The click of the latch was the loudest sound Adams had ever heard. It was the sound of a cell door slamming shut. The lingering trace of his mother's perfume—oud and roses—was no longer a scent; it was the smell of condemnation.
He stood frozen, his forehead still pressed against the cool wood of the door, unable to turn around. Behind him, he could hear the two sounds that were shredding his soul: his son's frantic, frightened wails and the ragged, suppressed sobs of his wife.
He had faced down ruthless corporate raiders and international magnates. He had navigated boardrooms full of sharks. But the icy, controlled fury of his mother had reduced him to that terrified boy again, the one who could never quite meet her impossible standards.
You have chosen to shame your name.
Her words echoed in the silent, violated space of their home. His choice. She had framed it perfectly, as she always did. This wasn't about a grandchild. It wasn't about joy. It was about loyalty. And he had chosen the wrong side.
He finally forced himself to turn.
The sight before him broke what was left of his resolve. Mina was curled on the sofa, her body a protective cage around Chosen, her shoulders shaking. She was trying to soothe him, but her own distress was only feeding his. They were a tangle of fear and misery, and he was the cause.
"Mina," he said, his voice hoarse. He took a step toward them, his hand outstretched, a useless gesture.
She didn't look up. She just shook her head, burying her face in the blanket wrapped around their son. The rejection was a physical pain.
His phone, the cheap, secret burner phone, buzzed on the small table. The vibration was aggressive, insistent. They both flinched.
He knew who it was. The storm wasn't over; the first squall had just passed. This was the main event.
He picked it up. The screen glowed with a single word: HOME.
His thumb hovered over the answer button. He felt like he was holding a live grenade.
"Don't," Mina whispered, finally looking up. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes pleading. "Adams, please. Don't answer it. Just… let her rage. We don't have to listen."
He wanted to. God, how he wanted to. To throw the phone against the wall and hold his family and pretend the outside world didn't exist.
But he couldn't. He was Adams Dared.And a Dared did not hide from consequences. A Dared faced them, even if it destroyed him.
"I have to," he said, the words tasting like ash.
He accepted the call and put the phone to his ear. He didn't speak.
The silence on the other end was heavier, more pressurized than any outburst. He could hear her breathing, slow and controlled. She was making him wait. Establishing dominance from thirty kilometers away.
When she finally spoke, her voice was not the fiery lash of minutes before. It was colder. Sharper. A surgeon's scalpel aimed precisely at the jugular.
"Have you come to your senses yet?" she asked. The question was quiet, deceptively soft.
Adams closed his eyes. "Mother…"
"Do not 'Mother' me," she cut in, her tone icing over. "I am looking at the security footage from the compound gates. I am watching you pack a bag in the dead of night and slip out like a common thief. I am watching you choose deception over duty. I am watching you break your father's heart. And for what?"
He could see it. His father, Alhaji Ibrahim, sitting in his leather wingback chair, his face a stoic mask of disappointment. The image was a knife to his gut.
"We needed to leave," Adams said, the defense sounding weak and pathetic even to his own ears. "The atmosphere was… toxic. For Mina. For the baby."
"Toxic?" The word was a whip crack. "I offered you shelter. I offered you comfort. I opened my home to you when you had nothing! And you call my generosity toxic? Is that the language she has taught you? To bite the hand that feeds you?"
"This has nothing to do with Mina," he insisted, a feeble attempt to draw fire away from her.
It was the worst thing he could have said.
The dam broke.
"NOTHING TO DO WITH HER?" Her voice escalated, losing its icy control, becoming a torrent of raw, furious pain. "It has EVERYTHING to do with her! From the moment you brought that woman from the hospital gate, she has been dividing this family! She has filled your head with foolish ideas, turned you against your own blood!"
"That's not true—" he tried to interject, but her voice rode over his, a tidal wave of accusation.
"She is a sickness in you, Adams! A cankerworm! First, she makes you weak, costing you your ambition, your position. Then, she makes you a liar, hiding my grandchild from me as if he were something to be ashamed of! And now, she has made you a coward, sneaking away in the night to hide in a… a slum! She has cut you out of the fabric of this family and woven you into her own pathetic, little world of spite and ignorance!"
Each word was a hammer blow. He could feel Mina's eyes on him, could feel her hearing the venomous distortion of their love, their struggle, their child. He wanted to throw the phone, to scream, to defend her. But his mother's voice held him pinned, a butterfly on a display board.
"She has taken my son," Hajiya Zainab seethed, her voice dropping into a grief-stricken whisper that was more devastating than her shouts. "She has stolen you. And for what? To prove she could? To show she has power over a Dared? Well, she has won. Look at you. Look what you have become for her. A shadow. A secret-keeper. A man who chooses a room over his legacy."
Adams sank onto the rickety dining chair, his legs unable to hold him. He was drowning in her narrative. In her version of events, it was so horrifyingly clear. Mina was the villain. He was the duped victim. Their love was a destructive plague.
"This is not her fault," he whispered, the fight draining out of him, leaving only a hollow exhaustion.
"Then whose is it?" she fired back, her voice soft and deadly once more. "Look around you, Adams. Look at the life you have chosen. Then look me in the eye and tell me this is what you truly wanted for yourself. Tell me the man I raised dreamed of this."
The line went dead.
The silence she left behind was absolute. The phone slipped from his numb fingers and clattered onto the table.
He couldn't look at Mina. He couldn't bear to see the truth of his mother's words reflected in her eyes. A room over his legacy. A shadow. A secret-keeper.
He felt her move. He heard her lay a now-sleeping Chosen in his bassinet. Then her footsteps approached him.
She didn't speak. She simply stood before him, waiting.
Finally, he forced himself to look up.
Her tears were gone. Her face was pale but composed, etched with a terrible, quiet understanding. She had heard every word.
"She blames me," Mina said. It wasn't a question.
Adams opened his mouth to deny it, to lie, to protect her from the full, brutal force of his mother's hatred. But no sound came out. The truth was a physical weight crushing his chest.
His silence was all the answer she needed.
Mina nodded slowly, a profound sadness in her eyes. She didn't get angry. She didn't cry. She just looked at him, and in her gaze, he saw the terrifying distance his mother's words had already carved between them.
She had lashed out, blaming Mina for dividing the family.
And in his silence, Adams had just agreed.