Chapter 1

Korevia, Nerovia ~ Easter Night, 2027

The air smelled of smoke and burning meat.

Children laughed in the streets, their faces smeared with chocolate, their pockets stuffed with candy from the Easter carnival. Fireworks burst in the sky, painting the night in flashes of red and gold, each explosion a celebration of resurrection and hope.

Church bells rang in the distance, a joyful chorus that echoed across the city, calling the faithful to midnight mass. The sound of music—Afrobeats, gospel, the thumping bass of street parties—drifted through open windows, mixing with the aroma of jollof rice and grilled fish and the sweet perfume of celebration.

It was Easter night in Korevia, and the city was alive.

But inside the Onimisi household, there was no laughter. No joy.

Only silence.

A heavy, suffocating silence that pressed down on eight-year-old Ava Onimisi like a physical weight, crushing the air from her lungs, making her heart pound against her ribs like a trapped bird. She crouched behind the worn leather sofa, her small hands clamped over her mouth so tightly her knuckles had turned white.

Her knees were pressed against her chest, making herself as small as possible, as invisible as fear could make her. The dust motes danced in the sliver of moonlight that filtered through the gap in the thick curtains, and the smell of her mother's perfume—jasmine and shea butter—still lingered on the air, a ghost of the woman who had hugged her goodnight just hours ago.

She was eight years old, and she had just learned what fear truly was.

It wasn't the darkness. It wasn't the stories the older kids told about ghosts and witches.

It wasn't even the nightmares that sometimes jolted her awake in a cold sweat, the ones where she was falling, always falling, with nothing to catch her.

True fear was the sound of her father's voice cracking like broken glass, the desperate plea of a proud man reduced to begging.

"Please… we have nothing!"

His voice was raw, desperate, stripped of the proud dignity that usually defined him. He was a man who stood tall, who commanded respect, who taught Ava that an Onimisi never begs, never grovels, never shows weakness.

But tonight, he was on his knees. She could hear it in the way his words trembled, in the way his breath came in ragged gasps.

A boot slammed into his ribs. A sickening crack echoed through the room—the sound of bone giving way, of a man's body breaking.

Ava flinched but didn't make a sound. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip until she tasted copper, the metallic tang flooding her mouth.

Don't cry. Don't cry.

Don't make a sound. Don't move.

Don't breathe.

Her mother was sobbing now, begging in a language Ava didn't understand. Yorun, maybe, or something older—a prayer, a curse, a plea to a God who seemed to have abandoned them.

The words were frantic, desperate, the last refuge of a woman who had run out of options. The men didn't care.

They wore black masks, their eyes empty holes in the darkness, voids where humanity should have been. There were three of them.

Maybe four. Ava had lost count after the first gunshot, after the blood had started spreading across the white tile floor like spilled wine.

One of them grabbed her mother by the hair, yanking her head back, exposing the pale column of her throat. Her mother's scream was cut short by the grip on her hair, reduced to a choked whimper.

"Where is it?" the man hissed, his voice low and thick with an accent she couldn't place. Foreign.

Angry and impatient.

The voice of a man who had done this before, who had learned that fear was the most effective tool of all.

"I don't—I don't know what you're talking about!" her mother choked out, tears streaming down her face, her body trembling with terror. "Please, we have children!

Let me get my children! They're just babies—"

A gunshot.

The sound was deafening in the small room, a thunderclap that seemed to suck all the air from Ava's lungs. Her mother's body hit the floor with a sound Ava would never forget—a wet, heavy thud, like a bag of rice slipping from a market woman's grasp.

Blood spread across the white tile floor like spilled ink, dark and final, creeping toward the sofa where Ava hid. It pooled around her mother's head, staining her beautiful hair, her beautiful face, her beautiful life.

Ava's world shattered.

Her father screamed. Not a word.

Just a sound—a primal, guttural roar of a man whose soul had just been ripped from his body. It was the sound of a heart breaking, of a spirit dying, of a man who had just lost everything that mattered.

Another gunshot. Then silence.

Ava bit down on her tongue until she tasted fresh copper, the pain sharp and grounding. Don't make a sound.

Don't move. Don't breathe.

The men tore through the house, flipping furniture, smashing picture frames, ripping cushions from chairs. They were looking for something—a document, a drive, a key, a secret that her parents had died to protect.

They spoke in sharp, urgent bursts, words she didn't understand, codes she couldn't crack. One of them stepped right past her hiding spot, his boot so close she could see the scuff marks on the leather, could smell the gun oil on his clothes, could feel the heat radiating from his body.

If he turned his head just a little—

Click.

A door creaked open.

Ava's heart stopped.

Her baby brother, Daniel—stupid, reckless, beautiful Daniel—peeked out from the hallway closet. His face was tear-streaked, his eyes wide with a terror no four-year-old should ever know.

He clutched his favorite stuffed rabbit to his chest, the one Mama had sewn for him when he was born, the one he couldn't sleep without. His lips were parted, and Ava knew—knew—he was about to call out for Mama.

One of the masked men turned toward the sound.

Ava didn't think.

Her body moved before her mind could catch up, years of instinct she didn't know she had surging to the surface. She lunged from behind the sofa, her small body a missile of desperate fury, a sister's love turned into a weapon.

"RUN, DANNY! RUN!"

The man grabbed her by the arm, yanking her off her feet like she weighed nothing. She kicked, scratched, bit—anything to buy her brother another second, anything to give him a chance.

Her teeth sank into the meat of his hand, and she tasted blood and salt and victory. She clawed at his face, her nails raking across his skin, leaving bloody furrows.

A backhand sent her crashing into the wall.

White pain exploded behind her eyes, bright and blinding, like fireworks going off inside her skull. Her head cracked against the plaster, and for a moment, the world went soft and fuzzy at the edges.

Her vision blurred, doubled, swam with tears and she refused to shed.

Through the haze, she saw Daniel's small figure dart out the back door, his little legs pumping, his stuffed rabbit trailing behind him like a flag of surrender. He disappeared into the darkness of the compound, into the maze of narrow alleys and shadowed corners, into the vast, chaotic city that would swallow him whole.

Run, Danny. Don't look back.

Don't ever look back.

The last thing she saw before darkness swallowed her was the masked man turning to follow her brother. Another man stopped him with a hand on his chest, his voice calm and measured, terrifying in its lack of emotion.

"No," the second man said, his voice flat and final. "The girl is enough.

We have what we need."

A lie. They had nothing.

They were killed for nothing. But Ava didn't know that yet.

All she knew was darkness—thick, suffocating, absolute—closing in like a fist, squeezing the light from her world.

Then nothing.

YEARS LATER

The sun rose over Korevia like it always did—unbothered, unforgiving, and spectacularly indifferent to the struggles of the millions below. It painted the sky in shades of gold and orange, a masterpiece that would go unnoticed by the millions who were too busy surviving to appreciate it.

It was a busy day. Every citizen of Korevia was moving about their business, caught up in the endless dance of survival that defined life in Afreya's largest city.

Market women shouted over one another, their voices rising in a symphony of negotiation and complaints. Businessmen in pressed shirts hurried past, phones pressed to their ears, barking orders at underlings who were already three steps behind.

Little children balanced trays of pure water and groundnuts on their heads, their voices rising in practiced, melodic chants.

Pure water! Pure water!

Twenty solari!

Agberos—the touts who ruled the streets with a mixture of intimidation and charm—hung around bus stops, collecting their unofficial taxes from drivers who had no choice but to pay. The danfo buses, painted in wild patterns of yellow and black, belched smoke as they wove through traffic, conductors hanging out the open doors, shouting destinations.

"Oshodi! Oshodi!

Who dey go Oshodi?!"

This was Korevia. Chaotic.

Corrupt. Beautiful.

Terrible. A city that could swallow you whole or lift you to the sky, depending on which way the wind blew.

A city that had been the backdrop for Ava's greatest joy and her deepest sorrow.

Moving into the city center, everywhere was busy too. Bankers and secretaries rushed to beat the clock, knowing the wrath of a boss kept waiting.

The rich ones glided past in their tinted SUVs, air conditioners blasting, oblivious to the sweat and struggle outside. Others boarded taxis, bargaining hard with drivers who always seemed to have an extra passenger already sitting in the front seat.

A woman crossed the road recklessly, her oversized bag swinging, her eyes fixed on something across the street. A moving car screeched to a halt, tires smoking, barely avoiding a collision.

"Make una no vex o!" the woman pleaded, waving her hand apologetically.

The driver leaned out his window, his face twisted with fury. "Madam, dey look where you dey go na!

You blind?"

"Na you blind con deaf join!" the woman fired back, her apology vanishing like morning dew. "If not, you for hear when I dey beg!

No carry your family matter put for pesin head, ahbeg!"

The people nearby burst into laughter. This was entertainment—free, unfiltered, and deeply Nerovian.

The kind of spontaneous drama that made Korevia the most alive city on the continent.

"You no well!" the man hissed, shaking his head as he drove away.

The woman adjusted her bag and continued crossing, muttering under her breath about mad drivers who didn't know road courtesy. The crowd dispersed, the show over, the city returning to its relentless rhythm.

This was Nerovia. Where you could pick a fight with a complete stranger over absolutely nothing, then share a drink with them an hour later like old friends.

Where the leaders were corrupt, so the citizens had learned to be toxic right back. It was a country that ran on contradiction—faith and fraud, community and cutthroat competition, deep tradition and deeper desperation.

At the top floor of a gleaming skyscraper in Vitoria Heights, a man stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring down at the busy city with his hands in his pockets. The glass was cool against his palms, a stark contrast to the heat of the sun that streamed through it.

He was in his late forties, with the kind of face that had once graced television screens and YouTube thumbnails across the nation. The kind of face that people recognized, that they associated with laughter and good times and the absurdity of Nerovian life.

He was dressed in a blue tuxedo trouser and a white shirt left unbuttoned at the collar, revealing a bare chest that spoke of confidence more than carelessness. The outfit was expensive, tailored, and designed to impress.

Emmanuel Chukuebuka.

Every average Nerovian knew him as 'Brainjotter'—one of the most famous skit makers of his youthful days. He had made millions making people laugh, had built an empire on comedy and timing and an uncanny ability to capture the absurdity of Nerovian life.

But laughter didn't pay like it used to. The algorithms had changed, the attention spans had shortened, and the money that had once flowed so freely had slowed to a trickle.

And empires, Emmanuel had learned, required constant feeding.

So he diversified.

A knock came at the door, and he turned as a young man entered. Fred—his assistant, his errand boy, his keeper of secrets.

Fred was loyal, which was more important than competence. In Emmanuel's line of work, loyalty was the only currency that couldn't be counterfeited.

Fred had been with him for six years, had seen him at his best and his worst, and had never once wavered.

"What is it, Fred?" Emmanuel asked, turning back to the window. He preferred to conduct business with his back turned.

It unnerved people. Made them nervous.

Nervous people made mistakes.

"Good news, sir." Fred's voice was bright with excitement, the kind of excitement that came from delivering good tidings. "We got a reply from the clan."

Emmanuel turned sharply, his eyes narrowing. The clan.

The Russians. The faceless men who had reached out to him six months ago with an offer he couldn't refuse.

They had promised him power, influence, the kind of wealth that would make his comedy empire look like pocket change. In exchange, they wanted his connections, his access, his willingness to look the other way.

"What?" He was already moving, crossing the room with quick, eager strides.

Fred crossed to the table and dropped a document on the glossy mahogany surface. The folder was thick, unmarked, heavy with promise.

The kind of folder that changed lives.

Emmanuel opened the documents and started flipping through the files, his eyes scanning each page with the intensity of a man who knew his life depended on the details. The papers were filled with credentials, biometrics, training history, a list of successful operations that read like a movie script.

"Sharp..." he muttered, scanning a page of qualifications. "Sharp..." Another page, this one detailing combat experience.

"Sharp..."

"This is good," he said, leaning back, a slow smile spreading across his face. "What God cannot do..."

"Cannot exist," Fred finished, completing the familiar phrase with a grin.

"I go lie for you?" Emmanuel sniffed, a smile tugging at his lips. He closed the folder and looked up at Fred, his expression shifting from amusement to business.

"The package will be arriving at 2pm?"

"Yes, sir. I'm..."

"It's 12 already." Emmanuel cut him off, his voice shifting into command mode. The comedian was gone.