Kelechi stood still in the white hallway, surrounded by silence so sterile it felt unnatural.
The walls were too clean. The air too still. Seyi had been wheeled away down one of the glass corridors without a word, swallowed by the quiet efficiency of people who didn't speak her language—because they didn't need to.
The man in the coat stood beside her, arms crossed behind his back. Patient. Smug.
"I want to see her first," Kelechi said, voice low.
"You will."
"When?"
He turned toward her. "When we're done here."
A steel door ahead hissed open. He walked in without waiting.
She followed.
The room looked like a boardroom dressed as a lab. A giant screen lit up the far wall. Maps. Codes. Surveillance stills—one of them showed her stepping out of a danfo, clutching Seyi's lunch, smiling faintly.
The timestamp was two weeks ago.
Kelechi swallowed hard. "You really don't leave people alone, do you?"
"We don't like surprises," he replied.
He tapped the table once. A file slid across to her, smooth and clinical. She didn't reach for it.
"You think I'll just do this?" she asked. "Betray everything I've worked for?"
"Worked for?" he echoed, almost amused. "The hospital pays you barely enough to eat. You log long hours, clean up messes, and they still let someone walk in and attack your sister. We're offering something better."
"You're offering control."
"We're offering power."
There it was.
Kelechi stepped back, needing distance.
He didn't follow. Just tilted his head. "You're angry. You should be. But anger fades. What doesn't fade is desperation. You want your sister alive? Healthy? Out of the country, safe? That doesn't come free."
The screen shifted.
Seyi. In a hospital bed. Monitors beeping slow and steady.
Something in Kelechi's chest cracked open.
"You drugged her," she said softly. "You're keeping her under on purpose."
"No," he said. "What's wrong with your sister started before tonight."
Kelechi turned sharply. "What are you talking about?"
The man picked up the file and flipped it open. Slid it back to her.
It was Seyi's scan.
Brain.
Lesions.
Microbleeds.
"She's sick," he said. "And no one caught it. Not even you. But we did. Early enough to try something."
Kelechi's heart dropped into her stomach.
"What kind of something?"
He smiled faintly.
"That depends on how badly you want her to live."