Chapter 23: BROKEN

When Jemima walked through the gates of the Lagos prison, the air felt heavy, thick with despair that had seeped into the walls over decades. She had prepared herself for this meeting, told herself she would be strong, that she would not let her grief or guilt show. But the moment Samuel was brought out to her, all resolve melted. The man who shuffled forward was not the one she had imagined, not the man Aisha had described as a pillar of warmth and strength. His frame was leaner now, cut sharp like a blade forged in fire. His eyes—once kind, she imagined—had hardened into something feral. He carried himself like someone who had lost everything except the

need to survive.

He did not look at her with surprise. He had expected her. He had been waiting, as though her return was not possibility but prophecy. He sat down opposite her in the visitation room, the table between them old and splintered, the metal chair groaning under his weight.

“You came,” he said flatly, his voice gravel, his Yoruba accent weighted with years of silence and bitterness. “Finally.”

Jemima swallowed, her throat dry. “Yes… Samuel,

I—”

But his hand rose, cutting her off, not with

aggression but with authority. “Mariam told me,” he said. His jaw clenched, the muscles twitching. “She came one Sunday after years of silence. She was dressed in silk, gold dangling from her ears, perfume that filled the room. She told me my daughter… my Aisha… killed a man. That she ran, that she became like the city—wild, untouchable. She looked me in the eye and told me not to hope. Said Aisha was

gone. That day, something inside me died.”

He leaned forward, his eyes boring into hers. “Do you know what it is to hope in this place? Hope is a slow poison. Every Sunday, I sat here waiting.

Waiting for Mariam. Waiting for my daughter.

Waiting for God Himself to undo what men had

done. But when Mariam came with her news, dressed like a woman who had traded grief for comfort, I

understood. I was a fool. And fools don’t survive here.”

His lips curled into something between a smile and a snarl. “So I changed. I stopped being the man I was. I fought. I bled. I climbed. Now they call me oga here. The young ones fear me, the wardens respect me. I carved a throne out of violence. But do not mistake it for living—it is only surviving.”

Jemima’s heart hammered in her chest. She reached

across the table, her fingers trembling as they

brushed the wood between them. “Samuel… I came

to ask your forgiveness. For that night. For surviving when your family was torn apart. For leaving—”

His laugh cut through her words, sharp and bitter. “Forgiveness?” he spat. “Forgiveness is for men who still believe in peace. Look around you, Jemima. Do these walls whisper peace? Do the scars on my back preach forgiveness? No. I have nothing left to forgive. My wife left me, my parents are gone, my daughter has been swallowed by the streets. What is there to forgive?”

Her eyes burned, tears threatening, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. “Then tell me what I can do.”

For the first time, his stare softened—not with kindness, but with the faintest flicker of something human. He leaned back slowly, his arms folding across his chest. “Find her,” he said, his voice

dropping low, heavy as an oath. “Find Aisha. Bring me proof that she breathes. That she still walks this earth. That is all I ask. Do this, and maybe…” His

eyes closed briefly, his shoulders sagging. “…maybe a piece of me will return.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Jemima felt the weight of his command settle into her bones. This was not a request. This was a father’s last tether to existence.

She nodded once, firmly, even though fear crawled

up her spine. “I will,” she whispered. “I will find her.”

And so began six months of relentless searching. Jemima poured every ounce of her savings into the effort. She hired a private investigator abroad, a man who wore his sins on his face, who asked for money without shame and promised results only through shadows. He trawled the underworld with photographs and whispers, asking after a girl who had vanished into the cracks of Lagos. Every lead led to another payment, every dead end another bottle of whiskey emptied in despair. But Jemima never stopped. She followed threads across borders, chased

names that dissolved like smoke, clung to rumors that Aisha had changed her name, her body, her life.

The city became a map of ghosts. Jemima walked streets she had once only seen from car windows, now chasing memories of a girl she had never truly known. At night, she lay awake, Samuel’s voice ringing in her ears: find my daughter. It became her prayer, her curse, her heartbeat.

When she finally found her—standing at the edge of a bar in Lekki, eyes painted sharp, her body wrapped in the armor of a woman who had carved herself anew—Jemima almost didn’t recognize her. Aisha’s laughter was brittle, her smile a weapon. She was

alive, yes. But broken in ways Samuel had not yet imagined.

And as Jemima stood in the shadows, watching her, she realized the cruelest truth: sometimes, finding someone is not the same as saving them