His last secret

Chapter 9:VERA

Knock.

Three times.

Sharp. Expensive.

I froze.

Coffee halfway to my mouth.

The mug was warm. My hands were not.

Elias was in the shower.

Water running.

His good arm still healing from the night before.

Mine still shaking from everything else.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Not the front door.

The balcony.

Twelve floors up.

“Ava.”

That voice.

Silk and poison poured into one word.

Red dress in my nightmares.

Vera.

I set the mug down.

Slow.

So it would not shatter.

So I would not.

The glass door was locked.

She was standing on the ledge.

Like the fall was nothing.

Like the wind belonged to her.

“Open up,” she mouthed.

Smiling.

That Lagos socialite smile.

The one that cut people in half at fundraisers and charity galas.

I did not move.

Rule 2: Do not answer for anyone but me.

Elias’s rule.

Elias’s voice in my head.

But Elias was not here.

He was behind a bathroom door.

Bleeding because of her.

Healing because of me.

Vera tilted her head.

Tapped her watch.

A diamond thing that caught the morning light.

It was probably worth my sister’s hospital bills for a year. Maybe two.

Then she held up her phone.

Screen facing me.

A picture.

Elias.

Unconscious.

From four days ago.

At the old safe house.

Before the attack.

Before the blood.

How did she have that?

My phone buzzed on the counter.

Unknown number.

No name. Just digits.

*Open the door, Ava. Or I send this to Damian.*

Damian.

Mr. Damian Adebayo.

The man who fired me to save me.

The man who said, “You did not quit, you ran.”

The man who still owned half of Elias’s life.

I looked at the bathroom door.

Water still running.

Steam creeping under the crack.

He could not hear this.

He could not save me this time.

I walked to the glass.

Unlocked it.

Slid it open one inch.

Just one.

The Lagos wind hit me.

Hot. Dirty. Real.

It smelled like exhaust and rain and danger.

“What do you want?” I said.

My voice did not shake.

Good.

Let her think I was not afraid.

Vera stepped inside.

Heels first.

Red dress second.

The smell of money and jasmine came with her.

She belonged in penthouses and on magazine covers.

Not here.

Not in our two bedroom safe place.

“To talk,” she said.

“Woman to woman.”

“Funny,” I said.

“I thought you were a contract.”

Her smile did not drop.

But her eyes did.

Cold. Black.

Like her father’s.

Like every man who had ever tried to buy Elias.

“Elias has a big mouth,” she said.

She walked the apartment.

Touching nothing.

Judging everything.

“You. This place. Two bedrooms. How cute.”

“Get out.”

“No.”

She turned.

Fast.

Heels silent on the floor.

“Not until you understand something, Ava.”

She said my name like it was cheap.

Like I was something she could replace by next Tuesday.

“Elias Adebayo is mine,” she said.

“Since we were sixteen. Since our fathers signed the papers over whiskey and cigars.”

“He told you it is off.”

“Men say things when they are bleeding.”

She stepped closer.

I stepped back.

My spine hit the counter.

Nowhere else to go.

“You think you are special,” she said.

“Because he bleeds for you. Because he says home.”

She laughed.

One sound.

Sharp as glass.

“He said that to me too. Right before he put this ring on my finger.”

She held up her hand.

Diamond.

Big.

Ugly.

Blinding.

Still there.

“He has not taken yours off,” I said.

That landed.

Her jaw twitched.

Just once.

But I saw it.

“He will,” she said.

“After you are gone.”

The bathroom door opened.

Steam poured out in a cloud.

Elias stood there.

Towel low on his hips.

Wet.

Cut still bandaged on his shoulder.

Eyes already murder.

“Vera,” he said.

No surprise in his voice.

Like he smelled her before he saw her.

Like danger had a scent and hers was jasmine.

“Elias, darling.”

She opened her arms.

Like she owned him.

Like the last three days did not happen.

“You look terrible.”

“Get out.”

Same words I used.

But his hit different.

Lower. Final.

A full stop at the end of her sentence.

Vera did not move.

“We need to talk. Alone.”

“No.”

“Your father—”

“Is not here.”

He walked past her.

Water dripping from his hair onto the floor.

He stood in front of me.

Blocking.

Shielding.

Six feet of wall between me and her.

“Say what you came to say,” he told her.

“Then leave.”

Vera’s face changed.

The smile died.

The socialite mask dropped to the floor.

Under it was something raw.

Angry.

Young.

A girl who had also been sold at nineteen.

“You are ruining us,” she said.

Her voice shook now.

The polish was gone.

“You are ruining the merger. The families. Everything we built.”

“I did not build that,” Elias said.

His voice was calm. Too calm.

“Damian and your father did.”

“You signed—”

“I was nineteen.”

He turned his head.

Just for a second.

Looked at me.

Apology in his eyes.

Promise in the set of his jaw.

*I am here.*

Then back to Vera.

“It is over,” he said.

“The engagement. The deal. All of it.”

“You cannot just—”

“I can.”

He stepped toward her.

She stepped back.

First time I had ever seen Vera Akindele retreat.

“I am not Damian’s weapon anymore. And I am not your husband.”

Vera looked at me.

Really looked.

Up. Down.

Assessing.

Like I was a stain on her dress that would not come out.

“Is she worth it?” she asked him.

Her voice was quiet now.

Dangerous.

“Worth the war? Worth your life? Worth your name?”

Elias did not look at me.

He did not need to.

“Yes,” he said.

One word.

The whole room shifted.

The air changed.

The war started.

Vera flinched.

Like he hit her.

Like yes was a bullet.

Then she laughed.

Broken.

Ugly.

Nothing like the laugh on TV.

“You stupid, stupid man.”

She pulled her phone out.

Tapped once with her thumb.

No hesitation.

The front door exploded inward.

Wood. Splinters. Noise.

The sound took my hearing for a second.

Three men.

Suits. Guns.

Not Lagos police.

Private security.

Her father’s men.

The kind that did not exist on payroll.

“Take her,” Vera said.

Pointing at me.

Her hand did not shake.

“Alive. He will trade.”

Elias moved before I could breathe.

One hand on my waist.

Shoving me behind him.

Hard.

Other hand pulled a gun from the back of his towel.

From where?

I did not know he had one.

I did not want to know why he needed one in the shower.

“Do not,” he said.

To the men.

To Vera.

To the world.

His voice was ice.

“You shoot in here,” Vera said, “and Damian comes down on all of us.”

“Let him.”

First shot.

Not Elias.

One of hers.

Into the ceiling.

Plaster rained down like snow.

White on her red dress.

Warning.

Elias fired back.

Not a warning.

Not a game.

One man dropped.

Leg.

Screaming.

Gun skidding across the floor.

“Elias!” I grabbed his arm.

The bad one.

The one I stitched three days ago.

He did not flinch.

Did not look at me.

Eyes on Vera.

Always on the threat.

“Last chance,” he said.

His voice was death.

“Walk away.”

Vera’s face was white.

But her eyes were black.

Pupil and iris and nothing else.

“Never.”

Second man raised his gun.

Not at Elias.

At me.

Elias shot him.

Chest.

Center mass.

He did not get back up.

Silence.

Ringing in my ears.

Smoke in my lungs.

Gunpowder and jasmine.

Third man dropped his gun.

Hands up.

Palm out.

“I am out,” he said.

Voice cracking.

And he ran.

Through the broken door.

Down the hall.

Gone.

Vera did not run.

She stood there.

In her red dress.

Between two bodies.

One screaming. One silent.

Looking at Elias like she did not know him.

Like the boy she was engaged to at sixteen had died.

“You chose her,” she whispered.

Not angry.

Just empty.

“Over me. Over everything. Over your own name.”

“I chose me,” Elias said.

Voice rough.

Raw.

“For the first time in my life.”

Vera looked at me then.

No hate.

Something worse.

Pity.

The kind you give to girls before they die.

“He will get you killed, Ava,” she said.

Soft.

Almost kind.

“That is what men like him do. They burn everything they touch.”

Then she walked out.

Over the body.

Through the broken door.

Heels clicking on wood, then on blood, then on nothing.

Not looking back.

Not ever.

Elias did not lower the gun until the elevator dinged.

Until the sound said she was gone.

Until the threat was twelve floors down.

Then his knees gave out.

“Elias!”

I caught him.

Sort of.

We both hit the floor.

Hard.

My knees, his back.

His bandage was red.

Again.

Soaked through.

He had torn the stitches.

For me.

“i***t,” I said.

Crying.

Not caring who saw.

“Why do you keep doing this? Why do you keep bleeding for me?”

He looked up at me.

Pain in every line of his face.

And something else.

Something sure.

Something that had never been there before.

“Because,” he said.

Hand on my face.

Thumb wiping tears I did not want to stop.

“You said we were not going anywhere.”

Outside, sirens.

Finally.

Lagos waking up to blood again.

Blue and red lights would paint the walls soon.

Inside…

It was just us.

And two bodies.

And a broken door.

And a war that just started.

But he was still holding me.

“Rule 3,” he whispered.

Against my hair.

His breath warm.

His blood on my shirt.

“What is rule 3?” I asked.

My voice was broken.

But I was not.

He smiled.

Real one this time.

Bloody. Broken. His.

No boss. No mask. Just Elias.

“No one takes you from me,” he said.

Clear.

Final.

A vow.

“Not Vera. Not Damian. Not the whole damn city.”

Breathe.

I believed him.

For the first time since Day 1…

Since “You are fired” and “Then start running”...

I really did.

Elias pulled me close.

And did not let go.

Not with guns on the floor.

Not with war at the door.

Not with sirens getting louder.

Not ever.