Chapter 3 - The Broken VowsBack at the house, the silence was deafening.
It was the same house I had painted with my own hands three years ago, using the profits from selling off half the land my cooperative had helped me secure in my maiden name. Chuka had insisted on registering the title deeds in his sole corporate name under the pretext of “saving legal paperwork for tax purposes,” and foolishly, out of love, I had let him.
“When I am a senior advocate, Amara, your name will be on every building we touch,” he had promised me back then, holding my calloused hands across our wooden kitchen table.
Now, those words tasted like ash.
I walked straight past the modern leather sofas Chuka had recently bought with his new high-society retainer fees, bypassed the glass-paneled study where he practiced his courtroom speeches, and knelt down in front of the master bedroom wardrobe.
I slid my hand beneath the wooden floorboard of the bottom compartment, releasing the hidden latch.
Click.
I pulled out a heavy, dusty blue metal box. Its corners were slightly rusted from the damp rainy seasons we had survived in our old rented room, but the latch was firm and secure.
I carried it to the dining table, sat down, and slid the brass key into the lock.
Inside lay a complete, flawless financial history of Chuka’s entire existence.
There were receipt slips from the cooperative society loans I had taken out in 2012; pawnshop tickets from when I surrendered my mother’s gold chain to pay for Chuka’s first semester tuition; bank deposit slips proving I funded the initial office lease for his law chambers; and, most importantly, a signed, handwritten promissory note from Chuka himself, dated eight years ago, swearing to repay every single kobo with interest once his firm turned a profit.
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I opened my laptop, plugged in a portable scanner, and began digitizing every single page.
Let them bring their lies to the next hearing, I thought quietly, watching the high-resolution digital files save one by one. I am going to bring an entire paper trail.
