Chapter 21: DOMINO

From the onset, Aisha had never liked Idris. There was something about him—too loud, too brash, too eager to show himself in places where silence might have been better. He wore expensive jewelry that glittered in the sun, not out of style but out of a desperate need to prove himself. Gold chains clinked on his neck, and fat rings hugged his fingers, their shine mocking the calloused palms that had never known real work. His laughter was coarse, the kind that filled a room not because it was joyful but because it sought to drown out every other sound. He was, by every measure, a man who carried money

but lacked refinement.

Yet her mother, Mariam, had accepted him. After years of scraping through hunger, of carrying Samuel’s absence like a wound that never healed, she had surrendered to what she told herself was security. Idris brought food to the table, school fees paid in crisp notes, and a roof that no longer leaked when the rains came. He carried Mariam and her daughter out of the musty, crumbling one-room downtown and into a modest but respectable three- bedroom apartment in the same area. Comfort had come, but at a price Aisha felt in her bones even before she understood it.

She had been fifteen when Idris entered their lives. At first, she thought she could ignore him, keep her

head buried in her books, and carry the memory of her father like a shield against Idris’s noise. But the man lingered in every corner of their home—his voice, his laughter, the way he imposed his will without discussion. Mariam shrank beside him, her spirit dimming, her words fewer. Aisha noticed,

though her mother never admitted it aloud: Idris was not love; he was resignation.

By the time Aisha turned eighteen, she had carved her own dream out of the wreckage of her life. She would become a lawyer. She would learn the law not just as words on a page but as a weapon sharp enough to cut through the chains that held her father in prison. She told herself this as she studied late into

the night, poring over old case studies, reading every

article she could find about wrongful convictions. In debates at school, her words carried fire, her reasoning crisp, and though her classmates admired her poise, they never knew the desperation that fueled it.

Idris had paid her school fees faithfully, and for that, Mariam was grateful. But Aisha never forgot what she saw in him: not kindness, not generosity, only a man eager to buy silence, to control the narrative of their lives with money and glitter. Sometimes she caught his gaze lingering on her a second too long, and her skin would prickle. She found odd things too—strange markings on paper he left behind, visitors who came late at night and left muttering

prayers she didn’t recognize, whispers that stopped

abruptly when she entered the room.

Still, life rolled on like a cart on shaky wheels, one day threatening collapse, the next moving just enough to promise survival.

The night the dominoes began to fall, Mariam was away. She had been invited to a party outside the city, something she insisted she could not refuse. Aisha stayed behind, pleading exams as her excuse. She sat in the living room under the weak glow of a table lamp, her books spread before her. She sliced an apple into thin, neat pieces, chewing slowly as her eyes traced line after line of notes. Somewhere in the

background, a neighbor’s generator hummed. Lagos

heat pressed against her skin, sticky and relentless.

Hours passed. Her lids grew heavy, and the words on the page blurred until sleep claimed her.

It was the sound of a door creaking that pulled her back. At first, she thought it was a dream, the kind where shadows moved at the edges of vision. But the sound came again—slow, deliberate. Her body froze. Her eyes, half-open, caught the faint glow of the hallway light.

There he was. Idris.

He crept into the room barefoot, a red wrapper tied around his waist, his chest bare and gleaming with sweat. In his hands, he carried a calabash, dark liquid shimmering within it. His lips moved, muttering words too low to catch, words that felt older than the walls around them.

Aisha’s breath caught. She closed her eyes to slits, feigning the weight of sleep, though her heart pounded like drums in her ears. She watched him through her lashes as he placed the calabash on the floor, as he reached into it, smearing its contents across his chest in slow, deliberate strokes. The smell reached her then—iron and ash, bitter and metallic, like blood left too long in the sun.

Her stomach churned. She had always suspected, but seeing it confirmed every fear she had buried: Idris was not just loud or brash. He carried darkness with him.

He leaned closer, his muttering rising, and for a moment, she thought his eyes flickered toward her. She fought to keep her breath even, her hands trembling beneath the blanket. His shadow stretched across her, long and oppressive.

Something in her snapped then. She could not lie there, helpless, while he lingered over her like a curse. She remembered her father’s words on their last prison visit—“Be the best, Aisha. Don’t let them

break you.” She thought of her mother, asleep in

some distant place, blind to the danger she had let into their home. And she thought of herself, eighteen, on the cusp of a life she wanted so desperately, about to be crushed under the weight of a man who had no right to her.

Her hand slid beneath the pillow. She had hidden the kitchen knife she had used to it her apple , instinct guiding her though she never admitted it aloud. Her fingers closed around the handle, slick with sweat.

Idris bent lower, muttering still, his breath hot and foul as it reached her face.

In one motion, Aisha’s eyes snapped open. She drove

the knife upward, straight into his side. His gasp tore

through the room, a wet, guttural sound. He staggered back, eyes wide in shock, hands clutching at the wound. The calabash tipped, its contents spilling across the floor like blood itself.

Aisha didn’t wait. She wrenched the knife free, and

with trembling hands stained crimson, she ran. Through the door, down the stairs, into the Lagos night heavy with heat and noise. Her bare feet slapped against the pavement, her breath ragged. Behind her, Idris’s groans echoed faintly, swallowed by the darkness.

The first domino had fallen.

And the chain had begun