Chapter 17: MORE REVELATIONS

Karim sat back, the chair swallowing his weight as he tried to keep his eyes steady on Jemima. The room felt thick with silence, a silence that even the faint hum of the hotel’s air conditioner could not

soften. His throat was dry, his palms pressed against the wooden arms of the chair. He had walked into this suite unsure of what he would find, and now he sat staring at two women who carried the weight of answers he had chased for weeks.

Jemima broke the silence first. Her voice, as calm and deliberate as ever, carried the weight of something rehearsed a thousand times in her heart

but spoken aloud only now.

“I never lied to you,” she said. She leaned forward slightly, her gaze locked on him. There was no hesitation, no darting of eyes to betray fear. Only sadness. “My parents are deceased. And truly, I was

raised by foster parents in the States. The only truth I

omitted is how my parents came to be no more.”

Karim’s brow furrowed. He felt that old familiar heaviness creep into his chest, the one that came whenever he was about to confront truths darker than he wished to hear. He leaned in, elbows on his knees, fingers interlocked tightly.

“Then tell me,” he said. His voice cracked under the

weight of demand and weariness.

Jemima drew a breath, her eyes softening for the first time since he’d met her. She did not look like the poised strategist who always seemed three steps ahead. She looked smaller now, younger, as though her words would pull her back into the years she had tried so hard to bury.

“I was seven,” she began.

Her eyes seemed to blur as if the room around her had faded and something else had taken its place.

—

The island was alive with evening light. The kind of light that brushed the sea with gold and turned the clouds into smears of orange and violet. Jemima

remembered how her father’s laughter had mingled with the wind as they drove, his hand tapping the steering wheel in rhythm to a highlife tune on the radio. Her mother sat beside him, one hand on her belly, the other brushing Jemima’s hair back from her face. They were happy, impossibly so.

They had spent the day in Ojo, where her grandmother lived in a small compound with mud walls and a crooked wooden gate. Jemima had been bursting with excitement to share the news — her mother was expecting another child. A little brother

or sister. A playmate. She remembered

how her grandmother’s face had crumpled into joy, how her wrinkled hands had cupped Jemima’s cheeks as though she were the most precious thing in the world.

The road home was long, winding, and mostly empty. The air smelled of dust and distant saltwater. Jemima had pressed her face against the glass, watching the trees blur past, already imagining holding a baby wrapped in white cloth.

Then the car had slowed.

At first, she thought it was a checkpoint. Men appeared in the middle of the road, faces hidden

behind black cloth, their bodies tense and predatory.

There were four of them, maybe five. She remembered the glint of metal in their hands, the way her father’s laughter died instantly.

“Stay calm,” he whispered to her mother. His

knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.

Jemima didn’t understand. She only knew that the

world had suddenly grown colder.

One of the men slammed the butt of his gun on the

hood. “Oya, down! Everybody down!” he barked.

Her father raised his hands, his voice calm, almost

pleading. “Take whatever you want. Just don’t harm us.”

Her mother’s hand slipped protectively over Jemima’s small body, pressing her against the seat. Jemima could hear her own heartbeat in her ears, fast and sharp.

The robbers pulled open the doors, yanking her father out first. They searched the car, their hands greedy, movements rough. Jewelry, watches, wallets—all vanished into their bags.

But it wasn’t enough.

It was never enough.

One of them lifted his gun higher, the barrel catching the last of the dying sun. Jemima remembered the sound more than the sight—the explosion that cracked through her bones, the scream that tore from her mother’s throat.

Her father staggered, clutching his chest, blood blooming like dark flowers across his shirt. He tried to turn back, to reach for them, but another shot threw him into the dirt.

“No!” her mother screamed. She held Jemima tighter, her tears hot against Jemima’s cheek. “Please, please, we have a child—”

The men did not listen. Another shot. And then another.

Her mother’s grip loosened. Her body slumped against the seat, her last breath leaving with a broken whisper of Jemima’s name.

Jemima was screaming, her small fists hitting her mother’s lifeless arm, her throat raw with cries no one answered. The men didn’t care. They were already gone, their laughter fading into the night as

the sound of their retreating engine grew smaller and smaller.

And then, there was only silence. Silence and the smell of blood.

—

Karim shifted uncomfortably, the image searing his imagination as Jemima’s words fell like stones in a still pond.

“You were left there?” he asked quietly. His voice

sounded alien, almost fragile.

Jemima nodded, her expression unflinching though her eyes glistened. “Hours. Alone with them. I kept shaking my mother, hoping she would wake up. The sky turned black, and the road grew colder. I didn’t remember who found me—a good samaritan ,

maybe. Someone carried me away eventually. But I

remember everything else. Every sound. Every smell. The way the blood stained my hands when I tried to hold them.”

Her voice did not rise. It did not waver. It was calm, too calm, and that calmness cut deeper than tears ever could.

Karim leaned forward, his elbows digging into his

thighs. “And you’ve carried this all your life?”

“What choice did I have?” she replied. “I was shipped away, given to foster parents who tried their best. But I was already broken. That night never left me. It shaped every thought, every breath.”

Silence followed. Aisha shifted in her chair, her bandaged arm resting lazily on the armrest. Her face carried no sympathy, only an understanding born of shared wounds.

Karim broke the silence again. “But why now? Why all of this? Because of one night?”

Jemima turned her eyes on him, eyes that seemed older than her years. “Not because of one night, Karim. Because of everything that night revealed.

The men who killed my parents weren’t just robbers. They were… something else. Part of a machine bigger than we understood.”

Her words trailed, heavy with implication.

Karim felt his pulse quicken. “What are you saying?”

Jemima’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I’ll tell you everything. The truth about that night, and the truth about what came after. But you must understand— once I do, there’s no turning back for you either.”

The room grew smaller. The air heavier. Karim’s

chest tightened with the weight of what hung unsaid.