His stomach twisted so suddenly it felt like his body had understood the danger befo
re his mind did.
That was Amaka’s voice.
Amaka.
His wife of five years. The elegant woman who smiled for charity cameras and remembered everyone’s birthday. The woman newspapers called graceful and society magazines described as effortlessly refined. The woman who sent him teasing voice notes when he traveled and called him “my hardworking husband” in public. The woman he had trusted with the passwords, the private papers, the keys, the schedules, the shape of his life.
But this voice…
This voice belonged to someone else.
A man answered from inside the room, his tone low, amused, careless.
“And if he comes back early?”
There was a small pause.
Then Amaka said something that made Chief Kletchi’s pulse slam so violently it hurt.
“If he comes back early,” she said, “we make sure he never leaves again.”
For a second, the words did not feel real. They entered his ears, but they did not settle. They floated in the air like something from a dream, absurd and impossible and wrong.
Bissy’s grip tightened on his wrist.
That was when Chief Kletchi leaned slightly, just enough to see into the living room without stepping farther in.
He saw only part of it. A partial angle. A sliver of the center table. The edge of the sofa. The curve of Amaka’s shoulder in a pale silk robe. Yet even that small view was enough to send a chill so deep through his body it felt like ice touching bone.
His wife stood near the center table with her hair wrapped neatly and her expression utterly relaxed. Not anxious. Not frightened. Relaxed, as if she were discussing travel plans or dinner arrangements. A man sat partly in shadow on the long sofa, his face hidden by the angle. Another figure stood near the bar, moving with the quiet familiarity of someone who knew the house.
On the glass table sat objects that did not belong in his home.
A small brown bottle.
A syringe.
And a thick envelope swollen with cash.
His mouth opened before his brain could stop it.
“Am—”
Bissy’s palm came over his mouth instantly. Not violently. Not desperately. Just quickly, with the terrifying efficiency of someone who had rehearsed disaster in her head many times before this moment.
Her eyes locked onto his.
Not yet.
Not like this.
