Chapter Four: Hostage
“You think you can use me and dump me? After everything I did for you? I gave you my sweat, my youth, my life!”
“Samuel, you’re scaring me,” she whimpered, backing into the living room.
Her mother, a frail woman in her 50s, appeared from the kitchen. “My son, abeg, calm down. We can talk this out. Please.”
“Talk?” Samuel barked, locking the front door. “Talk is what I wanted four months ago. You gave me silence.”
He took Chiamaka’s phone, turned it off, and threw it to the ground. He closed the curtains and pulled a dining chair under the handle of the front door. It was obvious he was out of his mind.
The hours crawled. Chiamaka sat on the couch, trembling. Her mother tried praying aloud, but he barked at her to stop.
“I just want her to admit what she did,” he said. “Tell me the truth, Chiamaka. Did you ever love me? Or was I just your ATM?”
She didn’t answer. Tears ran down her cheeks. That silence—the same silence that haunted his nights—sent him into another rage.
He smashed a flower vase against the wall.
Outside, neighbors had heard the disturbance. A child who came to check and was chased off by Samuel. Minutes later, police vehicles pulled up in the distance.
