All Chapters of THE PROFESSOR'S DIRTY CLAIM : Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The penthouse feels too quiet after the announcement goes live at midnight.The board’s statement hits every wire service simultaneously: full denial of wrongdoing, accusation of coordinated market manipulation by unnamed competitors, immediate share buyback program authorized up to twenty billion naira, and a promise of “swift and transparent cooperation with all regulatory inquiries.” The NGX trading halt lifts at 00:07. Shares open flat, then climb, slowly at first, then faster. By 00:32 they’re up 8.4%. By 01:15, 14.7%. The bleeding stops. The merger announcement, rescheduled to 08:00, is still on.We watch it unfold on three screens in the Banana Island living room. Damian stands at the window, arms crossed, bandage dark with fresh blood. I sit on the edge of the leather sofa, rifle across my lap, collar still snug around my throat. The team has cleared out, two snipers still on overwatch, the rest sweeping the building for any lingering Horizon assets.Eze is gone, taken to a bl

The safehouse in Lekki is smaller than the Banana Island penthouse, two bedrooms, a cramped kitchen, bulletproof windows overlooking a quiet cul-de-sac, but it feels safer. No glass walls. No panoramic views that make you feel watched. Just thick concrete, reinforced doors, and a rooftop hatch for emergency extraction.We arrived at 02:14 a.m.Damian drives the last stretch himself, silent, focused, injured shoulder stiffening with every gear change. I sit shotgun, Glock on my lap, collar still around my throat. The tracker capsule in my neck itches faintly, a constant reminder that he can find me anywhere. That he will.Inside, he locks the door. Triple-bolts it. Check the cameras. Only then does he turn to me.“Strip.”The command is quiet. Absolute.I obey, slowly. Jacket. Shirt. Trousers. Until I’m naked except the collar and the faint bruises from the last few days.He looks at me, really looks. Eyes tracing every mark he left. Every mark others tried to leave.“Come here.”I cro

The merger closed at 08:47 a.m. on the dot.Apex Ventures issued the final press release from a secure server in Mauritius, clean IP, no Lagos trace. Fifty-three billion naira in assets folded into one entity. Horizon’s remnants were carved up like carrion: patents sold off, staff scattered, CEO already in Kuje prison awaiting trial for market manipulation, conspiracy, and accessory to multiple homicides. The NGX ticker ended the day up 24.1%. Analysts called it a miracle recovery. The board called it a close call.We called it breathing room.By noon we were airborne, private Citation Latitude out of Murtala Muhammed, destination: Gran Canaria, then a twenty-minute chopper hop to a private atoll off the coast of Tenerife. No commercial flight numbers. No passenger manifests. Just fuel, clearance codes, and a pilot who asked no questions.Damian slept most of the flight, head on my shoulder, good arm draped across my lap, bandage finally clean and dry. I watched Lagos shrink beneath u

The riad in Tangier became our first real sanctuary in weeks, thick stone walls that swallowed sound, a courtyard fountain that never stopped murmuring, iron-grilled windows that let in slanted afternoon light but kept the world out. We stayed for four days. No news. No phones beyond the single encrypted burner Damian checked once daily. No names. No plans beyond the next meal, the next shower, the next time he pinned me to the bed and reminded me, slowly, deliberately, what belonging felt like.On the fifth morning he woke me before dawn.“Up,” he said, voice low. “We move.”I sat up. The collar was still around my throat; the platinum chain he’d locked below it caught the faint light from the hallway. “Where?”“South. Marrakech first. Then the desert. We need to vanish deeper.”He dressed me himself, loose linen trousers, long-sleeved tunic in sand color, lightweight boots. The collar stayed visible above the tunic’s open neck; he traced it once with his thumb before fastening the t

The estancia in Patagonia was nothing like Lagos.No humid weight in the air. No constant pulse of generators or minarets calling across rooftops. Just wind, cold, clean, razor-sharp, scouring the high steppe, carrying the scent of dry grass and distant snow. The house was low-slung timber and stone, built into a hillside overlooking a glacial lake the color of fractured jade. No neighbors for forty kilometers. No roads that weren’t dirt tracks. No cell signal unless you climbed the ridge behind the barn with a satellite phone.We arrived in late autumn, April in the southern hemisphere. The last of the lenga beech leaves were turning copper and falling like slow fire. Damian had bought the place sight unseen through a shell company in Uruguay. Cash. No questions. The previous owner, a retired Argentine rancher, had left behind a small herd of Hereford cattle, a windmill that still pumped water, and a silence so deep it pressed against your eardrums.We needed that silence.The first