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Divine Ogedegbe
Divine Ogedegbe
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Novels by Divine Ogedegbe

The Man Who Was Supposed To Die

The Man Who Was Supposed To Die

Sera Quinn had one job. Marry a dying man, keep her head down, and wait. Nobody told her that Damien Voss did not die on anyone's schedule but his own. She was twenty two years old when her stepfather sat her down at the kitchen table and explained her options. Her mother was sick. The bills were swallowing everything. And the most powerful billionaire in the country was lying unconscious in a private hospital ward with his family desperate enough to pay a small fortune to any woman willing to stand beside him at the altar. All Sera had to do was say yes. She said yes. She had no other word left. She moved into his mansion and tried to be invisible. She talked to him in the dark of his room every night because there was nobody else and because she was sure he could not hear her. She told him things she had never told anyone. She told him she was scared. She told him she was pregnant. Then she overheard four words that changed everything and she ran before the sun came up. Four years later she had rebuilt herself from nothing. A career. A spine. Twin children with their father's eyes. A case file she had been building alone, one quiet hour at a time, that connected a road barrier report to a name that would put people in prison. She had one rule. Stay away from Damien Voss. Then her four year old daughter hacked into his private server and left him a message. Damien was already in his car before Sera found out what her daughter had done. He was not coming to talk. And Sera Quinn was finally done running.
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Chapter: chapter 35
I sat very still.The phone was against my ear and Roland's voice was in it and outside the window Maren was doing its usual grey indifferent thing and somewhere down the hall Clara was telling Eli about the ruling at full volume."How did you get this number?" I said."You would be surprised what is available to a man with the right resources," Roland said. "Even from a detention facility. Even with a trial coming. Resources have a way of continuing to function regardless of personal circumstances."Same voice. Same warm reasonable tone. The one I had grown up trusting.My hand tightened on the phone."What do you want?" I said."I want you to think," Roland said. "You are about to let Damien Voss back into your life and into your children's lives. I want you to consider what that means.""I have considered it.""I do not think you have considered all of it," he said. "Damien Voss is not a safe man, Sera. He has enemies. Real ones. Not just me. People who have been waiting a long tim
Last Updated: 2026-04-13
Chapter: Chapter 34
Eli's fever broke on Sunday morning.I know because I woke up at six and put my hand on his forehead out of habit and it was normal. Just his forehead. Just warm the way foreheads are supposed to be warm. I sat there for a moment with my hand on his head and let out a breath I felt like I had been holding since Thursday night.He opened one eye."I am better," he said."I can tell.""Can I have proper breakfast? Not the triangle toast.""Yes."He closed his eye again. "Five more minutes.""Take ten."He was asleep again before I left the room.Clara was already up, sitting at the kitchen table with her notebook open, adding to her list."How many is it now?" I asked."Seventeen.""Clara.""I know, I know. I will cut it down." She did not look up from the notebook. "Eli is better?""Yes.""Good. I was worried.""You did not seem worried.""I was worried on the inside," she said. "I did not want to make it worse by being worried on the outside too."I looked at my daughter.Sometimes sh
Last Updated: 2026-04-13
Chapter: chapter 33
I told Damien I would think about it.That was Wednesday.By Thursday I had almost talked myself into going. Halcrest was four hours away. June could watch the children for two days. The hearing was important and Damien was right that my testimony was the strongest counter argument to the entrapment claim.I even looked up train times.Thursday night Eli went to bed early, which was unusual because Eli never went to bed early. He was the child who stayed awake reading until I came in and turned the light off, not the child who asked to go to bed at seven thirty.I put my hand on his forehead when I tucked him in.He was warm.Not concerning warm. Children ran warm sometimes. I told myself that and went back to the kitchen and looked at the train times again.At two in the morning he appeared in my doorway.He did not say anything. He just stood there in his pyjamas with his eyes half closed and his cheeks very red and I sat up and looked at him and knew immediately.I took his tempera
Last Updated: 2026-04-11
Chapter: chapter 32
I called Damien at seven in the morning.He picked up before the second ring."I saw it," he said."When did you find out?""An hour ago. Clara Holt called me."I was standing in the kitchen in yesterday's clothes, having not gone back to sleep after the news alert, and the children were still upstairs and the kettle was boiling and I was trying to think clearly and failing."Can they do that?" I pressed my fingers against the counter. "Can they just file a motion and make all the evidence disappear?""They can file whatever they want." A pause. "Whether it works is a different question.""Damien.""It will not work," he said. "The entrapment argument has no basis. You were placed inside the estate by Roland himself. You were not an operative. The evidence was not obtained through any illegal means. Clara Holt has already started drafting the response.""But it delays things.""Yes.""Which is what he wants.""Yes."I put the kettle down harder than I meant to.Upstairs I heard Clara'
Last Updated: 2026-04-11
Chapter: chapter 31
The morning after I called him I woke up and immediately wanted to call him back and say never mind.I did not do that.I made breakfast instead. Porridge for Eli, who ate whatever was put in front of him without complaint. Toast with the crusts cut off for Clara, who had strong opinions about crusts that I had stopped arguing about six months ago.I stood at the stove and watched the pot and thought about what I was going to say to them.Not how. When.I had been putting the when off since I hung up the phone last night.Clara solved the problem for me.She came into the kitchen, looked at my face the way she always did, and said, "You need to tell us something."I turned around.Both of them were at the table. Eli with his hands folded in front of him. Clara with her chin on her fist. Both looking at me like they had been expecting this conversation for a while and were ready to have it."Your father is going to come and visit," I said.Clara sat up straight.Eli did not move."When
Last Updated: 2026-04-11
Chapter: chapter 30
I did not call back.I told myself I needed to think about it first. Then I told myself I was busy. Then three days passed and I was still telling myself things and the assistant's number was still sitting undialled in my recent calls and Clara had stopped asking about it which was somehow worse than if she had kept asking.Life kept going the way life does.Monday. Clinic. Pickup. Dinner. Bath. Bed. Tuesday. Same. Wednesday. Same.I was good at the same. I had built the same on purpose. The same was safe and manageable and mine.Thursday morning I found a letter in the postbox.No stamp. No return address. Just my name on the front in handwriting I did not recognise, pushed through the slot sometime between Wednesday night and Thursday morning.I stood on the front step in my coat with my keys in my hand and looked at it.June's door opened."Post?" she said."Letter," I said.She looked at it. "No stamp.""I know," I said."Someone put it through by hand," she said."I know, June."
Last Updated: 2026-04-11
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