“She is weak already,” Madam Hannah said. “The girl barely eats. Everyone already believes she is sick from stress.”
Mirabel watched Jerry’s face carefully as if bracing for him to deny what his ears were hearing.
“I have waited five years,” Madam Hannah continued. “Five years without a child. My son is the last of this family name. That woman will not bury my lineage.”
Jerry felt something crack inside him, like an old bone breaking.
“If the food fails,” Madam Hannah’s voice went on, casually, “the boys will handle the rest. A robbery gone wrong. Lagos is unsafe these days.”
The doctor’s voice returned, nervous. “And my role?”
“You will certify the death,” Madam Hannah replied. “Natural complications. I will compensate you properly.”
The recording ended.
The garden suddenly felt too quiet. Even the birds sounded far away, as if they’d moved to another world out of respect.
Jerry didn’t move.
He couldn’t.
He stared ahead like a man watching his childhood collapse in slow motion.
He remembered his mother feeding him as a child, smoothing his school uniform, defending him when he fought boys older than him, holding his hand at his father’s burial, promising she would never let the world swallow him.
She had been strong.
Protective.
Unbreakable.
And now that same voice had arranged murder with the calm of someone ordering groceries.
Jerry pressed his palms against his face.
“This… this is edited,” he said weakly, though even he didn’t believe it.
Mirabel shook her head gently.
“There’s more.”
She tapped another file.
The second recording began. The doctor again, lower, uneasy.
“I cannot keep her here long. Someone may ask questions.”
Madam Hannah answered immediately: “Declare her dead tomorrow morning. I will arrange the morgue. After burial, nobody will question anything.”
Jerry’s chest tightened painfully.
“And the husband?” the doctor asked.
A pause.
Then Madam Hannah sighed like someone bored.
“My son trusts me completely.”
That sentence stabbed deeper than the rest.
Not because it was cruel, but because it was true.
The recording stopped.
Jerry stood abruptly, walked a few steps, stopped, walked again, as if movement could outrun betrayal.
He turned back sharply.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” he demanded, voice shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”
Mirabel’s eyes filled again.
“I tried,” she said. “You were on the flight to London. Your phone was off. And after I heard the second part of her plan, I knew I wouldn’t survive the night.”
Jerry swallowed.
“So you… pretended to die?”
Mirabel nodded.
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