Chapter 3: “Empire of Smoke”

(New York City, 1995)(New York City, 1995)

Winter in New York had a way of swallowing sound. Snow softened the horns, the shouting, even the sirens. From the window of a small apartment in Harlem, Amara watched it fall, a cigarette burning down between her fingers. The skyline was a jagged promise — something she’d chased across oceans.

Chike was asleep on the couch, his arm still bandaged. The wound from Chicago was healing slowly, but he never complained. He had the quiet patience of a man who’d already seen the worst the world could do.

When he stirred, she turned from the window. “You should rest.”

He smiled faintly. “You should stop pretending you sleep.”

They said nothing for a while. The small radio on the counter hummed faint jazz. Outside, the city pulsed in slow rhythm — taxis crawling, the smell of bread and exhaust rising together.

“You really think we can sell those diamonds here?” he asked at last.

“I don’t need to sell them,” she said. “I need to use them.”

He frowned. “Use them for what?”

“To buy a life,” she said. “A clean one. Papers. A name. Maybe a little café somewhere that doesn’t smell like money or blood.”

He looked at her a long time. “You’ve never even had a normal day, have you?”

She smiled, soft but tired. “Maybe that’s why I want one.”

Two days later, she met Rafael Conte, the New York contact Tunde had mentioned before his death. They met at a café in Little Italy, the kind of place where the espresso came in chipped cups and the regulars spoke half in jokes, half in warnings.

Rafael was older, with sharp eyes and a voice that carried the weight of too many negotiations.

“So you’re the Lagos girl,” he said, leaning back. “Heard you handled yourself in Chicago.”

“Handled is one way to put it,” she said.

He smiled. “Tunde had plans. Big ones. He thought Africa could feed America’s hunger for shine. Maybe he wasn’t wrong.”

“I didn’t come for history,” she replied. “I came to finish a deal.”

He nodded. “I can move your stones. Quietly. But there’s a price.”

“There’s always a price.”

“Not money,” he said. “Loyalty.”

Amara’s expression didn’t change. “To you?”

“To survival,” Rafael said. “In this city, that’s all that matters.”

She exhaled smoke slowly. “Send me the details.”

When she left the café, the sky had turned to steel. She pulled her coat tighter, blending into the crowd. Somewhere behind her, she knew one of Rafael’s men was following — not as a threat, just as a reminder.

She took the long way back to Harlem, stopping by a bridge to watch the frozen water below. Chike was waiting by the window when she returned.

“You met him,” he said.

She nodded. “Rafael Conte. He’ll move the diamonds. But I don’t trust him.”

“You don’t trust anyone.”

“That’s how I stay alive.”

He leaned forward. “And what about us, Amara? Do you trust me?”

The question hung in the air like breath in cold air.

She sat down across from him. “You followed me from Lagos to Johannesburg to Chicago to here. You bled for me. You could’ve turned on me a hundred times. But you didn’t.”

“So?” he said quietly.

“So maybe I do,” she admitted. “A little.”

He smiled, slow and real. “That’s something.”

Over the next week, they worked quietly — using Rafael’s contacts, trading small stones first to test the water. New York was a city of watchers; everyone knew someone who wanted something.

At night, Amara would stand on the fire escape, watching the city lights flicker against the snow. Chike would bring her tea instead of whiskey now — his small rebellion against the past.

But peace, even fragile peace, never lasted.

One evening, she returned from a meeting to find the apartment door slightly ajar. Her pulse tightened. She stepped inside, silent. The lamp was on, the radio still playing.

Chike wasn’t there.

On the table lay a folded note.

“They came for me. Don’t come after. —C.”

Her breath caught. She sank into the chair, the paper shaking in her hand. The sound of distant sirens bled through the window, slow and far away.

For the first time in years, she felt the weight of something she hadn’t allowed herself to feel — fear, unfiltered and sharp.

She crushed the cigarette out against the table, stood up, and looked out the window. Somewhere in this city, someone had taken Chike. And she knew exactly who had the reach to do it.

Rafael Conte.

Her reflection in the glass was calm. Her heartbeat wasn’t.

She whispered to herself, “If you wanted loyalty, Rafael, now you’ll see what mine looks like.”

The snow kept falling. New York glowed quie

tly beneath it, unaware that the empire of smoke and diamonds was about to burn from the inside out.