The drive from the headquarters to the hospital in Enugu was the longest thirty minutes of my life. My shoulder was throbbing where the iron pipe had hit me, but I didn't care. I kept my hand locked in hers—the Ice Queen was staring out the window, her knuckles white as she gripped the handle of the car door.
"She won't stop," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Catherine is like a cornered animal. If she can't have the company, she'll try to burn everything I love."
"She can't touch us now," I promised, trying to sound braver than I felt. "The police are at the office, the Board is on our side, and your brother is in a secure wing."
But as we pulled into the hospital parking lot, my stomach dropped. There was no security at the VIP entrance. The glass doors were standing wide open, and the front desk was empty.
"Something is wrong," I said, already jumping out of the car before it fully stopped.
We ran through the lobby, our footsteps echoing on the polished tile. We reached the private wing, but when I turned the corner to my brother's room, my heart stopped. The two guards the Ice Queen had paid for were slumped against the wall, unconscious.
"No!" I screamed, kicking the door to my brother's room open.
The room was dimly lit. My brother was still in the bed, but he wasn't alone. Standing over his life-support machine was a man I recognized—it was the lawyer from the boardroom. He wasn't wearing a suit anymore. He was wearing a lab coat, and in his hand, he held a small, clear vial of liquid.
"One drop," the lawyer said, his voice calm and terrifying. "One drop of this in his IV line, and your 'Monday Miracle' turns into a funeral. All that money, all those contracts... they won't mean a thing if he stops breathing."
The Ice Queen gasped, clutching my arm. "What do you want? We gave the evidence to the police! It's over!"
"It's only over when Catherine says it is," the lawyer hissed. "She wants the digital drive back. Every copy. And she wants a signed confession from the 'Hidden Husband' saying he forged the documents to frame her. Do it now, or the boy dies."
I looked at my brother. He was finally breathing on his own, finally surviving, and now this monster was holding his life over a vial of poison. I felt a cold, dark rage rising in my chest—the kind of rage you only feel when someone threatens the only family you have left.
"You think I'm afraid of you?" I stepped forward, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. "I've lived in the streets of Onitsha my whole life. I've faced men ten times more dangerous than a lawyer in a stolen lab coat."
"Stay back!" the lawyer shouted, his hand shaking as he moved the vial toward the IV tube.
"If you kill him," I said, my voice dropping to a deadly whisper, "you have nothing left to trade. The police are five minutes behind us. If my brother dies, I won't wait for a judge to handle you. I will handle you myself."
I saw the flicker of fear in his eyes. He was a man used to words and laws, not blood and shadows. He looked at the Ice Queen, then back at me.
"The drive," he stammered. "Give it to me!"
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a drive. It wasn't the real one—it was a decoy I had prepared just in case. "Here. Take it. Just step away from the bed."
I tossed the drive onto the floor. As the lawyer scrambled to pick it up, I lunged.