Peter didn't go to Fess's.
He drove. He drove past the glowing towers of Victoria Island, past the sleeping sprawl of Ikeja, until he found himself on the empty, winding road of the Lekki-Epe Expressway late at night. He pulled over on a dark stretch overlooking the inky void of the lagoon, cut the engine, and let the silence swallow him.
The tears didn't come. He was past that. He was in a cold, clear space of absolute desolation. His father's shattered look, Michael's disgust, the vile lie now rooted in his own home it played like a film on the black water outside. Akanbi had done it. With money, whispers, and a perfectly crafted lie, he had turned Peter's refuge into a prison of shame and exiled him from it.
His phone buzzed again, a relentless predator in the dark.
Fess: Guy, where you dey? Your brother called me. He said you had a fight and you might come here. Wetin happen?? Call me now!
Peter didn't reply. He couldn't drag Fess into this black hole. Akanbi would chew him up and spit him out just for fun.
Another buzz. The unknown number.
Unknown: The lagoon is cold and deep. But my offer is still warm. A temporary solution. While you... reconsider your position.
The bastard was monitoring him, or perhaps just predicting his despair with chilling accuracy. The offer of the cage was now a taunt. Reconsider your position. He wanted surrender. He wanted Peter to crawl to that spare bedroom with the locks on the outside and submit.
A white-hot rage, purer than any he'd felt before, ignited in the void. It burned away the despair. No. He would not crawl. If he was going down, he would go down forcing Akanbi to look him in the eye.
He started the car, wheels spinning on the gravel. He wasn't running anymore. He was charging headlong into the heart of the beast.
Akanbi was in his penthouse, enjoying a nightcap of satisfaction. Rachel had reported her success with clinical precision. The brother was broken, the father was defeated, the target was isolated. The second lesson reputation and family had been delivered flawlessly.
He was contemplating the third lesson the one that would strip Peter of his last vestiges of hope, perhaps involving a call to the banks that financed Emmanuel & Sons' shipments when his intercom buzzed.
"Sir," his night security's tense voice came through. "There's a Mr. Peter Emmanuel in the lobby. He's... insistent. He says he needs to see you right now."
Akanbi's eyebrows lifted. He hadn't expected the prey to deliver itself to the den so soon. This was better than he'd hoped. The breaking point was closer than he thought.
"Send him up," he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. He didn't bother changing out of his silk robe. Let the boy see him at his most powerful, his most casually dominant.
When the elevator doors opened, Peter looked like a man emerging from a war zone. His clothes were rumpled, his eyes were shadowed, but they burned with a fierce, untamed light. There was no fear in them. Only fury.
"Peter. To what do I owe this... unexpected visit?" Akanbi said, gesturing him in. He didn't offer a seat.
Peter stepped into the vast, cold living room but didn't move far from the door. He looked around, at the obscene wealth, the art, the view that commanded Lagos, as if seeing the source of the poison.
"You won," Peter said, his voice rough but steady.
"I tend to," Akanbi replied, taking a sip of his brandy.
"My brother believes your lie. My father can't look at me. I have no home." Peter listed the facts without emotion. "Is this enough? Or does lesson three involve putting me in the boot of a car at the bottom of that lagoon?" He nodded toward the window.
Akanbi chuckled, a low, dark sound. "So dramatic. The lagoon is for common problems. You are... uncommon." He set his glass down and walked toward Peter, stopping just inside his personal space. "Lesson three is simple. It's acceptance."
Peter didn't flinch. "Acceptance of what?"
"Of your new reality. The reality where I own the air you breathe." Akanbi reached out, and this time, he didn't brush lint. He caught a fold of Peter's shirt between his fingers, his knuckles grazing Peter's chest. Peter stiffened, but held his ground. "The business will fail within six months. Your family's name will be a whisper followed by a sneer. Unless."
"Unless I get into the spare bedroom with the locks on the outside," Peter finished, his gaze locked on Akanbi's.
"It doesn't have to be a cage, Peter. It can be a very gilded suite. All your needs met. My protection extended to your family a stay of execution, so to speak. All I want in return is what I wanted from the beginning. You. Your time. Your attention. Your... surrender."
He said the last word into the space between them, his breath ghosting over Peter's face. The manipulation was complete, stripped bare of all pretense. It was a transaction of flesh for survival.
Peter was silent for a long moment, just breathing, staring into the eyes of the man who had destroyed his life for sport. Then, a strange, almost peaceful smile touched his lips. It was the most terrifying thing Akanbi had seen all night.
"You know," Peter said softly, "I finally understand you. You're not a king. You're a thief. You steal things companies, reputations, people's wills because you have nothing of your own. No heart. No soul. Just an empty vault you try to fill with broken things."
Akanbi's calm façade fissured. The pity was back. The one thing he could not abide. His hand tightened on the shirt. "You are in no position to philosophize, you little-"
"I'm not finished," Peter cut him off, his voice gaining strength. "You think this is you breaking me? This is you showing me what you are. And I reject it. I reject your deal. I reject your cage. I reject you."
He leaned forward, so their faces were inches apart, his burning eyes daring Akanbi to look away. "So do your worst, Akanbi. Sink the business. Ruin the name. I will be there, watching it burn. And I will wear my poverty and my shame like a crown, because it will be the proof that I never bowed to you. You will have nothing of me. Not my body, not my fear, and definitely not my soul. You will spend your life surrounded by things you bought and people you broke, and you will always, always be empty. And I will be free."
He yanked his shirt from Akanbi's grasp, the fabric tearing slightly with the force.
Akanbi stood frozen. The script had shattered. He had offered the final deal, the capitulation that always came, and Peter had not just refused he had spat on it and lit it on fire. He saw not a broken man, but a martyr choosing the pyre. And in that choice, Peter had stolen his victory.
Rage, pure and blinding, erupted in Akanbi. The cold manipulator vanished, replaced by the freaky, obsessive core. The obsession curdled into something violent.
"You think this is a game of words? Of pride?" Akanbi's voice was a guttural snarl. He grabbed Peter by the front of his torn shirt and shoved him back against the wall with a force that knocked the air from his lungs. "Who do you think you're to talk to me like that and reject my offer
Peter gasped, but his smile never wavered, even as Akanbi's hand pressed against his throat. "I Just Did."
Something in Akanbi snapped. The desire to possess, to break, to own, fused into a single, irreversible impulse. If he could not have Peter's willing surrender, he would take his broken defiance.
The kiss was not seduction. It was an assault. A violent claiming, meant to punish, to defile, to finally imprint his will on the infuriating man who refused to bend. It was the final, ugly reveal of the obsession Peter had named.
For a second, Peter was rigid, trapped. Then, he didn't struggle. He went utterly still. And when Akanbi, driven by a frenzy he no longer controlled, finally pulled back, breathing heavily, expecting to see shock or tears...
...he saw only cold, triumphant revulsion.
Peter slowly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes like chips of frozen amber.
"There," Peter whispered, the word a death knell. "Now you've done it. Now you've shown yourself to yourself. How does it feel, Akanbi? To want a man so badly you have to try to steal a kiss from him like a thug in an alley? All this power... and you're just a pathetic, lonely freak."
Akanbi recoiled as if scorched. The truth of the act, stripped of all his careful narratives, laid bare by Peter's unflinishing eyes, was a mirror he couldn't bear. He had not conquered. He had confessed. And Peter held the confession.
Peter straightened his torn shirt, his gaze never leaving Akanbi's stricken face. "Do your worst. I'll be waiting."
He turned and walked back to the elevator, his steps even. He didn't look back.
The elevator doors closed, leaving Akanbi alone in the silent, multi-billion-naira penthouse. He stared at the spot where Peter had stood. The taste of him of struggle and salt and victory that wasn't his was still on his lips.
He had wanted to break Peter.
Instead,Peter had held up a mirror and broken the only thing Akanbi had left: the illusion of his own control.
The hunt was over.
The predator had bitten the scorpion,and the poison was now in his own veins.