The city of Lagos reeled beneath headlines too large to ignore.
Newspapers sold out within hours. Online forums buzzed. Rumors flew like sparks in dry wind. Overnight, Agnes Lewis became more than a wealthy heiress—she became a rebel. A truth-teller. A woman who'd walked away from a legacy built on quiet violence.
And Majek Goriola?
The man who once faded into the background of boardrooms and shadows now stood under a light he never asked for.
He wasn't just the scapegoat anymore.
He was the witness.
The survivor.
And perhaps, the final threat to an empire.
A Secret Summons
Three days after Agnes's departure, Majek received an encrypted message on his private inbox. No name. No subject line. Just a phrase:
"Come to the Iron House. They await."
Attached was a location—a defunct textile warehouse on the outskirts of Marina, near the salt-bloated docks.
Majek hesitated. He had lived cautiously ever since releasing the footage. Slept with a metal rod under his bed. Never took the same route twice.
But something inside him—something bold and bitter—stirred.
The Iron House was real.
And they were calling.
The Iron House
By dusk, Majek approached the warehouse. It looked abandoned, weathered by decades of salt air and disuse. Vines crept up its cracked walls like fingers trying to pull it underground.
A man in a navy-blue kaftan greeted him at the door, face emotionless, hands clasped behind his back.
"No phones. No recorders. No names," the man said.
Majek handed over his device and stepped inside.
He walked through narrow corridors lined with industrial pipes, finally emerging into a vast, low-lit chamber—half courtroom, half shrine. A triangular table sat at the center, three figures seated in silence. Each wore a mask—bronze, iron, and ivory.
At the room's edge stood Samuel Adewale.
Majek exhaled. So it wasn't a trap.
Not yet.
The Tribunal Speaks
"Majekodunmi Goriola," the bronze-masked figure spoke first, voice smooth like oil. "You've disrupted a long-standing pact."
"I released the truth," Majek replied. "If that's disruption, so be it."
The ivory-masked figure leaned forward. "Do you understand the weight of what you've done? The footage has destabilized board alliances. Shareholders are panicking. And a political faction is preparing to distance themselves from SMG publicly."
Majek folded his arms. "So you care more about the balance sheet than the girl they tried to silence?"
"You misunderstand," the iron-masked figure said. "We are not here to threaten you. We are here to ask—what do you want?"
Majek blinked. "What?"
"You've exposed them. You've humiliated Smith Lewis. Agnes is in Geneva now, free. But what do you want, Majek?"
He hesitated.
It wasn't a question he'd ever allowed himself before.
"I want them to lose everything," he said finally. "The same way I did."
A pause.
Then: "And if we gave you the tools to do that?"
Majek frowned. "Why would you?"
The bronze figure answered, "Because you're not the only one who was buried by this family."
The Depth of the Rot
Adewale stepped forward, sliding a brown folder across the table toward Majek.
Inside: internal memos. Secret meeting minutes. Tax records. Confidential recordings.
All documenting SMG's quiet acquisition of government favors, bribery, and how the Lewis-Goriola pact was just one of several dynastic arrangements used to control regional infrastructure for decades.
"Agnes's marriage was not a personal betrayal," the ivory voice said. "It was a business strategy. You were merely the first casualty."
Majek's throat tightened as he scanned the pages.
"They made it look like a love triangle," he muttered. "But it was a power equation."
"And you, Mr. Goriola," said the iron mask, "are now the variable they didn't calculate properly."
A Proposal
"We will protect you," Adewale said, "but in exchange, you must become visible. Public. Vocal."
"You want me to testify?"
"Yes. But not in court. In the court of public opinion. We're building a movement. A public reckoning."
Majek leaned back in his chair. "You want me to be a martyr."
"No," Adewale said. "We want you to be a mirror."
Meanwhile in Geneva
Agnes sipped her tea slowly as the Alps shimmered in the morning light beyond the hotel balcony. The city felt too clean, too polite—like a place where silence thrived under the guise of civility.
She missed the chaos of home.
The scent of Lagos rain. The reckless way Majek said her name.
She had done interviews—some controlled, some unpredictable. She'd called out her father by name in a live broadcast two nights ago. The world was watching.
But with every word she spoke, the more alone she felt.
Majek had gone quiet.
Her last message to him still sat unread.
She closed her eyes.
"I'm not gone," she whispered to herself. "I'm just getting ready."
Lami in Hiding
Somewhere deep in Kwara State, Lami sat in a hotel suite under an alias. His hair was longer now, beard unkempt. The headlines had driven him underground.
But he hadn't stopped watching.
He replayed Agnes's interview on his tablet.
Her voice.
Her defiance.
The way she didn't mention his name—but meant him in every sentence.
"You'll miss me," he muttered bitterly. "You'll remember what you cost me."
Then he opened his drawer and stared at the silver revolver inside.
Still loaded.
Still legal.
For now.
Majek's Return to the Public Eye
The following week, Majek stepped onto a stage at a press conference organized by the Tribunal's shadow network.
Camera lights flashed.
He stood beside activists, lawyers, and corporate reformists.
And then he spoke.
"I am Majekodunmi Goriola. Two years ago, I was framed. Not because I broke a law—but because I fell in love."
The crowd listened, breath held.
"They told me to stay quiet. I didn't. They jailed me. I didn't break. They said I had no future. And yet here I stand."
He held up the signed marriage pact document from the Lewis-Goriola archive.
"This is what they feared: love that couldn't be bought. Integrity that wouldn't bend. We are not cowards. We are survivors."
Social media exploded.
Agnes watched the stream from Geneva, tears streaking silently down her face.
Final Scene: A Letter Across the Ocean
That night, Majek sat in his apartment alone, the silence wrapping around him like cloth.
He opened his journal and tore out a page.
Dear Agnes,
I saw the way your hands shook when you stepped off the plane.
I see you still, even from here.
I hope Geneva is beautiful—but I hope it feels like a hallway, not a home. Because one day, when the fire cools, I'll come for you. Not as a boy who watched you from across a room. But as the man who now understands what it costs to love with a brave heart.
I'm not hiding anymore.
Not from them.
Not from myself.
And never from you.
—Majek
He folded the letter and tucked it into an envelope.
He didn't know when he'd send it.
But he knew she would feel it.