Elara hadn't spoken for three days.
Not to her roommate, not to her professors, not even in her head. Her thoughts had flattened into silence, like glass pressed over a flame. Everything moved around her—students laughing, birds chirping, lecturers lecturing—but she moved through it like a ghost. Even the memory of Tife's last breath, of her blood painting the concrete, had begun to feel like a dream. A vivid, iron-scented dream she couldn't wake from.
But the world kept turning. And her father kept calling.
She ignored the first two calls. Then the third. But by the fourth, his message came through in text.
"You're slipping. I can feel it. Call me."
That was all. Five words. But they slammed into her chest like a judge's gavel.
How did he know?
She stared at her phone. No one else knew what had happened. The campus still thought Tife was missing. The posters were fading in the sun. The police had asked a few questions but no one was pressing. Not yet.
So how did her father—hundreds of kilometers away in Kaduna—know?
Unless he always did.
The paranoia she'd tried to suppress burst open like a wound. She tore through her room that night. Pulled open drawers, flipped her mattress, scanned the power outlets, the vents, even the bulb sockets. She didn't know what she was looking for—just that something had to be there. A bug, a wire, a camera. Anything to explain how he always knew what she was doing, what she was thinking.
She found nothing but her unease only deepened.
On Saturday, she called her mother. It had been months. The woman's voice was cold silk.
"Elara. Surprised to hear from you."
"Is he watching me?" Elara asked. Her throat felt raw.
"Who?"
"You know who."
A pause. Then: "Your father watches everyone. It's how he survives."
Elara gripped the phone tighter. "What do you mean?"
Her mother exhaled, long and tired. "You were too young to see it clearly. But every man your father ever shook hands with eventually destroyed themselves. He didn't kill them. He simply gave them the right kind of push."
"You're saying he—"
"I'm saying he taught me how to clean up blood without ever holding a knife. And he's taught you, too."
That was when the call dropped or was cut.
She sat in the dark after that. The words looped: He taught you, too.
Tife's face. Her scream. The posters. Had her father planned it? Had he sent Tife? No. That was paranoid. Even for her. And yet… What if Tife wasn't the first? What if her blackout wasn't just a blackout?
She needed answers. And only one place had them.
The Bello family estate sat behind wrought-iron gates and sandstone walls. Elara arrived without notice. The guards looked surprised but didn't stop her. Her father was in his study. The same room where he made deals. Ended careers. Buried scandals.
He smiled when she entered.
"My star returns."
She didn't return the smile.
"You manipulated the professor. Got me back in school."
He nodded. "And you're welcome."
"And then Axle died."
His expression didn't change.
"I don't know what happened that night," she continued, "but you do, don't you?"
He leaned back. "I know you were slipping. Drinking too much. Surrounding yourself with liabilities. I removed one."
Her breath caught. "You removed her?"
"I didn't kill her. But I made sure you wouldn't go down with her."
"So you set me up? Made me think I killed someone?"
His tone was almost amused. "Elara, you did kill someone. Just not the one you thought."
Silence swallowed the room.
"I didn't want to be like you," she whispered.
"You don't have a choice," he said. "You're my daughter. And everything you hate about me? It's already in you."