Banana Island had always looked like a mirage all glass and silence and manicured deception. The streets were too clean, the air too still. For Elara Bello, it didn't feel like coming home. It felt like walking back into a polished trap. The gates to the Bello mansion opened slowly, as if reluctant to let her in. A black SUV idled in the driveway; windows tinted like secrets. The mansion beyond looked exactly as it had five years ago sprawling white marble, flanked by tall palm trees and hedges that never dared grow wild, Zainab was waiting.
"Welcome, Amina," she said softly, using the name Elara had tried to kill off. The housekeeper's hands were folded, her face a careful mask of warmth.
Elara nodded once, her suitcase rolling behind her like a reluctant shadow. She hadn't stepped inside this house since the night Amara died. Since the scandal. Since she became the family shame. The entryway was as grand as ever glittering chandeliers, expensive Persian rugs, the faint scent of rosewater and something darker beneath. Familiar, too familiar. Footsteps echoed down the marble stairs. Her father, Alhaji Ibrahim Bello, appeared like a figure conjured from a forgotten prayer. His kaftan was crisp, spotless. His presence filled the room — calm, commanding, almost holy in its stillness.
"My daughter returns," he said, his voice smooth as silk but sharp beneath it. "You've grown thinner."
"London has a way of draining people," Elara said, her eyes unreadable.
He embraced her briefly, his cologne clinging to her skin — Tom Ford and authority. When he pulled back, his expression was unreadable. "We are glad you're home." That was a lie and he knew she knew it. From the upper hallway, a figure appeared — her mother, Hajiya Sa'adatu Bello, as elegant and brittle as glass. She wore a pale lilac abaya, her face tired but beautiful, eyes trailing over Elara as if afraid to see too much.
"You must be tired," her mother said. "Zainab will take your bags."
They moved like choreography. Perfect, controlled. A family that knew how to present the illusion of unity. But Elara could feel it — the tension beneath the marble floors. Something had shifted in this house. And she was here to find out what. Her bedroom was untouched. As if her absence had been a rumour, not reality. The same velvet drapes. The same mahogany vanity. Even the worn paperback on the bedside table — The Bell Jar, Amara's favourite — sat where it had always been. She locked the door behind her then moved to the floorboard beneath her bed. With practiced fingers, she pulled it loose. The old purple scarf was still there, wrapped around a leather-bound journal. Amara's journal. The pages smelled of ink and fear.
"He didn't kill Bako.
He just made it impossible for Bako to stay alive.
That's what Father does.
He doesn't murder.
He whispers until you walk into the fire yourself."
Elara's throat tightened. She remembered Amara's voice. The panic. The certainty. She slipped the journal into her bag and re-secured the floorboard. No one could know she had it. Not yet. Dinner was a performance. The dining room was lit like a royal gallery. Crystal glasses. Silverware too heavy to be practical. Khalid, her seventeen-year-old brother, barely looked up from his phone. Her mother sipped at her soup without eating it. Her father, as always, controlled the tempo.
"So," he said casually, slicing into his lamb. "Tell us what really happened in London."
Elara wiped her mouth slowly, then set her napkin down. "My professor crossed a line. He sent messages. Unwanted ones."
"And you attacked him," her father said, his tone mild.
"I told the truth."
"Universities do not suspend students for telling the truth."
Her smile was tight. "They do when the professor has connections."
Silence hung over the table.
"You embarrassed the family," he said finally.
She met his eyes. "Did I? Or did I just become harder to control?"
He didn't flinch. Just set down his fork. "You've always been dramatic."
"I get that from you."
Her mother looked away. Khalid's fingers paused over his screen, then resumed scrolling. Elara knew better than to press. Not here, not yet. That night, she stood on the balcony overlooking the pool. This was where Amara taught her to swim. Where they used to sneak wine stolen from the kitchen. Where Amara whispered, He doesn't need to kill you. He just makes you wish you were dead. The journal was on her lap.
"They think I don't know about Sadiya.
She thought he loved her.
Until the pregnancy.
Until the 'protection.'
He didn't bury her.
He erased her."
There were more entries. Names. Hints. Stories that looked like confessions. It wasn't madness. Amara had been documenting it all, Elara gripped the edge of the book. She hadn't come back to reconcile. She'd come to excavate things. The library was quiet, but Khalid found her there the next morning.
"You need to be careful," he whispered.
She looked up from a worn volume of Hausa poetry.
"Of what?" she asked.
He glanced over his shoulder. "The air vents. The clocks. There are cameras now."
"There weren't before."
"There are now."
Elara sat straighter. "He's watching me?"
"He's watching everyone."
She studied her little brother. His face was sharper than she remembered — more angles, less softness.
"Why are you telling me this?"
He looked away. "Because you're the only one who isn't pretending anymore."
That night, she requested access to the footage of Amara's death. Claimed she wanted closure. Father agreed too quickly and the footage was clipped, sanitized. Amara on the bridge, alone. Then, gone but Elara knew better. She sent the drive to a contact in Ikeja — someone who owed her a favor and asked him to retrieve the missing seconds. When the video came back, her hands shook as she pressed play. There was Amara on the bridge and then her father standing too close not touching, just… speaking. Amara crying then nodding then silence, then — he left and she jumped.
She watched it again and again and again. No push, no force. But Elara knew her father didn't need to kill Amara. He just made sure she couldn't live.
She sat in her bed that night, surrounded by silence. The house was a tomb, the truth was a torch and she was ready to burn the whole legacy down.