Chapter 78: Turning The Trap
The SUV rolled forward again, slower this time, like it was wading through thick, invisible water. After Adewale’s call, the night no longer felt like ordinary darkness it was a living thing, watching, listening, waiting.
No one spoke for several minutes. The hum of the engine was the only sound, weaving through tension so sharp it hurt to breathe.
Oriyomi gripped the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles had gone pale. “Amira, just say you’re reconsidering. Say we’re turning back. Say anything but what you just said.”
“We’re not turning back,” Amira said quietly.
“Mimi”
“We still have one advantage,” she cut in. “He thinks he knows our plan. That means we can make a new one.”
Lanre ran a hand over his face. “And what brilliant new plan involves walking into an armed estate run by a psychopath with cameras, guards, money, political immunity, and a personal obsession with killing us?”
Aisha turned to Amira, eyes wide and glistening. “Please… be reasonable.”
But Amira had slipped into a state none of them recognized.
This wasn’t fearlessness.
It was resolve born from a truth she hadn’t expected to hear:
Her mother’s killer might not be who she thought.
If Adewale wasn’t lying, then there was someone else in this story someone even more dangerous. Someone who had shot her mother before Adewale ever walked through that door.
Someone she might have already met.
That thought alone shifted something inside her something deep, sharp, and unshakeable.
“We go,” Amira repeated. “But we go differently.”
Oriyomi slammed the SUV into park and spun to face her. “Differently how? We are not soldiers. We don’t have backup. We don’t even know how many men he has waiting inside!”
“And we can’t trust our timeline anymore,” Dara whispered. “The forty seconds? The seven-minute jammer window? He already knows those.”
“Exactly,” Amira said. “So we don’t use them.”
Everyone blinked.
Aisha frowned. “What do you mean?”
Amira turned fully in her seat. Her heartbeat was steady now, her voice shockingly calm.
“We won’t sneak in.”
Oriyomi stared at her like she’d grown horns. “You’ve lost your mind.”
“No,” she said. “We walk in through the front.”
The car erupted in chaos.
“ARE YOU MAD??” Lanre practically screamed.
“Mimi!” Aisha grabbed her shoulders. “You cannot He will kill you!”
“Or all of us,” Dara added, trembling.
“Absolutely not,” Oriyomi said. “I forbid it.”
Amira looked at him sharply. “You don’t get to forbid anything.”
His jaw clenched.
A second stretched between them thick, charged, painful.
Then she continued.
“If we break in through the east fence, he’s ready. Arms drawn. Cameras watching. Men waiting.”
Aisha nodded reluctantly. “True…”
“If we use the jammer, he’ll know. There’s no surprise left. Not that way.”
Dara swallowed. “So what’s the alternative?”
Amira’s eyes darkened with strategy.
“He wants me to come alone.”
Lanre’s voice cracked. “We are NOT letting you walk in there alone!”
“I’m not,” Amira said. “He only said I must enter alone. He didn’t say what happens afterward.”
Silence.
Her plan was forming itself, layer by layer, in her mind.
A trap laid inside a trap.
“We use what he expects against him,” she said, her voice sharpening. “I go in. Alone. As he demanded. He thinks he’s in control the moment I step through those doors.”
“You think he’ll talk,” Oriyomi murmured, catching on. “Long enough for us to slip in through the side.”
“Exactly,” she said. “While I’m inside distracting him, you three”
“Four,” Lanre corrected, chest puffed. “Don’t leave me out, I’m emotionally invested.”
Amira almost smiled. “you four break in using the maintenance access anyway. Not as the infiltrators he predicted. But as ghosts. Shadows. Watching everything from inside.”
Dara exhaled shakily. “So instead of seven minutes of camera blackout, we stay hidden and wait?”
“Yes,” Amira said. “You stay out of sight until you hear my signal. Then you split up.”
Aisha’s breath caught. “Split up? Mimi, that’s dangerous ”
“It has to be,” she said. “You need to reach the underground archive before he can destroy anything. And someone has to find Tima’s brother.”
Tima flinched at the mention of her name.
She had been quiet since her confession not speaking, not looking at anyone, her knees pulled up to her chest. Tears stained her cheeks. Shame hunched her shoulders.
She finally whispered, voice raw, “What if… he’s already dead?”
Amira turned to her.
“He’s not,” she said with stunning certainty. “Adewale wouldn’t waste leverage.”
Tima sobbed softly, covering her mouth.
Aisha moved closer and put an arm around her shoulders.
Lanre sighed, frustrated. “Even if this plan works, the risk is insane.”
“All our plans are insane,” Amira replied.
Oriyomi rested his forehead against the steering wheel. “I hate this. I hate this entire thing.”
“Yomi,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
He lifted his head.
His eyes were angry. Scared. But focused on her like she was the only thing anchoring him.
“This is the only way,” she said. “Adewale expects fear. He expects chaos. He expects us to run.”
Oriyomi swallowed.
“He will never expect me to walk through his front door.”
Lanre let out a slow exhale. “Suicide. It’s literally suicide.”
“No,” Amira said. “It’s confidence. Predators miscalculate when their prey stops running.”
Dara nodded slowly. “And if he thinks you’re surrendering… he’ll talk. He’ll monologue. People like him always do.”
Aisha looked at Dara. “That’s true. Ego-driven men love speeches.”
Oriyomi groaned. “You are all insane.”
“And you love us,” Lanre added.
“Unfortunately,” he muttered.
Amira reached for the door handle.
“Don’t,” Oriyomi said quickly, panic flashing across his face. “We haven’t finished the plan”
“We have,” Amira said. “We know what we’re doing.”
“We don’t know how many guards”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“We don’t know where he’ll take you”
“I’ll figure it out.”
“We don’t know Amira, PLEASE!”
His voice cracked on “please.”
She paused.
Her gaze softened just for him.
“I’m not dying tonight,” she said. “None of us are.”
Aisha wiped her tears. “So what’s the signal?”
Amira closed her eyes for a moment.
Then opened them.
“When you hear him raise his voice.”
They all blinked.
“That’s the signal?” Lanre asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Adewale is a calm man. Too calm. If he raises his voice, even slightly, it means something has slipped out of his control.”
Dara nodded. “Which is when we strike.”
“Exactly.”
Oriyomi’s face was pale. “You’re gambling your life on a man’s temper.”
“I’m gambling on justice,” she replied.
Silence settled again.
A heavy silence, but not hopeless.
When Tima finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.
“Amira… I’m so sorry.”
Amira looked at her.
“It’s not your fault,” she said gently. “But you need to help fix it.”
Tima wiped her eyes, nodding vigorously. “I will. I swear.”
“Good,” Amira said.
She reached for the door again.
This time, no one stopped her.
The night air hit her like a slap cold, sharp, alive.
Aisha helped Tima out.
Lanre checked his jacket for the third time.
Dara strapped her bag tight.
Oriyomi stepped out last, staring at Amira with a fear she’d never seen in him before.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” he whispered.
“I’m not proving anything,” she said. “I’m ending something.”
He swallowed hard. “If you die… I’ll never forgive you.”
She stepped closer.
“I’m not dying tonight,” she repeated, voice low and steady. “I promise.”
Oriyomi exhaled shakily.
Then he touched her hand just once before letting go.
They stood there in a shadowy street, under a sky full of silent stars, each of them breathing the same cold air, each of them knowing they were walking into a storm none of them might walk out of.
But they walked anyway.
Together.
Until the estate came into view tall gates, silent guards, lights blazing like watchful eyes across the manicured grounds.
Amira stepped forward.
Alone.
Toward the front entry where danger waited.
The others slipped into darkness, moving toward the east side of the property like shadows preparing for war.
Amira inhaled.
Exhaled.
And walked through the gates of the man who wanted her dead.