Chapter 22: The Devil’s Bargain and the Unspoken Truth

The email sat on Yuhan's laptop screen, cold and glaring.

"Urgent. Client has information on Shen Mochen. She requests a private meeting. Says she has proof — real proof — of his involvement in... everything."

It was from Li Meili's public defender. The woman who once laughed at him across expensive restaurant tables, now begging to speak from behind bars.

Yuhan didn't move for a long moment. His eyes dropped to the old, faded land deed on his desk. Then the scattered pages from the investigation reports. A puzzle years in the making, stretching from bloodied business deals to whispers around his father's name.

If Meili really knew something, it wasn't just about his attempted murder anymore. It could expose the rot in the roots — in his family, in Mochen's. Maybe even in himself.

But Meili? She was poison wrapped in perfume once. Now she was just poison with nothing to lose.

Still… he needed the truth. Even if it came from her.

He tapped a key and dialed.

"Dapo," he said when the line picked up. "Set up the meeting. But under my rules. Maximum security prison. My team outside the room. No surveillance from their side — only mine. Encrypted feed. Eyes everywhere."

There was a pause. Then Dapo's voice: "Understood. But Yuhan… she's unpredictable."

Yuhan's tone turned cold. "She's desperate. And desperation, when used properly, can be very useful."

---

Two days later, Yuhan walked into the stark white interview room in the Yenagoa maximum-security facility. No guards flanked him. But he wasn't alone. His team watched from hidden feeds, every inch of that room mapped and monitored.

Li Meili looked like a ghost of the woman he once knew. Her hair was limp, her skin pale, and her eyes — once sharp and manipulative — now carried a kind of twitchy madness. But he saw it, buried deep: the glimmer of her old venom.

She looked up. Froze. Then sneered.

"You," she spat. "You ruined me. You set me up!"

Yuhan's voice was calm. Sharp.

"You ruined yourself, Meili. I just made sure you fell at your own hands."

She laughed bitterly, a sound that scraped the walls. "You still think you're the clean one in this mess? Please."

"I'm not here to argue. You said you had information on Shen Mochen. Talk."

She leaned closer, voice low, bitter. "Mochen promised me protection. He said he'd erase my financial mess if I helped take you down. He told me to act unhinged — throw a scene, scare you. Even gave me a gun."

Her eyes gleamed with manic anger now. "He said it was empty. A prop! Just to shake you. He said he'd make sure the footage would only catch me — just enough to throw me under, not enough to show he planted the gun. He set me up just like he set you up."

Yuhan's jaw tightened, the cold twist in his stomach only deepening.

But Meili wasn't done.

"He said you were getting too close… to something old. Something about land his family got from yours. He said it would destroy everything if it came out. That your father was involved somehow."

Yuhan's breath caught.

"What secret?"

"I don't know!" she shouted. "He never told me everything. Just that it was about the early days — how his family rose to power. That your father knew something that could burn it all down. He even mentioned a name. Some guy who disappeared years ago… Anya. Mr. Anya."

The name hit like a hammer.

Anya. The same name redacted from old government files. The man who'd once investigated the Shen Group and died in a "car accident."

Everything snapped into place. His father. Mochen's empire. Adekunle. And the investigator who died for asking the wrong questions.

Meili was panting now, almost pleased at the damage her words were causing.

Yuhan stood. "We're done here."

---

Back at his study, Yuhan called Ngozi, his top cybersecurity analyst.

"I need everything you can find on a man named Mr. Anya. Go back decades. Cross-reference with Shen Group, Chief Adekunle, my father, land deals, anything. If he ever existed — I want him pulled from the grave."

Ngozi nodded once and left without a word.

Just as he sat down, his private line rang.

That number again. The same one from Adekunle's compound.

He hesitated. Then answered.

"You met with the broken girl, didn't you?" the voice said. Low. Male. Calm. "Did she mention a man named Anya?"

Yuhan went cold. "Who are you?"

"A brother," the voice said. "Anya was my blood. He died trying to expose them."

Yuhan stood, every instinct on high alert.

"You've been watching me."

"I've been waiting," the man replied. "For someone like you. Someone they couldn't control."

There was silence, then the final blow:

"Find the man called The Librarian. He holds the real ledger. He knows how Adekunle controlled your father — and what Mochen is truly hiding. But be warned… Mochen will kill to keep it buried."

The line went dead.

Yuhan stared at the silent phone. The Librarian. A murdered investigator. A father's long-buried sin. And a man out for vengeance, walking inside Adekunle's stronghold.

This wasn't just about revenge anymore.

It was about truth.

And truth, Yuhan realized, could be far more dangerous than any bullet.