“Those are some huge allegations you have going; you know that?” I had said, still hoping that, for some reason, he was wrong.

The atmosphere was quite prickly that day as I remember. Maybe it was because of the obvious stark heat accrued to sunny days in Nigeria, or it was because my brother Emeka had brought something on the table that was quite hard to chew.

We had discussed for almost three straight hours that day. Emeka was ready to take any action to get back at the man. If I had left him unresolved, he would have probably taken a gun himself, but in the end, I was his elder brother, and he had to do it the legal way.

“Ikenna! He sexually assaulted my wife!” Emeka had said with a stern voice as adrenaline surged through his veins. He was clearly infuriated and was struggling not to break something. “My wife Ikenna! Did he assume I would be quiet? That pig had the nerve to pull that sort of stunt and thought he would get away with it.

Ikenna, please, I need you on this.” I told Emeka I would get them justice in the court. Fighting for justice, that was what I did for a living. The truth is that a case like this one was never going to be easy. It may be my last case, given that we even survive the whole phase of it.

Nevertheless, I had made up my mind to get justice for my younger brother. A victory on this case would be a landmark to the limits of men who think they could get away with anything in this country. “The evidence?” I had asked again to be certain. “You mentioned that they broke the main server of your video security upon arrival.” “Yes, but that was only for the visible cameras around the building. Even my wife does not know about all the cameras in that house. I have the record of that pig on tape.” Emeka retorted as he tucked his hand into his bag in search of something.

“One copy and two duplicates.” He said, handing over two flash drive items to me. “So, we are really doing this? But remember, this is not like old times Emeka, a lot of things are different now. So, I recommend you buckle up for the coming weeks. I would begin by placing Sarah on special witness protection outside the state entirely.”

The Hammer is what they called me. However, for the first time, I was scared about a case. Not because I would lose but because of the man we would have to deal with. Joseph Odiah, the man with a razor-sharp nose and an emotionless face. He is one of the foundational private exporters of petroleum in Rivers state; at least, that is what he is officially known for.

Odiah also traffics drugs and is an ex-convict from the Colombian pact arrest in the early 1980s. Odiah is a top gun in Rivers state who believes he can do whatever he wants and eventually does. What I feared most was his long association with violence and brutality. I might be a senior attorney in Rivers State, but Odiah was not just anyone you took to court.

You could be killed. That was why I hoped Emeka was wrong, but he was family and I had to help. Since physical evidence was available, it was more or less hope against hope, I would not have made a better choice than to take the case. The day I submitted the case at the court and initiated his arrest, I was sweaty and fret all over. It was not because of he was going to be in cuffs, but that I was expecting my only son Luka that same week.

That day, the news spread throughout the town, and many places were turned into hot zones almost immediately. I had not seen Luka for some years since he had been away in Georgia for his tertiary education, and yet, this was the situation he had to come home to. I tried to stall his arrival by all means possible, but all my attempts were futile. “But Ikenna, you know this is not our first public case. We have been in this sort of situation a few times before, and we always came out well. I still…”

“Frances! No, please! It’s different this time. Even worse still, Luka would be back soon. The game is on already, so I have to put in everything I have and finally take that man down, even if it is the last thing I do. But you… you and Luka are not part of this. You would have to leave as quickly as possible once Luka arrives.”

My wife was right about one thing: with her by my side, I had survived some very dangerous cases in the past. But that was when we were much younger when we still chased after the stars with no one to look after. But now, we had a son, and that was enough on my argument to silence her persistence. “I know Odiah will not spend the night there, so I am going with Uche to make my charges clear and ready for trial before he leaves.”

“Ikenna, what are we going to do about Uche?” “My promise to my late brother was that I would set his son up for life and let him live. He would not go with both of you. Uche is twenty-seven years; I believe he is old enough to live on his own now. I would make arrangements for him.” “Please be careful when you get there, you don’t need to speak with Odia.” “Don’t worry, I know that.”

`LUKA

I had been away at Georgia for a whole run of six years without having to visit my family in Nigeria all those years. I was sixteen when I left. Those years away made Nigeria gradually become a cloud-cuckoo-land for me. So, I always believed that getting back would be some sort of adventurous homecoming.

My parents lived in Port Harcourt. A place often regarded as the city of many possibilities. I recall the day I returned to Nigeria. It did not take so long as a minute before I saw Mom and Dad at the airport. I never knew I could feel so happy to see my parents.

Mom and Dad had visited me a few times while I was at school, but not enough not to miss them so much. So, when I saw them again after those years apart, I felt like a five-year-old in those short minutes. I remember the rabble-rousing feeling that flowed through my veins on the thought that I was finally set for the next phase of my life.

To be honest, being an international student could be great sometimes, but I always felt something missing whenever I was too far away from my home. I got home on a Wednesday, two days before it happened. It would seemingly turn out to be the longest forty-eight hours of my life. “Of course, schooling abroad has its perks. But honestly, being an international student is often irking most of the time.”

I had kept on trying to explain to Uche as we walked slowly towards the car. He was bent on establishing a fact that any Euro-American schooling condition was better than a Nigerian one. Perhaps from a divergent lens, it almost seemed like fate made Uche a part of my family.

I never knew I was the only child of my parents until I was six years old. Uche had basically lived with us since as early as I could remember my name. Five years older than I am, he was the only child of my dad’s elder brother who passed away alongside his wife in a ghastly motor accident. He was just five years old then, and for about two years, he was constantly tossed from place to place by his kin, until my parents, decided to take him in.

My father is Ikenna Ogbu, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, popularly known as the hammer among his peers. This name came as a result of his exquisite history in the court of law. My dad would sue a whole production company, local or international if he noticed repeated incompetence, and he would win. He was so straightforward that he almost never minced his words. Ikenna Ogbu was a very popular name in the city of Port Harcourt.

Uche spoke a lot while we were on transit and I listened zealously because he was unusually saying a lot. Not that Uche was not a talker, as a matter of fact, growing up, I knew him to be quite the loquacious fellow. This time however, it was not the fact that he was speaking so much, but the things he was saying. But what scared me the most was Uche’s statement that, for the first time, dad seemed really scared of a case.

IKENNA

Luka returned just two weeks after the first file report. Before then, however, I had already received many threats in the form of letters, mobile messages, and even dead animals. I was never really scared off by such items, not even when a personal message came in from Odiah himself.

“What do we tell Luka?” My wife had asked on the day he was to arrive. “Nothing. At least not today, maybe by weekend and then next week you both would have to leave.” I almost dropped a tear when I saw my son again after a few years of us being apart. My perspirations were not because I was emotional in seeing my son once again, but because after so many years away from home, even home now was no longer safe for him.

It was there I decided that the next day I would hand over to him every file that was his property and asset as well as very important notes he may need to move forward just in case anything happened to me. Frances also suggested replicating them into her phone as a soft copy, just in case.

Two days after he arrived, we decided to have a homecoming, we invited some family and friends. Tarren was the last guest to leave the house that day; I had a quiet time with him and gave him more information on the case, including the duplicate of the evidence and an update on my audio diary. Most of the time, when I dealt with dangerous cases, I kept a daily audio record of each day's activities in detail in case anything ever happened to me. Tarren always knew what to do with evidence and every information I gave him, even if I was out of the way.

That day seemed to have gone so smoothly. However, it did not turn out to end in the probable fairytale manner one would have imagined. We were attacked that night while I was with my family. It was a bit unusual. They were just two young men, and only one was armed. Odiah would have sent more than that if he genuinely wanted to kill me. At least he would have sent one professional. Both did not seem like they were.

LUKA

That same day, we had a few visitors who came. It almost seemed like some sort of welcoming. It was the second day since I had returned home, and still I had not actually had time for a personal conversation with my parents who I knew had lots of things to tell me.

The last visitor to leave the house that day was Uncle Tarren, my dad’s younger cousin. Uncle Tarren was some kind of investigator journalist; I remember that, while I was younger, he would fill us with stories that never got into paper. He and Dad had a long conversation before he left that night. After his dismissal, it was just the four of us left: Dad, Mum, Uche and I. We remained in the sitting room upstairs, trying to catch up on events of the past years.

However, just about an hour into our discussion, that was when the awkward noises began. Some creeping noises from the back door. We had ignored it at first. But anyone who ever had to wake up in the middle of the night to the skin-rippling sounds that came from a rat underneath one’s bed could not help but become restless until the rat was gone. At that point, we were sure that a stranger was probably in the house with us.

‘I’ll check it out; it might just be Andre’s cat like the last time,’ Uche said as he went down. We had all hoped. it was actually a cat that night. But then, things became scary when, after almost five minutes, Uche had neither come back up nor responded to our calls. My dad insisted that he go and check, but no sooner had he walked through the door than we saw him returning. That was when they came in.

One before the other, into the sitting room and inaudibly like what seemed to be a mafia gang act playing right before my eyes, but this time, it was no movie. Black ski masks covered their faces, black gloves, and overalls—it was real. There were just two of them, but only one seemed to have displayed a gun; the other held on to a short club. We were immediately put down on our knees.

IKENNA

From the moment they stepped their feet into my sitting room, I was infuriated. They not only intruded on a happy family moment but also did it after my son’s homecoming. I have a rough history with hardened criminals, and I was sure that those boys were not it. In fact, I had just felt like tearing the whole place down on them, if not for the gun that was present in the room.

After some tense few seconds, I asked after Uche, and one of those boys threatened to shoot my head too, implying that they had probably done that already to Uche; quickly after, I was led to my room by one of them while the other remained downstairs with my wife and son. My wife had remained silent and recollected. Before leaving the sitting room, I got a swift gaze into her eyes, and those were the longest three seconds of my life, but she understood my message.

This was probably not their first time in my house. I could tell from the way they moved with such precision about every corner in the house. I was even led to my room and not the other way around. “Where are the evidence files?” One of them asked, pointing a gun at my head as soon as we got inside. All I kept thinking of was a way to dispose of that gun. I was almost sure I could beat those two boys on my own. “The files?” he said, pressing the gun to my head.

I pointed to my huge briefcase at the corner of the room. “… and the keys?”

LUKA

Everything seemed to have been going according to plan for them; provided that we were kept alive, I was not bothered about any other thing they wanted. This was all until my father's decision to do the most bizarre thing I had ever seen broke the silence. With his collection of golf clubs, which sat next to the centre table in his room, he assaulted the man who had brandished a gun towards him, and from that moment, the situation turned on its head.

It all happened too quickly. I was struggling to maintain my grasp on reality as I saw my father go into a tussle with the other man who noticed there was trouble upstairs and headed there. My mother on the other hand quickly grabbed me, and we made a run for it following Dad’s immediate instruction. Maybe they had discussed it earlier because from that moment, my mother did not look back amidst my obvious whining. “Luka, shut up! We need to get to the car. You drive better at night, so take the key.”

She handed me the key to the black Lexus sports car, and I quickly ran to the driver’s seat as she rolled the gate open and dashed towards the car. Stop there, you bastards! One of the armed men yelled as he followed his yelling with some rounds of shots with his gun. As I crunched myself into the car, some of the bullets hit the boot as my mother struggled to get in.

I got a quick glimpse at the rear mirror, and it almost looked like another figure was spying from behind the house, but it was clearly the consequence of my whole reality being jumped by the attack. “Please, drive Luka and don’t stop,” she said with a faint voice.

“Can we not call the police or do something to help Daddy?” I asked as I drove with tears clouding my eyes. I had not realized it quickly because I kept on thinking about my father, who we had clearly left to die back there. But after a while, I noticed my mother was slipping down and losing balance as she held down her belly. It was dark, so I stretched to place my right hand on hers. “Blood? Mommy, you were shot!” I said, almost screaming, my heart rendering apart.

“Mommy I’m sorry I did not notice on time. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I had said in my futile attempt to hold back my tears. I was extremely fidgety, but I had to be a bit stoical to get over that night. “Hold on, Mommy, we are heading to the nearest hospital” I allowed her to talk as much as she could at that point and supported her back into the driver’s seat.

I was about to start running as she instructed after she got in, but I observed that the car had not yet moved despite her starting it. I rushed back to open the door again, and finally, a sudden silence swelled the atmosphere; looking to my right was now a body, with its head reclining towards the ground, blood flowing out of the ab region, giving the creamy leather seat a new chroma. I watched the light slowly fade from her eyes as the body lay still in the car.

My mother was dead, and at that moment, time had paused for a while. Was I losing my mind? I had asked myself silently. I had to exhale what was left of my sanity and run away from the scene with respect to her final words. There was something in the phone she gave to me, and I promised my mother that night that I would yield up everything I could muster to get justice served.

IKENNA

Before I could knock the boy off and get the gun, the other attacked me with a knife he had hidden. Our tussle, however, gave the one whom I had knocked off a little time to stagger up and hold on to the gun again. But his partner instructed him to go after Frances and Luka. I always believed Frances would get our son to safety as long as I gave her the chance.

But I began to worry what that also meant for me. “If I do not stop this boy now and escape, I might lose my life when the gun comes back into this room,” I thought to myself. With a renewed will, I shook my head and launched myself at the boy and somehow succeeded in disarming him.

This gave me the upper hand to put him temporarily on the ground once I stabbed his leg with his knife. In those short minutes I had, I jumped out through my balcony and headed towards the back gate of the house. I kept on running until I got to our truck, which, fortunately, I happened to have parked outside that evening to accommodate the guests and also had the key on me.

I remember driving from night till dawn as far as Delta state. I went into hiding, trusting that Frances may do so with Luka before the dust settled. Those boys had one piece of the evidence Odiah needed. So, the following targets would surely be Emeka and his wife, or even my family if it was known that either of us were still in town.

I lost my phone that day, but after a few days, I purchased another one. That was when I got the news of my Frances’ death. I wept for a whole day. For Luka, no one had heard or seen anything about Luka or his whereabouts for weeks. I also found out that the police arrived at the scene by morning after so many calls were sent in by our neighbours that night.

Uche’s body was lying in the yard behind the house; by some miracle, he had remained alive till that morning. Turns out he was not shot in the head. In all of what had happened, one thing I was certain of was that, the attack that night may have been from Odiah, but someone closer to me had a more involved hand in it. It had to be someone I knew, who knew about the whole case, who knew what time and interval the security operational at our estate changed shifts, and who knew the backdoor passage in my house. It had to be someone I trusted.

TARREN

It was already a month since the renowned Barr. Ikenna Ogbu and his family were attacked. While his wife Frances had already been confirmed dead that night at the Specialist Teaching Hospital, both Ikenna and his son Luka were yet to be found. The reports are that they are long dead. However, his brother Emeka constantly insisted that no declarations be made on such claims yet.

The whole drama began with an alleged accusation against Michael Odiah, who was believed to have sexually assaulted Emeka’s wife. Emeka and Ikenna had agreed that Sarah and the rest of the family be taken somewhere safe until it was time for trial at the court. It was for their safety and, more importantly, so that he would properly attend to the issue.

Emeka himself was in hiding, but he was still in town. The stories of the events between the Ogbu brothers and Michael Odiah toggled about the whole city of Port Harcourt since the first day Ogbu was arrested. But even more questions have been raised since the disappearance of Ikenna and his son, and of course, even the death of his wife.

What the younger generation did not know was that, in the earlier years of Rivers state, Ikenna, his brother Emeka, and Odiah were key players in the violent history of Port Harcourt. Tracing back to as far as two decades ago, the city sprung up into a sporadic period of bloodletting. A crisis that was much too troubling than what had come before.

The city witnessed an explosion of gang violence and battles over control of oil and gas facilities as well as disputed borders. Odiah was a prominent name in these times, which explains why he was the lead petroleum exporting personnel in the whole state. Even though Odiah’s influence in the state remained uncontested, Ikenna and Emeka had also worked their way to the top of the food chain. However, unlike societal mongers like Odiah, men like Ikenna remained on the side of Justice.

One could then get a clearer picture of the tension that existed between both parties concerned following Odiah’s assault on Emeka’s wife. Emeka believed Odiah was simply making a statement rather than just expressing excessive libido. But what sort of statement was he trying to make? They were all at peace. At least when it came to minding their business.

This is what made my cousin Ikenna worry from the beginning; maybe there was something Emeka was not telling him. Uche survived the raid that day but got away with some bruises on his face. He also had a wound on his left arm, which I assume was from the bullet he received. He was the best chance I had on getting more information about that day.

Uche was now the only one living at Ikenna’s residence and controlling everything he had access to, which was practically almost everything. How fortunes could change over time. After his parents’ motor accident, I remember being the one who Ikenna implored to live with him until he was back in the country then. He had nothing. Now, he could boast of everything since Ikenna took him like a son.

“Uncle Tarren, I don’t know about you, and I mean no disrespect, but I am still grieving. I really don’t know what you are getting at with all these questions.” “Sorry about that, I only want justice. I would leave you to be. Take care!”

Forensics recorded that not only Frances was in the car that night. My best guess was that She and Luka attempted a getaway before she was shot while trying to escape, and then Luka likely escaped on foot. But why had he not reached out after so long, unless he was shot too and died trying to escape?

But there has been no trace of his body. For Ikenna, he was assumably kidnapped and eventually killed. I could be entirely wrong, and that was why I needed more information from Uche, but the interrogation with Uche did not yield as much result as I had hoped.

Nevertheless, I got enough to open so many other possibilities. I had just found out that no official report had noted that Ikenna’s Toyota Hilux was missing, even though that’s not exactly how Uche put it when I asked. If Ikenna escaped, then that changes the whole narrative for me. I was sure to have a picture that displayed that vehicle’s registration number, so I searched for it. I had a friend trace the number on the national vehicle registration server.

I found out it was now registered with a certain Mr Johnson Ajeh who lived in Warri. That was who I needed to find next and quickly. After nearly 48 hours of searching, I found Mr Johnson Ajeh. It was not easy getting him to come clean, but with some extra words, I got him to. It turns out that he got the car through a black-market auction sale.

Ikenna always spoke about how he loved being involved in such auctions. He would often joke that it was a top item on his bucket list. “He is not dead,” I whispered to myself with conviction and a certain level of disgust brewing almost immediately. But then I had to think harder. The trial was the next day, yet he kept us at bay. '

If he were alive and had not reached out even till this time, then either he would have been really messed up or he believed I alone could have found the missing piece of this whole puzzle. The same missing piece I had thought of all through the night. “Ikenna’s audio diary!” On that day of the trial, I jumped off my bed as early as 4 am and hurriedly searched for it. After nearly 3hours of listening to every word and detail he outlined, I quickly called Emeka, who was already preparing for his appearance at court.

“Emeka, go with everything! Everything! Just as Ikenna prepared it.” “What happened? Did you see anything?” He asked with tension in his voice. “Just trust me. We are almost at the end of this game. I’ll see you in court.”

We had already agreed earlier that if Ikenna did not make the date, he would stand for himself. His wife had been successfully transported back into town, and they were heading to court with some escort. On the other hand, I had to go confirm what I had discovered.

I got into my car and drove down to Ikenna’s residence. Getting there, the gates were slightly open, as well as the entrance door, as I slowly crept into the house. “Why did you do it, Uche?” “It was all you! You were the one spying from the back that night. I’d kill you, Uche.” “Luka!!! Luka, please put the weapon down.” I said, immediately falling to my knees and slowly stretching out my hands, making gestures that indicated my appeal.

Luka got to the house before me. He clearly discovered what I did, too. It was Uche all along, he was the missing piece. He was the one who Odiah penetrated to get to Ikenna. Luka now had a gun pointed at him as he lay on the ground, crying and begging for his life. Still, amid this newly found commotion, my mobile phone rang up. It was Emeka. I had to take the call, still on my knees and trying to calm the situation down. “Tarren, Ikenna is here! How did you know he would show?” “Wait, he showed up? Give him the phone now, please. Tell him Luka is with me.” “Luka, your dad is on the phone…”