SAVED BY GRACE- Ep 30

Episode 30- Yes, ma. Sorry….Yes, sir.

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AKILAHYEL’S POV

By Friday night, the plan was locked. Solomon flagged Julian’s car parked outside a high-end lounge in Wuse II.

Julian was inside, spending millions on champagne, surrounded by his friends and a crowd of women, completely unbothered by the fact that he had crossed a line he couldn’t uncross.

Effiom met me at the junction around midnight. He was dressed in plain, dark clothes, a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, but his posture was completely rigid with anticipation.

“We are doing this legally as soldiers,” Effiom said, leaning against the side of my truck as the cool night wind swept through the empty street.

“It is going to be structured as an official intercept. If his friends make any noise, we clear the grid with the tear gas. They won’t even know who handled them.”

“We move when he hits the bypass,” I said, my fingers tapping a steady, disciplined rhythm against the steering wheel.

The wire in my chest was pulling tighter and tighter, burning away the last remnants of the Holy Spirit’s warning.

---

For the past one week, my phone had been receiving a quiet stream of coordinates.

Solomon was thorough. Every evening, a fresh brief would drop in my DM.

Stamps of the Julian’s location and snapshots from social media location tags.

I knew when he ate, I knew where he parked, and I knew exactly which clubs he frequented when he wanted to spend his father’s money with his crowd.

But while planning the attack, there was another friction.

It wasn’t a physical ache like the tight pulling of the stitches in my left shoulder, which were already beginning to heal into a dark, puckered scar.

It was a weight in my chest, a persistent, quiet pressure that didn’t leave me alone.

I sat on the edge of my mattress, my phone screen illuminating the dark room, displaying the Julian’s schedule for the weekend.

“The violence taketh it by force. I am doing the right thing.” I muttered into the empty bedroom, my voice a rough, low whisper.

My knuckles were clenched against my knee.

“That boy has no mouth to call me a boy toy. He has no right to insult me. He deserves to learn a lesson.”

Is it your pride speaking, Akila, or is it the cross? He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Do you want to justify your own flesh, or do you want me to be your defense?

The voice came deep in my Spirit.

“I love you, Holy Spirit,” I said, shaking my head fiercely, trying to clear the quiet voice from my head.

“I love you. But in this case, I don’t think I am being proud. Right?”

I asked no one in particular.

“I promise, I’m not even going to do anything heavy to him. Just a little roughening up. Just to make his brain sit properly so he knows there are people you don’t mess with. It’s a matter of boundaries. I am doing this for other women he might want to abuse.”

“Lord, imagine me going back on my word as a captain after making Solomon go through all that stress. It won’t speak well of me and you always want me to be diligent and upright in all my doings. I would not do anything bad to him. Just a short meeting.”

The next phrase that dropped into my consciousness didn’t feel like a gentle nudge; it felt like a heavy, unyielding sheet of iron falling straight through my heart, echoing with the absolute weight of scripture.

If you love me, keep my commandments.

I sat there in the dark for a long time, the silence pressing against my ears.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my jaw tightening until a localized ache bloomed behind my temple.

“Yeah,” I muttered, my voice tight with resistance.

“I will keep them, Lord. I’ll keep them. It’s just a little roughening up. He won’t even bleed at all.”

I shoveled the voice into the lower margins of my mind, refusing to pay it any more attention.

Earlier that week, I had called Effiom.

“Wait, the boy actually said that?” Effiom’s voice had exploded over the line, followed by a sharp, furious bark of laughter.

“I been think say na joke oo. A whole you? Ah, no na. This Abuja money is making these small boys lose their minds. He called you what?”

“A boy toy,” I said, my voice flat.

“Eh! He just wants to buy beating with his own hands!” Effiom shouted, his tone dripping with pure, unadulterated irritation.

“Normally, the guy suppose collect solid mending. Amara was even telling me about it day before yesterday when she came to the house. She was so pissed on Soteria’s behalf. Look, my guy, don’t worry. When the time comes, let me know. We will go together and reset his head.”

---

Around 02:30am, his car finally crawled out of the club’s parking lot, its headlights cutting through the dusty Abuja air.

It turned onto the stretch of road leading toward a dark, quiet section of the asphalt where the streetlights were mostly broken.

“Go,” Effiom muttered.

I slotted the truck into gear, the engine roaring as I pulled out from the shadows, accelerating until I bypassed the car and swung the truck hard across the lane, forcing the car to slam on its brakes with a loud, screeching protest of rubber against concrete.

Before the driver could even lower his window to shout, Effiom and I were out of the doors.

Effiom moved with perfect tactical precision, pulling open the driver’s side and unleashing a thick, blinding cloud of tear gas into the front cabin.

Julian’s friends and the women in the back immediately erupted into frantic, coughing screams, spilling out of the vehicle onto the gravel in pure panic, their hands over their eyes.

In the middle of the smoke, Julian was trying to scramble out of the passenger door, his expensive designer jacket already stained with gravel as he tripped over his own feet.

I didn’t give him a chance to find his balance. I closed the distance in two strides, my right arm hooking under his collar, lifting him off the ground before he could even register my face.

“Hey! What is this? Do you know who I am?” he choked out, his voice high and thin with a sudden, suffocating terror.

Effiom was already behind him with a thick burlap hood, slipping it over Julian’s head in one smooth motion, shutting out the city lights.

We bundled him into the trunk of my truck, slammed the metal door shut, and left his car idling on the side of the bypass with his friends still wailing in the dirt.

We drove thirty minutes out of town, navigating toward an uncompleted building project tucked away in a hidden, desolate area near the outskirts of the capital.

The structure was nothing but raw concrete blocks and exposed iron rods, completely isolated from the rest of the world.

Effiom dragged Julian out of the trunk and dropped him heavily onto a wooden chair in the center of the dark room, binding his wrists securely behind the frame with a thick nylon cord.

“Unveil him,” I said.

Effiom reached down and ripped the burlap hood off.

The bright light from our tactical flashlights hit Julian’s face, and he immediately began to shake violently, his skin pale and slick with a cold sweat.

His expensive silk shirt was torn at the shoulder, his hair completely disheveled.

The smug, idiotic man who insulted me had vanished entirely; in his place was a terrified boy who looked like he was staring at his own grave.

Effiom didn’t wait.

He walked straight up to the chair and delivered a sharp, resounding slap across Julian’s face that echoed loudly against the concrete walls.

“That’s for being an idiot,” Effiom spat, wiping his palm against his trousers.

A wicked, cold smile spread across my face as I watched Julian’s head snap back.

I waited for that internal nudge, that quiet, familiar voice to rise up and challenge me again. I braced my spirit for the tug-of-war I had been having all week.

But nothing happened.

The silence inside my chest was sudden, absolute, and utterly deafening.

The Holy Ghost had gone completely quiet. I reached inward, searching for that gentle friction, searching for the judge that usually cleared my path or blocked my steps, but I found nothing.

Just a vast, cold expanse of empty space. It felt like walking into a room where the power had suddenly been cut, leaving me completely on my own in the dark.

A heavy, hollow ache immediately began to bloom beneath my ribs, but I forced my face to stay rigid.

I stepped forward, my heavy boots clicking against the dusty floor, stopping right in front of the bound chair.

“Please! Please!” Julian whimpered, his teeth chattering so hard he could barely form the words.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide and wild with a primitive fear.

“What did I do? Why did you kidnap me? I have money. I can give you anything you want. Just name the amount. Five million? Ten million? I will call my accountant right now, I swear!”

The sheer arrogance of his response. The fact that he still thought a checkbook could settle this, made something snap inside me. I raised my right hand and delivered a brutal, heavy-handed slap straight across his jaw.

The force of the blow tore through his lip. Julian let out a strangled cry, his head jerking sideways as a thick splatter of dark blood coughed out of his mouth, staining the grey concrete floorboards between his feet.

The sight of the blood hit me like a splash of ice water.

I froze, stepping back a full foot, my breathing coming in short, disciplined counts as I forced my hands down to my sides.

My emotions were trying to override my sense of reasoning.

He is not your enemy, Akila,

I told myself, my inner voice forcing the tactical commander back into control.

I took a deep breath, the hollowness in my chest expanding until it felt like a physical vacuum. I squatted low, bringing my face level with his shaking head, my dark eyes boring straight into his pupils.

“Do you know Soteria?” I asked, my voice a quiet, dangerous rumble.

Julian gasped for air, wiping the blood from his chin with his shoulder as he shook his head frantically.

“Who? Who is that? I... I don’t know any Soteria! Please!”

“Don’t play games with me. Think carefully,” I whispered, my voice dropping into that heavy, absolute finality.

A sudden, sharp realization hit his eyes, and his entire frame went completely rigid.

“Oh... oh, yes! Yes, I know her! The interior designer! But what does she have to do with this? I haven’t done anything to her! I swear!”

“Do you remember calling her man a boy toy over the receiver?”

Julian froze. Every ounce of color left his face, his eyes dilating until they were completely black in the flashlight glare.

The sheer terror of the realization hit him like a physical weight. He looked me.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he began to wail, the tears instantly spilling over his swollen cheeks as he started to weep like a child.

“I’m sorry for calling her man a boy toy! Please, tell Soteria to forgive me! I didn’t know! I swear to God I didn’t know!”

“No,” I said, my voice as cold as ice.

“Soteria is not involved in this. Leave her name out of your mouth. Because I AM THAT MAN.”

The words had barely left my throat when Julian’s body gave a sudden, violent shiver.

A dark, wet stain immediately began to spread across the front of his designer trousers, the sharp, unmistakable smell of urine filling the small concrete room as he literally peed on himself out of pure, unadulterated fear.

He began to sob hysterically, his entire frame straining against the nylon cords as he tried to slide out of the chair, eventually collapsing onto his knees on the dusty floorboards, his face pressing against the dirt near my boots.

“I am the boy toy!” he screamed, his voice cracking with a desperate, pathetic pleading.

“My boss! My oga! Biggest boss! I am the boy toy, sir! Not you! I am sorry, sir! Please don’t kill me! Please, I beg you in the name of God!”

The urge to raise my boot and give him one more solid reminder of his place was there, but it felt empty.

The silence in my spirit was too heavy now, a suffocating weight that made the victory taste like ash.

I held my ground, remaining squatted low as I stared down at his head.

“Look at me,” I commanded.

Julian lifted his tear-stained, bloody face, his chest heaving with short, pathetic gasps.

“Yes, sir. Yes, boss.”

“You are going to finish that contract with Soteria’s company,” I said, my voice dropping into a low, level threat that carried the weight of an execution order.

“And you will not owe her a single dime. You will pay every milestone on time, without a single delay. Do you understand me?”

“Yes! Yes, sir!” he cried, nodding his head so fast his hair flew into his eyes.

“I will even pay extra! I’ll double the fee tomorrow morning, I swear!”

“Shut up,” I snapped.

“Yes, ma… Sorry, yes, sir! Yes, sir! I am sorry!” he whimpered, clamping his teeth together.

“And you will never say a single word to Soteria about this night,” I continued, my eyes narrowing until they were nothing but dark slits.

“You will not bother her for life. Even after that project is finished, if you ever look in her direction, if you ever cross her path or send her a single text, I will look for you. I will find you in whatever house your father bought you, I will beat you until you can’t recognize your own skin, and I will tie you inside a leather bag for days. Are we clear?”

“I clear, sir! I promise! I’ll be a good boy!” Julian whimpered, his face pressing back into the dust.

“I will never look at her again! I swear it!”

I stood up fully, the wire in my chest finally releasing its tension.

I looked at Effiom, who was standing near the doorway with his arms crossed, watching the entire display with a mixture of amusement and deep satisfaction.

“Loosen him,” I said to Effiom.

“Let him run.”

Effiom blinked, his jaw dropping in absolute shock as he stepped forward as whispered to me.

“Wait, Akila, you’re letting him go just like that? We haven’t even exercised any real muscle on the boy. A whole you? You’re just letting him walk away after one slap?”

“He’s not worth my time, Effiom,” I said, turning my back on Julian as I walked toward the exit of the uncompleted building. Effiom walked towards me.

“Soteria would be incredibly mad at me if she found out I did this. And besides... if I stay in this room any longer, I might actually kill the boy. I don’t want his blood on my hands.”

Effiom stared at me for a flat three seconds before a wide, teasing grin broke across his features. He let out a loud, dramatic sigh and shook his head.

“Heheeee... AkilaHyel. You are really a finished man. A whole you? The Captain? Woman has completely melted your iron?”

“Asides from that,” I muttered, my voice dropping into a quiet, hollow space as I looked out at the dark Abuja night, “my spirit is completely empty right now. I don’t feel good about it.”

Effiom walked over to the chair, slicing the nylon cords with his pocket knife before tossing the burlap hood at Julian’s feet.

“Ohhh. This spirit of yours is not a good one oo. I was fully ready to get some proper exercise tonight. But no yawa. Another time will come.”

“Run along,” I barked over my shoulder.

Julian didn’t need to be told twice.

He scrambled to his feet, his wet trousers clinging to his legs as he bolted out of the concrete structure into the darkness, running toward the main road without looking back once.

The drive back to my house was completely silent. Effiom had caught a taxi near the junction, leaving me alone in the cabin of my truck as the first pale light of dawn began to break over the hills of the capital.

The heat of my pride had completely cooled, leaving behind a massive, hollow ache that settled deep into my chest.

I reached inward again, desperately searching for that nudge, for the correction, for the comfort of the Holy Spirit’s voice that I had taken for granted all week.

I wanted Him to tell me I was wrong. I wanted Him to argue with me.

But there was nothing. Just an empty, silent house inside my heart.

The truck’s engine rumbled steadily, but the sound was completely drowned out by the single, repetitive sentence that kept ringing through my memory like a localized alarm from the days before I stepped over the line.

If you love me, keep my commandments.

I gripped the steering wheel with my right hand, my left shoulder throbbing with a dull, rhythmic reminder of my own fragility.

I had set the boundary. I had protected my woman.

But as I looked at the empty road ahead, the victory felt entirely hollow.

The Holy Ghost had gone quiet, and the guilt was already beginning to settle into my bones like a cold rot.

I shoved the feeling down, forcing my face back into that hard baseline as I turned into my gate.

Soteria’s POV

For the past one week, my phone has been a battlefield.

Julian had shifted from his casual arrogance to a frantic, relentless barrage of late-night WhatsApp texts and highly inappropriate, unsolicited images that made my skin crawl with pure disgust.

I hadn’t told Akila. If I had dropped even a hint of those images to my man, the explosion would have leveled half of Abuja.

Instead, I quietly blocked Julian’s number entirely.

We were at the final phase of the interior design execution.

Everything was complete, the fabric swatches for the custom furniture were locked, and I just needed his physical signature on the final variations layout so we could round up the project.

When the elevator doors chimed and slid open directly into the private office, the place was completely silent.

“Is he not here?” I murmured, turning to Tobi, my assistant, who was carrying the heavy sample folders behind me.

“Let me call his line, ma,” Tobi said, pulling out his device.

“He mentioned he would be on-site by 2pm.”

I walked around, running my fingers over the polished concrete surfaces, feeling a profound sense of relief that the space was empty.

I didn’t want to see his face. It irritated me to my bones and there was little I could do. We were already at the last phase so it would be unwise of me to cancel now.

Tobi hung up his phone after a brief, quiet exchange.

“He’s downstairs in the compound, ma. He says he’s coming up right now.”

A few minutes later, the main double doors clicked open.

I turned around, adjusting my blazer, bracing myself for the usual arrogant grin and the greasy compliments.

But the man who walked in didn’t look like Julian at all.

He was wearing a dark, oversized hoodie pulled entirely over his head, a pair of thick, polarized black sunglasses that hid his eyes completely, and a heavy surgical face mask that covered his face from the bridge of his nose down to his chin.

He looked like someone trying to escape a biological hazard or a high-profile scan.

He didn’t look at me. The moment his boots hit the floorboards, his gaze remained glued entirely to the concrete near my sneakers, his shoulders hunched inward in a strange, defensive posture that looked entirely unnatural on him.

“Julian?” I asked, my brow furrowing as I took a step forward.

“Are you alright?”

He jumped back a full six inches, his hands flying into his pockets, his head shaking violently.

He didn’t say a word to me directly. He didn’t even acknowledge my question. He just gestured frantically toward Tobi, his breath coming in short, muffled gasps behind the blue fabric of the mask.

I stood there, completely stunned, my swatches halfway out of the folder.

Not like I cared. If anything, I was glad he didn’t not bother me today.

It was just that the man was acting completely weird. He looked like a wild animal that had just been dragged out of a snare, his skin where the mask didn’t cover looking oddly pale and slick with a sudden sweat.

“Okay...” I muttered, clearing my throat and deciding to ignore the bizarre display so we could just finish up.

“This is the final phase of the interior layout, Julian. Once you sign off on these fabric selections for the furniture, my team will execute, and our contract is officially closed.”

He nodded frantically, his head jerking up and down like a mechanical toy. He still refused to lift his face to meet my eyes, his glasses fixed firmly on the clipboard Tobi was holding out.

“I... I sent the balance,” Julian’s voice came out muffled, high, and completely stripped of that smooth, wealthy aura I hated.

He was trembling. I could see the fabric of his dark hoodie vibrating near his chest.

“I sent the full final balance to your corporate account this morning. I added an extra five million naira to the transaction.”

I paused, looking down at the digital banking alert Tobi had shown me earlier on the drive over.

“Yes, I saw the extra credit, Julian. But our contract doesn’t include any variations of that amount. There’s absolutely no need for you to send extra money to me. I’ll have my accountant reverse the excess back to your account before the close of business.”

“No! Please!” Julian suddenly shouted, his voice cracking into a high, panicked wail behind the mask.

He took another step back, his hands lifting in absolute, frantic protest.

“Don’t send it back! Please, no! No, no! Keep it!”

I stared at him, my mouth slightly open in pure bewilderment.

“Julian, why? Why are you shouting? It’s just a refund.”

“It’s an apology!” he gasped out, his chest heaving under the hoodie as he glanced toward the elevator doors as if checking his escape route.

“It’s an apology for... for coming on too strongly these past few weeks. I am deeply sorry, Soteria. I apologize for my behavior. I will never, ever do that to you again. I swear it. I will never disturb your line.”

I was entirely too stunned to speak. The arrogant trust-fund child who had spent weeks calling me at odd hours was currently standing in front of me, sweating beneath sunglasses and a face mask, begging me to keep five million naira as a penance.

“Is... everything okay with you?” I managed to ask, my internal instincts sending a strange, quiet vibration through my spirit.

“Everything is fine!” he whispered quickly, his hand shaking as he snatched the pen from Tobi’s hand, scribbling a chaotic, barely legible signature across the sign-off sheet without even reading the specifications.

He shoved the clipboard back into Tobi’s chest.

“From now on... I will communicate exclusively through your assistant. I don’t need to see the final delivery. Tobi will handle the keys. I’m leaving now.”

Before the pen could even settle back into Tobi’s pocket, Julian turned on his heel and bolted into the open elevator cabin, slamming his finger against the ground floor button until the doors slid shut, cutting off the view of his hunched, trembling frame.

“Ma...” Tobi whispered, looking at the signed paper in absolute shock.

“What just happened?”

“I have no idea,” I said, my heart doing a slow, strange twist as I looked at the spot where he had been standing.

“I truly have no idea.”

---

An hour later, I pulled my car into Amara’s residential estate in Guzape. Her apartment had officially become my second home.

When I pushed the front door open, the apartment was filled with the rich, unmistakable scent of freshly fried small chops and peppered gizzard.

Amara was sitting in the living room, a large, beautiful arrangement of exotic white lilies sitting on her coffee table, surrounded by boxes of luxury pastries.

“Ah, ah! Hot girl!” I squealed, tossing my handbag onto the sofa and dropping down beside her on the rug.

“Who is the toaster that sent all this? Amara, you are living large oo! See flowers, see food!”

Amara let out a loud, triumphant laugh, quickly pulling one of the boxes of puff-puff away from my reaching fingers.

“Eh ehh! Don’t touch the chicken yet! This one is from a very serious candidate.”

“Who is he?” I begged, nudging her shoulder with my elbow, a wide, lively grin breaking across my face.

“Told me! Told me nau!! Am I not a people? Since when did you start keeping secrets from your own friend? Mbok, Gist me!”

“No way, Nne,” Amara smirked, popping a gizzard into her mouth and shaking her head with an amused expression.

“It’s a secret for now. I will gist you when i am sure of him. Just know the bobo is sha fine ooo.”

“Okay oo! Na you sabi,” I laughed, rolling my eyes dramatically as I managed to snag a piece of peppered gizzard from the plate.

“If you like don’t tell me now. I’ll do my findings myself. No be this same Abuja we dey? Abuja is small. I go do my research.”

I said munching on the gizzard.

“But seriously, the guy tried. The flowers are beautiful.”

Amara smiled, her eyes softening as she looked at the lilies, before she turned her attention back to me.

“Thank you. Anyway, how did the final sign-off go? Did that Julian give you any more trouble today?”

“Ah, Amara,” I sighed, leaning my back against the base of the sofa, my expression turning serious.

“Hmmmmm.. the torii long. It is even weird. I got to the place, and Julian was a completely different person. The guy was wearing dark sunglasses inside, a heavy hoodie pulled up, and a full face mask.”

Amara paused, a piece of small chops halfway to her mouth, her eyes widening slightly.

“A face mask? In this heat?”

“Yes!” I said, gesturing with my hands.

“He wouldn’t look at my face at all. He was avoiding my eyes, trembling, and he didn’t say a single word to me directly. He only spoke to Tobi. And then, my guy, he paid the balance with an extra five million naira. I told him I was going to send it back. Oga started panicking and apologizing like a child. He said he was sorry for coming on strongly and that he will never bother me again. Then he ran into the elevator.”

Amara froze for a split second, a strange, knowing expression flashing across her features before she suddenly erupted into a fit of loud, hysterical laughter, clutching her stomach as she leaned against the coffee table.

“Ah! It serves him right!” she gasped through her laughter, wiping a tear from her eye.

“It completely serves him right!”

I blinked, my internal alarms going off as I watched her reaction.

“What serves him right? Amara, why are you laughing like that? Do you know something?”

“Uh... nothing oo!” Amara said quickly, her laughter dying down into a suspicious, airy chuckle as she tried to adjust her reading glasses.

“I was just saying... him avoiding you and running away serves him right. The guy finally realized he has no level.”

I stared at her, the smile leaving my face as a sudden, sharp realization dropped.

My thoughts flashed back to Akila.

“Amara, look at me,” I whispered, my voice dropping into a quiet, trembling frequency.

“I suspect something right now... but I really don’t want to believe it.”

Amara stopped chewing, watching me closely.

“What?”

“Maybe Akila beat him up.”

Amara’s eyes went wide, and she let out a dry, airy cough that lacked any form of integrity.

“Ehhh? Soso, Me, I don’t know anything about that one oo! Abeg, let me go and poo first, this peppered gizzard is doing something to my stomach.”

She made a frantic move to stand up from the floor, but I was faster.

I lunged forward, my fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist, and dragged her right back down onto the floor with a heavy thud.

“Amara, look at me,” I said, my voice dropping into a dangerous, freezing frequency.

“I swear to God, if you know anything about this and you are hiding it from me, I will be so incredibly mad at you. Don’t play with me. Look at my face. Do I look like I’m joking?”

Amara tried to keep her face straight, her eyes darting toward the lilies on the coffee table as she tried to maintain her defensive stance.

“Soteria, let go of my hand joor! What is all this? How will I know if your man decided to do military training on Julian? Am I his P.A?”

“You are lying,” I whispered, the realization hitting my chest like a physical blow.

The way she had laughed, the sudden urge to go to the bathroom, the knowing look, it all aligned perfectly.

I let go of her wrist, stood up from the rug in one swift, angry motion, and snatched my handbag from the sofa.

“Fine. Since you’ve decided that you and Akila are the ones running my life now, and you can’t be honest with your own sister, I’m out of here.”

“Babes, wait!” Amara cried, scrambling to her feet as I marched toward the front door, my heels clicking furiously against the tiles.

“Don’t ‘babes’ me, Amara!” I shouted, spinning around at the threshold, my chest heaving with a sudden surge of pure, unadulterated rage.

“I am handling my life, handling my grief, trying to keep my head above water, and the people I trust are keeping secrets from me? If you don’t tell me exactly what happened right now, I am walking out of that gate and I won’t pick up your call for a month!”

“It has not gotten to that nau”

Amara threw her hands up in the air, her resistance finally crumbling under the weight of my anger.

“Okay! Okay! Fine! Yes! Akila met him!”

I froze, the air leaving my lungs in a sharp, painful gasp.

“He did what?”

“He met him, Soteria!” Amara groaned, running her hands over her face in pure frustration.

“But he did not beat him up! I swear to you on my mother’s grave, he did not beat the boy up. Effiom told me everything. They just... they waylaid him on the road after he left the club, gave him a small mending to reset his brain, and warned him to finish your contract and stay away from you. That’s why he was wearing that face mask! His lip was probably swollen. But nobody beat him up!”

My head was spinning so fast I had to lean against the doorframe to keep my balance.

“Effiom? Effiom was involved in this? My own brother?”

“Which one is your own brother again? Stop being dramatic about the whole thing. Julian was actually doing too much and if they didn’t step in, it would have been worse. Just calm down and see why they had to do it. It was for your sake.”

“Biko, calm down and take a chill pill!”

Amara pleaded, stepping back and raising her palms in a defensive gesture.

“Speak to your man! Go and ask him what happened. My hand no dey inside this matter again abeg! That is literally all I know. Effiom just gisted me briefly.”

I didn’t say another word. The sheer fury radiating from my skin was enough to make the air in the living room feel heavy. Akila had crossed the line.

He had looked into my eyes, promised me it was just a civil conversation between two men, and then gone behind my back with my brother to orchestrate a black-ops ambush on a client. He had treated my workspace like a battlefield.

I turned on my heel, yanked the front door open, and marched out into the corridor.

“Soteria! Soteria, stop na! Where are you going? Calm down” Amara yelled, running out after me into the hallway, her voice echoing against the walls of the development.

“Don’t go and drive like a madwoman! Soteria!”

“Stay away from me, Amara!” I screamed over my shoulder, not even pausing as I hit the stairwell, my fingers gripping the railing tightly to steady my shaking frame.

“Don’t follow me! If Akila can interfere in my affairs even after I told him I can handle it, then he would hear from me. He is always acting like he knows the best for me. When it comes to him, he would never ever let me make a decision. But in my case, I’m a baby na, I can’t handle my problems. He will hear from me.”

“Guy! He did it for your sake. That guy loves you and I am sure he didn’t mean it like that. Just calm down. Don’t do anything rash. I know you oo“ she called out from the top of the landing, her voice full of genuine panic.

I didn’t answer. I hit the ground floor, burst through the glass doors of the lobby, and walked straight out into the blazing afternoon heat toward my car.

My hands were shaking so violently I could barely slot the key into the ignition.

I was so upset he had gone that far. I was furious that he had taken laws into his hands.

Why would he physically assault a client?

I was managing things well. He should have trusted me to handle Julian on my own.

What is even more annoying is that he never allows me show up for him but he decides to make decisions for me. A decision that can cost he and my brother their badge.

I was furious.

As the engine roared to life, the only image in my mind was Akila’s unyielding face.

He wanted to play commander? Fine.

The commander was about to get what he wasn’t prepared for.

There is fire on the mountain….

Akila should have listened to the Holy Spirit oo.

Call me wicked, but lowkey, I like the mending they gave Julian😂😂

Ps: The Holy Spirit is such a softie a-times. He should have allowed Akila beat Julian up first.

I initially wanted him to beat Julian up like a baby but the Holy Spirit changed my script last minute, e pain me oo but I had to yield.