DEBTS IN THE DARK
222 Words
The morning sun had barely warmed the pavement when Elias Cruz found the envelope.
It was tucked beneath a burlap sack of beans, sealed in black wax and stamped with a crest he didn’t recognize — a lion’s head surrounded by thorns. He frowned, turning it over. No return address. No sender. Just his name, printed in bold serif letters.
Inside, the letter was short. Brutal.
“₦50,000,000 outstanding. Rossi Enterprises. Payment due immediately. Failure to comply will result in asset seizure and personal retrieval.”
Elias blinked. He read it again. And again.
“Is this a joke?” he muttered, tossing it onto the counter. “₦50 million? For what — beans?”
He laughed, but it was hollow. The name Rossi stirred something in his memory. His father’s voice, low and urgent, warning him never to ask where the beans came from. “Just brew, son,” he’d said. “Don’t dig.”
Elias had never dug. Until now.
He pulled out his phone, searched “Rossi Enterprises.” The results were glossy — luxury hotels, shipping lines, agricultural exports. But beneath the surface, forums whispered darker truths: extortion, disappearances, blood money.
Elias’s stomach turned.
He looked at the beans. At the letter. At the SUV that had just slowed again across the street.
His hands trembled.
- Writer
