Chapter Nine - Obsession
825 Words
Damien barely remembered the drive back to Lagos.
His hands stayed steady on the wheel.
His mind did not.
Ethan.
The boy had been polite. Quiet. Observant.
But it was not only that.
It was the way he had stood. The way he had watched before speaking. The calm in his face. Something about him had unsettled Damien in a way he could not explain.
He had spent years learning to trust instinct.
And every instinct inside him had followed the same thought all evening.
Something is wrong.
Back in his apartment, he loosened his tie and poured himself a drink.
He never touched it.
Instead he stood by the window looking out over the city.
He could still hear Amara’s voice.
My son.
The way she had said it.
Too quick.
Too guarded.
He thought of the moment her phone lit up in the corridor.
Ethan calling.
He thought of the boy standing by the gate.
And then, against his will, memory pulled him further back.
Rain.
A narrow street.
A woman soaked through and furious, refusing help.
He had never forgotten her.
Not once.
He had tried.
Work had helped. Pressure had helped. Time had not.
Now she was back.
And hiding something.
He picked up his phone.
“Jonah.”
His head of security answered immediately.
“Yes, sir.”
“I need information.”
A pause.
“On who?”
“Amara Okafor.”
Another brief silence.
“Understood.”
“Quietly.”
“Of course.”
“And Jonah.”
“Yes?”
“Leave no trail.”
The first report came the next afternoon.
Damien read it alone in his office.
Amara Okafor. Thirty-two. Independent designer. Based in Ibadan. Returned from Lagos approximately five years ago. Lives with two children.
He read the line again.
Returned from Lagos approximately five years ago.
Five years.
Exactly.
His jaw tightened.
He kept reading.
Limited public records. No marriage registration. No known long-term partner. Small business operating under private local contracts.
No husband.
No visible father.
His gaze moved back to the first page.
Five years.
That was when she vanished.
He leaned back slowly.
The timing was too clean.
Too exact.
A knock came at the door.
“Come in.”
Jonah entered carrying another folder.
“I thought you’d want this directly.”
Damien held out a hand.
“What is it?”
“School registration information.”
He opened it.
A local primary school.
Student name.
Ethan Okafor.
For a second he only stared.
“Where did you get this?”
“Quiet channels.”
Damien kept reading.
Birth date.
His pulse shifted.
He looked up sharply.
“How certain is this?”
“Very.”
He lowered his eyes to the page again.
He did the math once.
Then again.
His chest had gone strangely tight.
Ethan was not five.
He was eleven.
Which meant—
Five years ago, when Amara disappeared, the boy had already been there.
His breath left slowly.
So Ethan was not his.
That realization should have settled something.
It did not.
Because even with the answer in front of him, the unease remained.
In some ways it deepened.
“Anything else?” he asked.
Jonah hesitated.
“There’s a daughter.”
“I know.”
“Four years old.”
His gaze lifted.
“What?”
“That’s all I have so far.”
Jonah placed the second page on the desk.
Maya Okafor. Age four.
For a second Damien said nothing.
The room had gone very quiet.
“Sir?”
“Leave it.”
Jonah nodded and left.
Damien stayed where he was.
Four years old.
His mind moved through numbers automatically.
Five years ago, Amara disappeared.
Four years old now.
The timeline pressed sharply into his thoughts.
He stood and crossed to the window.
Below, Lagos moved like nothing had changed.
But inside him something had.
He had spent five years believing he had simply been left behind.
Now that explanation no longer felt complete.
Not with the timing.
Not with the fear in her eyes.
Not with the way she had stepped between him and the children.
He thought of Ethan again.
Then of the little girl holding Amara’s leg and asking for sweets.
A strange heaviness settled in his chest.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Jonah.
One more thing.
A second message followed.
Amara left Lagos five years ago. Ethan was six at the time.
Damien stared at the screen.
Then the final line came through.
No one in Ibadan seems to know who the father is.
He looked down at the school file still open on his desk.
The numbers were there.
Cold. Clear. Unavoidable.
Five years ago.
A six-year-old boy.
A woman who disappeared the morning after everything changed.
And suddenly Damien understood something with unsettling clarity.
He was no longer trying to remember Amara.
He was trying to understand what she had been running from.
- Writer
