Chapter Sixteen: The Debt That Saved My Life

People often say that kindness never goes unrewarded.

I never truly believed those words...

Until the day they saved my life.

It was a quiet Wednesday evening in Abuja.

The sun had already begun to set when my security detail informed me that a young man was insisting on seeing me.

"Does he have an appointment?" I asked.

"No, sir."

"What does he want?"

"He refused to tell us."

I glanced at my watch.

Normally, I would have asked them to send him away.

For some reason, I didn't.

"Bring him in."

A few minutes later, a young man in his early twenties walked into my office.

He looked nervous.

His eyes darted around the room as though he expected someone to be watching him.

I offered him a seat.

"You said you wanted to see me."

He remained standing.

"No, sir..."

His voice trembled.

"I came to save your life."

My smile disappeared.

"What did you say?"

He swallowed hard.

"Please..."

"Before I say anything else..."

"I want to thank you."

I frowned.

"I don't even know you."

"You don't."

"But years ago...... You saved my mother."

Confusion spread across my face.

He reached into his wallet and pulled out an old hospital receipt.

The moment I saw the name, memories came flooding back.

Nearly three years earlier, while driving home from a project site, I had stopped to help an elderly woman who had collapsed by the roadside. She needed urgent  surgery, and without thinking twice, I paid every hospital bill before quietly leaving.

I never asked for her name.

I never expected to see her again.

The young man smiled sadly.

"She's my mother."

I stared at him.

"She prays for you every single day."

Emotion caught in my throat.

"How is she now?"

"She's alive because of you."

Silence filled the office.

Then his expression changed.

"But that's not why I'm here."

He looked over his shoulder before lowering his voice.

"Someone paid me to kill you."

Every muscle in my body became tense.

"What?"

He nodded.

"I've done terrible things in my life, I'm not proud of them."

"But I can't repay kindness with evil."

I slowly stood from my chair.

"Who sent you?"

The young man hesitated.

Then he removed his phone.

"I knew you wouldn't believe me."

"So..."

"...I recorded everything."

He pressed play.

A video filled the screen.

The footage showed the young man sitting inside a parked vehicle with two people whose faces were clearly visible.

Andrew whom i called  my best friend and Chinelo.

My heart stopped.

Andrew's voice came through the recording.

"We don't want unnecessary attention."

The young man in the recording asked calmly,

"And if the job goes wrong?"

Andrew answered,

"It must not."

Then Chinelo spoke.

"We'll transfer the agreed payment once we receive confirmation that it's done and make sure he's dead before you leave."

My hands began to shake.

I couldn't breathe.

I watched the recording again.

And again.

Each time, I prayed it wasn't real.

Each time... It remained the same.

My best friend. The boy who had once cried beneath a mango tree because he feared losing me...

Was sitting across from a man he believed was an assassin.

Planning my death.

The video ended,the room fell into complete silence.

I sank slowly into my chair.

"No..."

I whispered.

"This can't be Andrew."

The young man lowered his head.

"I'm sorry."

Tears gathered in my eyes.

"I trusted him."

"I know."

"I gave him everything."

"I know."

"I called him my brother."

The young man remained silent.

After a long moment, he spoke again.

"They believe I'll carry out the job within the next forty-eight hours."

I looked up.

"What do I do?"

"You disappear."

"What?"

"You must leave Abuja tonight."

I stared at him.

"They'll keep watching until they believe you're dead,If you remain here.....they'll send someone else."

He placed the phone on my desk.

"Keep the video."

"I've made several copies."

"If anything happens to me, trusted people already know where to find them."

I looked at him in disbelief.

"Why would you risk your own life for me?"

He smiled faintly.

"Because years ago....you risked your wealth to save my mother's life."

He stood.

"Sir..."

"Sometimes surviving isn't about fighting."

"It's about staying alive long enough for the truth to come out."

I looked around my office,the office I had built.

The city I called home. The life I loved.

Then I thought of Bukunmi,of Tolulope and Toluwani.

They were now in danger too.

The young man took a step toward the door before turning back one last time.

"My advice..."

He spoke with quiet urgency.

"Leave Abuja tonight."

"Tell no one except those you trust with your life."

"And for a while..."

"You must become a dead man."

The door closed behind him.

I sat alone in the silence.

The video continued to play on my desk.

Andrew's face filled the screen.

The same face that had laughed with me as a child...

The same face I had embraced after years apart...

The same face I had trusted with my business...

Now looked back at me like a stranger.

That night...I finally understood the Yoruba proverb my adopted mother had tried to teach me all those years ago.

"Ẹyìnkùlé l'ọta wà, inú ilé làṣẹ̀ní ń gbé."

The enemy I had feared all my life had never been far away.

He had been sitting at my table...

Calling me brother, Am so done for.