapters to go…

Releases July 14, 2026.

Read Yoruba Demon: Kunle now

You might already be aware—especially if you follow me on social media—that while Obinna’s story is getting its final polish (and trust me, it’s a big one!), I couldn’t leave you hanging.

So... I’m taking us back into the Yoruba Demon world with a brand-new novella.

Today, I’m so excited to reveal the cover for Yoruba Demon: Kunle, releasing July 14, 2026! Yes, just next week.

If you have a soft spot for the quiet guy in the friend group...
If you love years of unresolved tension...
If friends-to-lovers is your weakness...
If you're convinced the softest hearts make the best heroes...

Then Kunle and Jasmine’s story is for you.

He's a Nigerian-Irish billionaire building a legacy across continents. She's a Ghanaian-American powerhouse protecting the life she's built. Falling in love was the easy part. Choosing each other is where it gets complicated.

What to expect

🏃 Sports romance
🥇 Marathon runners & training partners
🥹 Emotional romance
🔥 Spicy!!!
📖 A story you can finish in one sitting

Blurb

Not all demons play fair; some wait six years to make their move.
Kunle has loved Jasmine since the day they met on that college track — and never once told her how he felt. Now she's back in his orbit, close enough to touch, and the words he swallowed back then are finally clawing their way up.

Yoruba Demon: Kunle releases July 14 and will be available on all major ebook retailers.

I hope you’ll join me for this quick return to the Yoruba Demon universe before Obinna’s unforgettable story this September.

Thank you, as always, for reading, cheering me on, and making this journey so special. I can’t wait for you to meet Kunle.

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 for the rest of the year:

• July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA

• August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

• August 22 - Romance After Dark Fair, Columbus, New Jersey, USA

• August 29 - Harlem Book Fair, Harlem, New York, USA

• September 12 - Petersburg Book Fest, Petersburg, Virginia, USA

• September 18 - 20 - Love Among the Pages, London, Ontario, 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!

Until my next letter where I share how to grab/read Yoruba Demon: Kunle, happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO

Subscribe now

Old newsletter Archive

OBINNA

APAPA’S WAREHOUSE REEKS OF DIESEL, the metallic tang of rust, and the acrid scent of fear-induced sweat. I learned from a very young age to recognize that sharp, almost sweet, chemical signature. Despite its lovely aroma, the scent is most appropriate for individuals who acquire it by being rather naughty.

Chuks walks three steps ahead, his shoulders filling the corridor. Two of my security detail flanking the entrance stand silently, gazes fixed forward, not acknowledging our presence.

It’s been two weeks since I let her go.

Two weeks since I watched her walk out of that holding room—spine straight, defiant, tall even barefoot—and thought: she’ll stop now. She’ll understand what’s at stake and she’ll stop.

She didn’t stop.

She’s digging harder. Her latest moves suggest she’s exploring the limits of my empire, seeking a weakness.

But that’s not why I’m here.

I’m here for the man in the chair.

Mid-forties. White shirt that probably looked expensive twelve hours ago. Now it’s damp, creased, the collar dark with sweat or… blood. Hard to tell.

His wrists are zip-tied to the armrests. Professional. Not cruel—we’re not animals.

He looks up when I walk in.

He says, “Ódògwù…” with a pleading voice that’s all over the place.

I pull a chair from the corner, the metal loud against concrete. I sit, cross one leg over the other, and study him like a balance sheet. I’m looking for the line item that doesn’t add up.

“Chimobi…”

I know his name. I know his wife’s name, his daughter’s school, the mortgage on his house in Lekki Phase 2, the car he bought last month—the one that should have been a red flag to his supervisors, because a mid-level finance manager at PuntPlay does not drive the latest GLE.

He swallows.

“Four hundred and twelve million naira,” I say, like I’m reading from a menu. “Skimmed over fourteen months from the West Africa expansion fund. Routed through a shell account in Cotonou—very creative, I’ll give you that—then washed through your cousin’s logistics company in Onitsha.”

His breathing changes.

“Your daughter starts at Greensprings next term. Fees are, what—four million a year? Your wife’s shop in Tejuosho turns maybe six hundred thousand monthly. Your mortgage is one point two million quarterly.” I sigh. “The math is not mathing, Chimobi.”

“Ódògwù—please, I can explain—Ódògwù —”

“I’m not asking you to explain. I’m not.” I say in a placating tone. “I’m telling you what I know. Your explanation is irrelevant because we both know what happened. You saw money that wasn’t yours, and you took it. The question isn’t why—greed is boring and universal. The question is: who else?”

His eyes dart left. A small involuntary micro-expression.

“Because you’re not smart enough to build that Cotonou route alone. And your cousin in Onitsha is a drunk who can barely manage his books. Someone showed you the gap. Someone told you where to push.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “Give me the name, and your daughter still goes to Greensprings.”

The silence that follows is deafening.

He breaks in under ninety seconds. They always do.

Hmm.

The name he gives me is interesting. Not who I expected. Oh well… measures have to be taken.

I stand. The metal chair scrapes against the concrete again. I button my jacket.

“Chimobi.”

“Ódògwù. Biko. Enwere m ezinụlọ—Ódògwù —”

Ah… playing the kinship card? As a polyglot, I love that when English runs out, people reach for the language closest to their bones.

He looks up with wet eyes, runny nose, his dignity somewhere on the floor between us.

“Everyone has a price, Chimobi. Yours was embarrassingly low.”

I leave him breathing and alive but broken in the ways that matter—reputation, leverage, the illusion that he could steal from me and still sleep well. But breathing. I’m not my father. Umendiego would have taken the man’s house.

Me? I just took his options.

My ex-wife called this my black heart. She wasn’t wrong.

Chuks holds the car door open as I slide in, grateful for the air-conditioning.

The gentle sway of the car lets me close my eyes, breathe deep, decompress and reset.

I don’t enjoy that. The warehouse. The seeing a grown man cry. Dismantling his defenses until he gives me what I need. Noticing how his breath shifts when he realizes I’m not bluffing. The exact moment the fight leaves his body.

I don’t not enjoy it either.

That’s the part Justina couldn’t live with. Not the money, not the travel, not even the women—yes, there were women, I won’t pretend otherwise. In the end, she left with one of the houses in Buckhead and a settlement that would make most men weep.

I didn’t weep. She said that proved her point.

She might have been right about that too.

But here’s what Justina never understood, what nobody outside my blood understands: yesterday morning, I was making dinosaur noises for a nine-year-old, promising his seven-year-old sister I’d bake blueberry muffins on my next visit, letting Kamso lecture me about Tylosaurus apex predators while Kodi negotiated the number of the muffins we’d bake.

The warehouse and the muffins co-exist in the same heart.

Chuks pulls into traffic. Apapa to Banana Island is a journey measured not in kilometers but in patience, and Friday traffic is God’s personal joke on anyone foolish enough to have somewhere to be.

“That Nentawe woman,” Chuks says, eyes on the road. He delivers information the way surgeons deliver diagnoses—without inflection, leaving you to decide how to feel about it.

“What about her?”

“Ódògwù, she’s not stopping. She called the office again this morning. She called three times. Sent another email to legal asking about licensing structure for the West Africa expansion.”

I watch the city crawl past the tinted window. Danfo buses. Hawkers weaving between bumpers with their wares. A woman in a blue wrapper with two kids crossing four lanes of traffic like the overhead bridge was hung there for decoration.

I should have expected this.

Two weeks ago she sat across from me in that holding room with silk blindfold marks fading on her face, and she looked at me unafraid. Calculating. Cold-storm eyes cataloguing me the way I catalogue investments—measuring return, assessing risk, finding the angle.

I’ve sat across from warlords and oil barons and men who make you look like a schoolboy playing dress-up, she’d said.

No one talks to me like that. No one calls me a schoolboy. No one looks down at me and tells me I’m playing dress-up in a room where she’s the one in cuffs. No one.

Yet I let her go.

“Forward the emails to Taiwo,” I say. “Let legal handle it.”

“Legal said she’s asking different questions now. Not is PuntPlay a scam or are you ruining Nigerian youths. She’s asking about regulatory approvals. Which agencies. Which officials. The blueprint of the West Africa expansion.”

Impressive. Smart questions. She listened, then. When I told her she was building a simple story while the truth was complicated, she listened.

“I think she’s not just investigating PuntPlay anymore,” Chuks continues. “She’s investigating the framework around it. The regulators. The policy gaps.”

“Keep monitoring,” I say. “But no interference. She wants to dig, let her dig. Just tell me where the shovel points.”

“Understood.”

I have bigger problems than a journalist who won’t stay scared.

Former NLRC chairman and current WAGER vice-chair has been circling the West Africa expansion for months now, like he can smell the money all the way from his mansion in Maitama.

The man practically wrote modern sports betting regulation in Nigeria. Then retired with a handshake, national honors, and enough political goodwill to last three lifetimes. Only to quietly build shadow companies designed to exploit every loophole he personally authored into law.

He wants in. Or he wants me out. Either way, he’s filed a regulatory complaint with the NLRC—some nonsense about our licensing framework violating section 47(b)—and it’s slowing my timeline.

My personal phone buzzes. The screen shows a photo of a man with dreadlocks wearing glasses and grinning.

“Obinnaya.” The way he says my name—full, unhurried, like he’s tasting every syllable—is uniquely Jidenna. “Where you dey nau?”

My dearest twin brother. Born seven minutes after me, though he insists those seven minutes gave me an unfair advantage I’ve been exploiting ever since.

“I’m in traffic.”

“Waka waka. Traffic where?”

I smile. “I never travel. I dey Lagos. What do you want?”

He pauses. Listening. To what, exactly, I’ve never been sure. God, the universe, the peculiar frequency that runs between us. When we were boys in Atlanta, he’d wake up crying from nightmares that were mine. I’d feel his fevers before he told anyone. Our father called it nonsense. Our mother called it a gift, twin bond, telepathy.

“The balance has shifted.” His voice drops—not to a whisper, but to the register he uses when he’s not being my brother but being whatever else he is. The part of him I don’t fully understand and have learned not to question. “Two weeks ago, I felt a change. I told you then, but now it’s different. Now it’s… unsettled. Like a frequency that hasn’t found its note yet.”

I shift in my seat. “Oga, I’m coming from a warehouse where I literally destroyed a man’s career on over four hundred million theft. I’m not in the mood for frequency distribution or spiritual punditry.”

“This isn’t about business. Well, not directly. Let’s see—what have you done differently recently?”

“Abeg, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re lying. I can feel it all the way from here.”

“Then stop feeling. Develop a black heart.”

He lets out a short, warm laugh. “You’re still carrying what she said about you having a black heart to heart?”

I look at his face on the screen. My twin. Brown-skinned where I’m fair—he took after our mother, Hafsa, who is from Borno State. I took after our father, Umendiego. In complexion, my jaw, even in temperament. Things people praise in a man and pity in a husband.

Jidenna’s dreadlocks frame his face. He arrived with them—born with thick, tangled strands that neither dad’s family nor Hafsa’s could explain. Not a single ancestor on either side carried that hair. Our grandparents recommended the sàrà àká tradition: cut them off, appease whatever spirit sent them. Hafsa refused. Leave my son’s hair, she told them. And that was the end of the conversation.

“Jokes aside, bro. I need you to pay attention,” Jidenna says. “Not to your moves or strategies. Definitely not to the board. To yourself. I need you to pay attention to you. When was the last time you were still? When was the last time you stopped thinking, stopped planning? The last time you just… chilled?”

I don’t answer. Because the answer is I don’t remember, and he knows it.

“The frequency that shifted two weeks ago—it hasn’t settled. It’s still looking for its note.” He pauses. “I think you’re part of what it’s looking for. And I think you’re afraid to let it find you.”

I scoff. “Oga. Me. Afraid?”

“Yes, I believe so. The question is whether you let it run you or you run it.”

He hangs up. Seven minutes younger and still so annoying.

I stare at the phone, then out the window. Traffic hasn’t moved.

I roll his words around. Jidenna has been doing this since we were fifteen—calling at odd hours, saying things that sound like riddles and prophecy. When he told me not to sign with the first investors for PuntPlay, I ignored him. Lost eight months and twenty million learning he was right. When he told me Justina would leave, I laughed. Signed divorce papers six months later.

I don’t ignore Jidenna anymore.

Okay, I do, sometimes.

Because I’m human and he can be annoying.

I toss the phone onto the seat, adjust my silver cufflink, and think about Hafsa. She sounded really tired last week and had the nerve to lie to me that it was lack of sleep.

I think about daddy in Atlanta, running his empire with Agozie beside him, expecting results from me the way the sun expects the earth to turn.

I think about PuntPlay, the business that made me Ódògwù before I inherited the title.

I think about Chimobi in that chair. The way his eyes went flat the moment he realized I already knew everything.

And I think about her.

That journalist. Miss Nentawe.

Now that she’s digging harder, the smart play is to have her discredited. A word to the right editor. A whisper about conflicts of interest. Pressure that doesn’t leave fingerprints.

I don’t make the call.

Instead, I watch the city crawl past the tinted window.

Isn’t it wild that the first person in ages who doesn’t flinch at me is the one going after everything I’ve built?

40+ Chapters to go…

Releases September 30, 2026.

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Order Yoruba Demon: Obinna

I hope this month has been kinder to you than the last couple of weeks have been to me.

First, tour season has been going so well, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed connecting with readers and authors alike. There’s something special about meeting people who’ll laugh, cry, scream, and fall in love with the characters I’ve created. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by my table, attended events, shared posts, and supported me in person and online.

Now… if you have toddlers in daycare, then you already know they don’t just bring home artwork (I got my first Mother’s Day artwork and my heart melted)—they bring home entire biological warfare packages. One minute everyone is fine, the next your whole household is coughing in surround sound. The last week absolutely knocked me off my feet, and while I’m recovering now, it definitely disrupted my writing schedule and timelines more than I planned.

Still, I’m grateful.

This season has also been filled with sunshines, graduations, anniversaries, celebrations, and watching people I care about step into new chapters of their lives. There’s something beautiful about seeing friends achieve milestones they worked hard for.

Yoruba Demon: Updates

Now to the part many of you came for…

Obinna is currently going through the next round of edits with feedback from my editor. I still don’t have a confirmed release date yet because, well… life has been interesting. But don’t worry—we’re getting there.

FYI, pre-orders motivate me, so…

Pre-Order Obinna

And because I like surprises, there’s also another Yoruba Demon story coming around the time Obinna releases.

Some of you may remember Yoruba Demon: Kunle, a short story that originally appeared in the RomanceinCNY anthology. Well… it’s getting its moment. I’m expanding it from five chapters to sixteen, so please anticipate it—and a cover reveal coming soon.

Here’s the blurb:

Not all demons play games; some run straight for you.

Kunle, a Yoruba Demon Billionaire who runs for causes never planned on colliding with his past at a summer race. Jasmine didn’t expect a silly bet and one reckless afternoon to unravel years of restraint. What begins as a charged reunion quickly exposes old wounds, buried desire, and a connection that refuses to stay casual.

Also, thank you so much to everyone reading and reviewing Yoruba Demon: Femi and Yoruba Demon: Tunde on Amazon and Goodreads. Reviews genuinely help more than you realize. They increase visibility, help other readers discover the books, and tell retailers that the stories are worth recommending.

And if you haven’t yet, Yoruba Demon: The Brotherhood is still available for free here:

Download Now

The Catching Feelings Series

Website | Amazon | TikTok Shop (US)

Thank you all so much for the love you’ve shown Imagine That and Implication. Watching readers connect with this series has been such a rewarding experience for me.

The next and final book in the series, Irreplaceable, is currently set for release this summer.

Anticipate it!

And if you haven’t started the series yet—or need a refresher before the finale—this is the perfect time to catch up on the previous books, spread the word, and leave reviews. Reviews help visibility so much and continue to introduce new readers to the series.

You can also motivate me to keep writing by placing your preorders. Trust me, authors notice every single one.

More to come.

Pre-Order Irreplaceable

WTLCTD Updates

I’ve officially sent out the first ten chapters of WYL, the first book in the WTLCTD series.

Thank you for all the excitement and love you’ve already shown this story and world. Seeing your reactions has honestly made me even more eager to share the full journey with you.

And now, you finally get to know what WTLCTD means:

I’ll save the meaning of WYL for another letter.

For now… just anticipate this book.

You can read more and catch up here:

Your Next Summer Read

Escape, a Twin Bliss Resort novel, recently got a brand-new cover and interior design makeover. It’s currently available on my website and makes the perfect summer read if you’re looking for romance, tension, and an escape into something warm and immersive.

Read Escape now

New Releases from Author Friends

Here are two new releases I think you’d really enjoy!

PS: The Time & Ash duology follows the story of Yoruba Demon: Obinna’s father—his rise, his romance, and the choices that shaped the man he became.

Time and Ash duology by Rosemary Okafor.

The narrative unflinchingly explores the burdens women bear to uphold their husbands’ crowns, even when the cost is their own thinning edges, their silence, their sacrifice. Indigo himself strays into waters far beyond his depth, discovering that reverence and status do not guarantee control, wisdom, or absolution.

At its core, this duology is a richly layered examination of marriage, motherhood, and a love that persists despite betrayal, pride, and unmet expectations.

This is a deeply immersive read—one that will make you laugh, simmer with anger, and smile in recognition. I highly recommend this to readers who enjoy emotionally honest storytelling and complex family dynamics.

Read Time & Ash

Sweat With Me by L. Leigh

A raw, emotionally charged story about desire, control, and reclaiming autonomy. Amara’s marriage is cold, suffocating, and shaped by silence, neglect, and the threat of FGM disguised as “correction.” Her affair with her gym instructor is reckless and morally messy, but it becomes the spark that forces her to confront the life she’s been surviving instead of living. Bold, uncomfortable, and deeply human, this is a fearless exploration of what happens when a person eventually choose themselves.

Read Sweat With Me

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:

• May 31 - Delaware Author Fair, Wilmington, Delaware, USA

• June 6 - Juneteenth Freedom Festival, Edison, New Jersey, USA

• June 7 - Freehold NJ Juneteenth, Freehold, New Jersey, USA

• June 13 - The Pink Profit Vendor & Craft Pop-Up, Merchantville, New Jersey, USA

• June 20 - 6th Annual Juneteenth Celebration, West Winsdor, New Jersey, USA

• July 25 - RomantiConn, Trumbull, Connecticut, USA

• July 31 till August 2 - Black Writers Weekend, Atlanta, USA

• August 15 - Indies & Bookworms, Baltimore, Maryland, USA

• August 22 - Romance After Dark,

• August 29 - Harlem Book Fair, Harlem, New York, 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 dates. Till then…

Happy reading and stay jiggy!

XoxO

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Old newsletter Archive

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.

* * *

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.

* * *

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.

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.

* * *

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.

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.

* * *

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.

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.

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.

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

44 chapters to go…

Order Yoruba Demon: Obinna

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.

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.