SAVED BY GRACE- Ep 31

Episode 31- Baby, Look At Me.

We hit yesterday’s target. Thank youuuu..🙏

Today’s target remains the same— 150 likes, 50 comments and 50 restacks.

See you tomorrow.

Soteria’s POV

The hurt in my chest had moved past a simple simmer; it was a violent, suffocating burn that made the air inside the vehicle feel too thin to breathe.

I didn’t even bother locking the car. I slammed the door shut, marched up the short concrete steps to his front porch, and twisted the handle with enough force to break the latch.

The door wasn’t locked. It never was when he was home, as if he dared the whole world to try crossing his threshold.

Akila was sitting on the edge of the single armchair in the center of the parlor, a small brown bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton wool resting on the glass table in front of him.

He had his shirt off. He was using his right hand to clumsily dab at the edges of the white dressing covering his left shoulder, his movements stiff and deliberate.

When the door slammed against the wall, his head snapped up.

Those dark, piercing eyes instantly locked onto my face, tracking the raw, red margins of my eyelids and the pale, trembling set of my mouth.

“Babe….”

“Don’t ‘Babe’ me, Akila! Don’t even start!” I shouted, the sound of my voice bouncing sharply off the bare walls.

My hands were shaking I had to ball them into tight fists against my sides to keep from falling apart right there.

“Why did you do it? Why on earth did you beat up my client?”

Akila’s hand froze mid-air, the cotton wool hovering a fraction of an inch from his brown skin.

He let out a low, slow breath through his nose — a controlled, disciplined expansion of his chest that flattened his features into that familiar, unyielding look.

He dropped his hand slowly.

“Baby, listen to me. I didn’t…”

“Don’t do that, babe!” I cut him off, my words slicing through his defensive structure like a blade.

I stepped deeper into the room, looming over where he sat, my heart hammering a frantic, erratic rhythm against my ribs.

“Don’t even try to formulate an explanation for this madness. You promised me it was just going to be a civil conversation between two men! You gave me your word! And then you went behind my back, carried my brother, and went to waylay a civilian on the road? Are you out of your mind?”

Akila slowly rose from the armchair. His towering frame completely took over the small space between us, casting a long, heavy shadow over my face as he dropped the cotton wool onto the table.

His chest heaved under the steady counts of his breathing, his dark eyes narrowing as a hot, dangerous edge began to rise beneath his stony expression.

“Woman, watch your mouth,” he rumbled, his voice dropping into a low, threatening register that vibrated through the floorboards.

“Do not come into my house and disrespect me. I won’t take it from you.”

“Disrespect?” I let out a sharp, incredulous laugh, the tears of pure frustration finally springing to the corners of my eyes.

“Oh, wow! Fascinating. So you know the word disrespect? But you completely disrespected me when you went to beat up my client! You beat up a man that I work for! A client whose project is tied to my firm’s name! You didn’t think about my reputation, you didn’t think about my job. You just went ahead to flex your muscles.”

Akila’s face hardened into solid stone, his jaw clenching so hard. He took a heavy, imposing step toward me, closing the distance until I could feel the intense radiant heat coming off his bare skin.

“If you were really this upset with the guy, Ziniya, why didn’t you cancel the contract?” he retorted, his voice a harsh, gravelly whisper that cut straight through my shouting.

“Why didn’t you just refund his money and walk away from the project? Why did you keep allowing him to have access to you for that long? Or is it that you didn’t actually mind him? Did you like the attention he was giving you? Did you want him to keep running his mouth around you?”

The words hit me like a physical blow to the solar plexus.

The parlor seemed to tilt for a second as a wave of pure, unadulterated shock washed over me, draining every drop of blood from my face.

“Nooo,” I breathed, my voice dropping into a ragged, broken whisper as I took a full step back, staring at him as if the man I loved had just been replaced by a monster.

“Don’t you dare speak to me like that, Akila. What exactly do you mean by that? Are you trying to imply that I am a flirt? That I am a cheat? After everything I have done to show you that you are the only person I see? You think I kept that contract because I wanted his disgusting attention?”

Akila blinked. He shoulders rigid, his expression cold and his chest heaving under the strain of his own rising emotions.

“Ohhh. We are now on first name basis? I will act as though I didn’t hear that.”

I ignored him. He continued.

“Well, You tell me. Why would you tolerate a boy calling your man a boy toy if you’re not accommodating him or enjoying his attention?”

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room.

The tears finally spilled over my cheeks, hot and bitter, burning my skin.

I could see a flicker of regret pass his face as he tried to touch my face but dropped back his fingers, clenching then tightly.

“You know what?” I whispered, my voice suddenly dropping into a flat, icy frequency that felt dead.

“I won’t waste my time here with you. I am not even going to sit here and defend my integrity to a man who thinks this lowly of me.”

I took a step closer to him, ignoring the warning stiffness in his posture, my finger pointing directly at the center of his bare chest.

“You need to work on yourself, Akila. You seriously, desperately need to work on yourself. You are too proud, too uptight, and too stubborn. You don’t listen to anyone at all, and it is really, really bad! You are a danger to yourself and everyone around you!”

“And you are being childish about this whole thing right now? Why are we even fighting about this?!” he rubbed his hand over his face, his voice slamming against the walls.

“I am not being childish about anything. We are fighting because you are protecting your ego!” I answered, the emotion tearing out of my throat.

“You don’t listen to me when I ask you to rest. You don’t listen to the doctors when they tell you your body is breaking. You don’t listen to your own family when they try to reach you from home. Nobody at all has a single drop of influence over your life, Akila! Nobody! You are your own god!”

The words were pouring out of me, each one stripping away another layer of the skin he used to shield himself from the world.

“I cannot be with a man who has this much pride,” I whispered, my voice cracking, the weight of the realization fracturing my heart into a thousand jagged pieces.

“A man who doesn’t have one single person on this earth that he can bend to. I seriously doubt you even bend to the leaders in church. You think your uniform and your strength make you above counsel. And a man without an authority over his head cannot be a good leader. You cannot lead a home like this. You cannot lead me. You need to loosen up, drop this hard-man act, and be a better man, a better leader, for this relationship to even stand a chance of working out.”

AkilaHyel’s POV

The word hit my chest like a lead fragment tearing through soft tissue.

Pride. A man without authority.

My face faltered, the hard front completely breaking apart in front of her.

A sharp, physical ache bloomed right in my chest.

I stared at her, she looked flushed but utterly gorgeous. My hands dropped limply to my sides, the skin on my knuckles suddenly feeling completely cold despite the heavy evening heat in the parlor.

Gosh!! I love this woman so much that even when I’m mad at her, I still can not afford to hurt her with my words. I chose my next words carefully.

“Because of my ego, you say?” I whispered, my voice sounding rough and hollowed out.

“I did this to stop a man from being pushy and abusive to my woman. I did this to make sure he never looks in your direction or makes you panic. I went out there to secure your place and value. And here you are, telling me it’s for my ego?”

I took a slow, heavy step back, the floorboards beneath my bare feet feeling like ice.

My breath was stuck somewhere in the dark margins of my throat.

“Is that what you think of me, Ziniya? That’s who I am to you? A proud, stubborn animal who just wants to flex muscle?”

Soteria’s face went bland for a fraction of a second, a sudden flash of panic or regret crossing her eyes as she saw the damage her words had caused, but she quickly tightened her jaw, covering it up with another layer of stubborn, protective anger.

“I don’t care what you think right now,” she said, her voice shaking but unyielding.

“I think you need to figure out who you are when you aren’t holding a weapon or a badge. Because right now, you are just a wall. And I am tired of breaking my fingers trying to touch you.”

The room felt entirely naked, completely shaken to its very foundation.

Every word she had spoken was a direct hit.

Soteria looked at me. The harshness in her eyes suddenly softened, her small shoulders dropping as she realized the sheer mass of what she had just unloaded. She wanted me to understand. She wanted the truth to bridge the gap, not widen it into an abyss.

She took a slow, tentative step forward, her smaller hands reaching out, her fingers trembling as she tried to grasp my right wrist to draw me back into her space, to soften the blow.

“Baby, look at me... I’m just trying to explain…..”

The moment her skin touched mine, my body reacted on instinct.

I pulled my arm back sharply, stepping away from her touch as if her fingers were made of liquid fire.

“Really?” I whispered, my voice barely audible against the low hum of the standing fan in the corner.

“There is no point explaining yourself further. I think I get all you said. I am a man without authority, a bad leader, right?”

Soteria’s POV

He moved away from me as if my touch were a violation.

“Babe, wait,” I said, my voice breaking as I stepped closer again, my palms open, begging him with my eyes to stop locking himself behind that wall.

“Don’t do this. Don’t shut me out now. Look at me.”

“Don’t touch me,” he rumbled, his voice dropping into a flat, dead frequency that didn’t carry any anger at all, just a vast, freezing distance that terrified me more than his shouting ever could.

He didn’t lift his eyes to meet mine; he just stared fixatedly at the space between our feet.

I let out a long, ragged sigh, my chest aching so badly I could felt a physical weight pressing down on my lungs.

“I am not saying this to hurt you. I swear to you, before God, I’m not. I’m saying it because you need to change. Maybe I’m not saying it the right way... maybe my mouth is too sharp right now because of the panic and the shock of seeing what you did to Julian, but it is the truth. You need help, baby. Total surrender to God. This is not just about the fight with Julian. It’s about everything. It’s about how you carry the weight of the whole world alone without letting anyone help you hold it.”

Akila didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He just stood there, his shirtless frame looking like a carved piece of dark wood in the middle of his parlor, completely silent, completely removed from me.

The house felt entirely dead.

Realizing that the wall was fully up, and that any more words would only shatter what was left of our floorboards, I let my hands drop to my sides. The exhaustion was absolute.

“When you are ready to listen... you know where to find me,” I whispered, the final drop of my energy leaving my body.

I turned around, walked out of the front door, and closed it quietly behind me.

The minute my feet hit the gravel of the driveway, the front I had been putting up completely collapsed. The tears spilled over my cheeks in hot, heavy streams, blinding me as I scrambled into the driver’s seat of my car.

I started the engine and drove out of the compound, the tires kicking up dust as the tears choked my throat. I was so incredibly tired.

I love my baby so much it feels like an obsession, but this hard-man act, this constant carrying of baggages without bending, was hurting me too deeply. He was doing too much, and it was breaking us apart.

As I navigated through the traffic toward the junction, my hands shaking against the steering wheel, I pulled out my phone and dialed Pastor Olive.

“Hi, darling.”

Her voice came through the speaker. It was warm and instantly comforting. The moment I heard her voice, a loud, ragged sob broke through my lips, and I couldn’t even form a proper sentence.

“Mama...” I choked out, wiping my face with the back of my sleeve.

“Mama, it’s Akila... we had a terrible fight. I’m so lost.”

There was a brief, understanding silence on the other end, the sound of her shifting some papers.

“Calm down, Soteria. Where are you right now?”

“I’m driving out of Asokoro, ma.”

“Come to the house,” Pastor Olive commanded gently, her tone leaving no room for argument.

“Don’t drive too fast. Just navigate calmly, okay? I’m waiting for you.”

“Okay, ma,” I whispered, ending the call and turning the car toward the northern bypass, the tears still falling silently into my lap.

AkilaHyel’s POV

The sound of her car engine faded into the distance of the street, leaving the house in an absolute, suffocating silence.

I didn’t move. I stood in the exact spot where I had pulled my hand away from her touch, my chest bare, the bottle of rubbing alcohol still sitting open on the glass table.

Her words were still hanging in the air like smoke after a discharge, burning my throat every time I tried to take a breath.

Proud. Uptight. Stubborn. A man without authority.

Was I all that? Was I really without authority?

Why would she say those things to me?

I was supposed to report to the brigade headquarters in Maitama immediately for a formal debrief with my team, but as I looked at the dark canvas jacket hanging by the door, I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.

My limbs felt heavy, drained of the discipline that usually ran through my veins.

I walked over to the sofa and collapsed onto it heavily, lying flat on my back, my right arm slung over my forehead to shut out the light from the window.

I just stared up at the white ceiling boards, my heart beating a slow, sickening rhythm against my ribs.

I was upset. Furious that she had dished out the words in such a sharp, merciless manner.

But deep down, in that quiet, empty space where it felt like the Holy Ghost had gone silent, I knew she wasn’t lying.

I knew every single thing she said was a direct reflection of the baggage I was carrying. I just hated how it tasted coming from her mouth.

Was she going to leave me?

The thought entered my mind like a stray round, completely shattering the last remnants of my composure.

My stomach twisted into a tight, agonizing knot.

Never.

I couldn’t even form the mental layout of a life without that sharp mouthed woman.

She was the only woman after Almeera that I had ever allowed into my heart.

She was the only person who had broken through the stone to find the flesh beneath.

If she walked away from me because of this, there would be nothing left of AkilaHyel but a uniform and an empty life.

I needed to call someone. I needed a line to the outside world before the silence in this house choked me completely.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. My fingers hovered over Effiom’s name, but I immediately slid past it.

I couldn’t call him. He was my only real friend, but he would be of little help right now.

I was such a loner. I looked at Almeera’s contact card, my thumb lingering on the screen, wanting to hear the voice of the past, but I decided against it.

It wasn’t fair to her, and it wouldn’t solve the fire in my house.

With a long, ragged sigh, I scrolled up to the top of my registry and tapped a number I hadn’t called in months.

Wandi.

My elder sister. She was married with twins, living a quiet, orderly life, completely removed from the chaos of my life.

The line didn’t even ring twice before the screen lit up. She picked up on the first ring.

“Yaro?” Her voice came through sharp, instantly breathless with a sudden, sisterly panic.

“AkilaHyel? Ya ya?? Are you fine? What happened? Why are you calling me out of the blues?”

It was completely unusual of me to call her out of the blue like this.

For years, our communication was limited to short, functional text messages on holidays or the family group calls.

For me to dial her personal line meant something had happened.

I didn’t answer immediately. I just heaved a long, deep, and thoroughly

exhausted sigh into the receiver, the sound scraping against the microphone.

On the other end, the line went completely quiet for a second before I heard the rapid movement of her feet against tiles.

“No, wait... Akila, switch to video call right now. Switch the line. Gaskiya You are too quiet, and it’s scaring me. Switch it now!”

I groaned softly, lifting the phone away from my face, and tapped the camera icon, letting the interface reset as her face burst onto the screen.

Wandi was standing in her kitchen, her wrapper tied tightly around her waist, her eyes wide with a genuine terror as she stared at me and the dark set of my jaw through the lens.

“Akila,” she whispered, her voice dropping into a soft, frightened register. “Why are you looking this way? What is wrong with you?”

My babies just had their first big fight. 😂😂

Akila is actually a softie. Awwwww….🥹🥹

Do you think Soteria went to the extreme or Akila is just being too uptight?

May God help our ship oo before they die of depression.