In the shadows of a rainy city night, a forbidden desire ignites. "Forbidden Instincts" follows the magnetic pull between two people from worlds that should never collide, as they navigate a dangerous attraction that defies all rules.​He is a man driven by shadow and duty, she is a spirit seeking escape, but together they find a fierce, undeniable connection that challenges their foundations. As their proximity deepens into passion, they are forced to confront the secrets and societal forces that threaten to tear them apart.​Caught in a web of secrets and high-stakes tension, can their instinctual love survive the elements, or will the darkness around them reclaim their brief sanctuary? Joy Anzzy Isa crafts a gripping tale of love, risk, and the powerful, unspoken instincts that drive us.

The rain in Lagos never truly washed anything clean. It only moved the dirt from one corner of the pavement to another, pooling grease, rainwater, and crushed cigarette butts along the curb of the Third Mainland Bridge. ​She sat on the edge of the damp concrete, her knees pulled tight against her chest. To the millions rushing past in yellow danfos and sleek luxury sedans, she was just another ghost fading into the humid twilight—a shadow the city had chewed up and spat out. ​In her right hand, her knuckles were white, clutching a crumpled scrap of paper. On it, written in her mother’s neat, familiar script, were three simple words: ​Just come home. ​How easy those words sounded on paper. But home felt lightyears away from the feverish heat burning under her skin, the gnawing itch that whispered that only one more hit, one more high, would make the shaking stop. The disease had started as an escape, a quiet room in a noisy world. Now, it was a cage without a lock, and the bars were built from her own broken promises. ​She remembered the judgment in the eyes of neighbours when the rumors began. She remembered the cold indifference of a system that treated addiction as a crime to be punished rather than a sickness to be healed. Society had locked its doors against her long ago. ​Yet, in the dark, her phone buzzed in her pocket—a steady, unrelenting pulse. Another missed call from her father. Another voice message from her sister. A family refusing to let go, standing at the edge of the abyss, reaching through the chaos of a city that had already written her off. ​She looked down at the dark, swollen waters of the lagoon below, then back at the slip of paper in her trembling palm. ​The high was fading. The struggle was just beginning. And for the first time in years, she had to choose whether to surrender to the dark, or take the first painful step back toward the light.