Chapter 5 - Someone Wanted the Twins Gone
Dr. Victor canceled the procedure before Shola ever arrived at the hospital.
He refused to explain details over the phone.
When they met, he looked furious.
“Someone changed your chart.”
“What procedure?”
“A prenatal intervention that was not medically indicated.”
“Could it hurt the babies?”
Victor paused.
“If performed based on false information, yes.”
Femi stood so quickly his chair fell.
“Who entered it?”
“A senior scheduling account.”
“Name.”
“Femi.”
“Name.”
Victor looked at Shola instead.
She nodded.
“Dr. Lara Okafor.”
Shola recognized the surname.
Lara was Auntie Yemisi's goddaughter.
Femi went completely still.
Security footage showed Lara accessing the hospital after hours.
She had not personally altered the file from her account.
She used a terminal assigned to a nurse on leave.
When confronted, Lara denied wrongdoing.
Then requested a lawyer.
The hospital suspended her.
Within twelve hours, she disappeared.
Her passport was flagged.
She never reached the airport.
Police found her car abandoned near Lekki.
Inside was Chuka's second phone.
Now the corporate scandal and the threat to Shola's pregnancy became one investigation.
Chuka vanished too.
Yemisi remained publicly calm.
Her attorney issued a statement condemning “reckless accusations against respected members of a grieving family.”
Grandpa Williams reacted differently.
He summoned the family council.
Then collapsed halfway through the meeting.
For terrifying minutes, everyone believed he was dying.
He survived.
Stress-induced arrhythmia.
When Shola visited, the old man squeezed her hand.
“I caused this.”
“No.”
“I forced the marriage.”
“You forced people into a room and behaved like a stubborn goat.”
He laughed weakly.
“Yes.”
“But you did not make anyone steal money or threaten children.”
Williams looked toward Femi.
“I wanted him to have family so badly that I stopped asking whether the family around him was good.”
Femi sat beside the bed.
Grandpa turned to him.
“There is something you must know.”
Williams explained that after Femi's parents died, Yemisi took temporary voting authority because Femi was too young and Williams was ill.
Temporary became permanent through a series of amendments.
Williams had always believed those changes were necessary.
Now he suspected many documents had been misrepresented.
“There was one person your mother trusted more than the lawyers,” Williams said.
“Dele?”
“No.”
He looked at Shola.
“Bisi.”
Shola's breath caught.
Her mother.
Williams remembered her now.
Bisi had once brought a payroll report directly to Femi's mother, Nneka Ademola.
Nneka believed her.
Together they discovered retirement contributions being shifted into risky private investments.
Adewale, Femi's father, planned to disclose everything to regulators.
The accident happened two days before the meeting.
Again, Williams refused to call it murder.
“We never proved sabotage.”
“But Yemisi benefited,” Femi said.
“Yes.”
Williams closed his eyes.
“And I was too broken to ask enough questions.”
Shola went home carrying grief she thought she had already buried.
She sat beside Lucas—no, there is no Lucas here. Wait wrong story. Need keep Femi. She sat alone perhaps. Femi comes. Let's continue correctly.
Femi found her on the balcony.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good. I hate when you lie.”
She almost smiled.
“My mother never told me any of this.”
“Maybe she was protecting you.”
“Or maybe she was ashamed she lost.”
Femi sat beside her.
“She didn't lose.”
“She was fired. We struggled for years. She died without seeing anyone held accountable.”
“She raised you.”
“That doesn't pay back what they did to her.”
“No.”
He looked at the city.
“But maybe revenge isn't the only way to measure whether someone won.”
Shola rested both hands over the twins.
The next morning she made a decision.
“I want to finish what my mother started.”
Femi misunderstood.
“I'll give you access to every company record.”
“No.”
“What?”
“I want to join the independent audit team.”
“You are pregnant.”
“I noticed.”
“Shola.”
“I studied business administration. I understand payroll reconciliation. I found the ghost invoices before your executives did.”
He knew she was right.
“You'll work remotely.”
“Reasonable.”
“With security.”
“Also reasonable.”
“You will stop if Victor says stop.”
She smiled.
“Now you're learning negotiation.”
The audit uncovered a second layer.
The stolen pension money had not merely financed private investments.
It had purchased shares in Sterling Group during periods when the company's value fell.
Someone had used employees' own retirement money to accumulate voting influence over the company employing them.
Morrow Holdings.
The stewardship foundation.
Yemisi.
If the twins were born, the succession trust would reclaim those shares for Femi's branch of the family.
If the pregnancy ended before viable birth, Yemisi retained influence.
The motive was brutally simple.
Power.
Then Dele found an old bank transfer.
Fifteen years earlier.
Three days after Femi's parents died.
A large emergency payment left Harbor Meridian.
Recipient:
A mechanic employed by the transport company that serviced the Ademola family vehicles.
Femi stared at the name.
“Find him.”
The mechanic, Sunday Bako, was still alive.
He ran a small garage outside Ibadan.
Federal financial investigators approached him.
At first he denied everything.
Then they showed the transfer.
Sunday began shaking.
He had not sabotaged the car.
That mattered.
Instead, Yemisi's logistics manager had paid him to destroy maintenance records after the accident because the vehicle had a known tire recall.
The parents' deaths had been preventable.
Not murder.
Negligence.
Sterling executives knew the tires were unsafe and delayed replacement to reduce costs across the fleet.
After Adewale and Nneka died, Yemisi covered it up to avoid corporate liability.
Femi sat in silence after hearing the truth.
For years he had imagined a mysterious enemy.
The reality was uglier.
His parents died because people saved money.
Then the family protected the company instead of telling the truth.
“Was Yemisi responsible for the decision?” Shola asked.
The investigator nodded.
“She approved postponing the recall work.”
Femi left the room.
He vomited in the bathroom.
That evening, he removed every photograph of Sterling Group from his bedroom.
Not his parents.
The company.
“I spent fifteen years protecting the thing they died because of.”
Shola stood beside him.
“You didn't know.”
“I didn't ask.”
“You were nineteen.”
“I am not nineteen now.”
He looked at her.
“So I am going to fix it.”
The next morning, Femi announced an independent restitution program for workers whose pension funds had been diverted.
The board revolted.
Sterling shares plunged.
Three directors demanded his resignation.
And Auntie Yemisi made her move.
By sunset, an emergency board meeting had been called.
The agenda had one item.
May you like
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Removal of Femi Ademola as Chief Executive Officer.
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