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TheBlessedMAN:
Episode 38 — Before The World Stopped.

There’s something about a good shower that resets a human being’s entire system. I don’t know the bandit… sorry, I mean the science behind it. All I know is that once water touches your skin, even your problems will calm down and behave — the way Barcelona behaved when they entered Stamford Bridge in 2025.

After the bath, I wrapped a towel around my waist and dropped onto the bed.
That was when the entire day started replaying itself in HD inside my head.

This my “excellent memory,” as in my talent ehn… sometimes it’s a blessing, sometimes it’s a curse, and sometimes it’s a bully. My whole body was begging for sleep, but my brain said, “Relax, alaye. We haven’t finished reviewing today’s episode.”

Most nights, it’s a battle — brain versus body. Sometimes my body wins, sometimes my brain forces my body to surrender. But tonight? My body carried the trophy, because before I knew it, I slept off right in the middle of replaying Aristotle’s ‘punishment assignment’ in my head — the one where I’m supposed to figure out what I deserve for everything that happened in that mansion.

I don’t know how long I was gone, but I woke up when something tapped my thigh.

I mumbled one useless word and opened my eyes — only to see Toyosi sitting beside me on the bed.

She was wearing her usual tissue-paper nightwear. The one she only wears when it’s just the two of us in the house. A soft smile appeared on her face the moment our eyes met. Even her nipples were greeting me through the cloth.

I sat up immediately, confused for a second.

“What is it?” I asked.

She didn’t answer. She only pointed at my waist.

“You might want to keep that dagger away…” she said, almost laughing.

I looked down.
The towel had shifted.
My penis was outside like it came for roll call.

I adjusted myself quickly, feeling somehow embarrassed about the whole thing.

“What are you doing here?” I asked again.

She smiled — that small but annoyingly beautiful smile.

“Now I understand why you’re the talk of the town…”

I frowned slightly.
“What do you mean by that?”

She didn’t answer. The smile just grew a little more… seductive this time.
That was my cue to stand up. I went straight to my box — the one I had already packed — dragged out a pair of shorts, and rushed into the bathroom.

By the time I stepped out, she was lying on her back on the floor.

“Are you high?” I asked, but she didn’t respond.

“Toy, what are you doing here na?”

She still ignored me like I was one spam email she didn’t subscribe to.

My head was already running through a lot of thoughts.
The dream from last night came back first — the one where Tiffany stabbed her, and she died. Then I remembered how Tiffany stormed out earlier.

What if she came back and saw her friend dressed like this inside my room?
Let’s not lie — that alone is enough to start a war without any explanation needed.

I was still battling all that when her voice cut into my thoughts again.

“You know this life, there’s always a first time for everything. Like when a team suddenly loses their winning streak. Or when a girl loses her virginity. All those things.”

Then she propped herself up, resting her head on one palm with her elbow on the floor.

“Before today, Aristotle has never lost that game he played with you.”

My mouth opened on its own.

Before my brain even arranged how she knew Aristotle’s name — talk less of knowing the exact sex game that maniac forced me to have with Cynthia — she continued like she didn’t just drop the atomic bomb inside my brain’s Hiroshima.

“Now after seeing that dagger you call a penis, I think I finally understand why…”

My whole head just scattered.
It was honestly one of the most confusing moments of my life. I was lost. Completely lost. My brain was just beeping like a small computer that needed more information before it could understand the command Toyosi just dropped. She adjusted the straps of her cloth and continued.

“You know… in this life, there are things we think we know… there are things we don’t know… and there are things we don’t even know we don’t know.”

I froze.

Again, my brain, with its annoying sharpness, dragged me straight into flashback mode.
I remembered where I had heard those exact words.

It was from Chuka.

My knees became weak instantly, like someone unplugged the bones.
I dropped onto the bed because standing wasn’t working again. I kept staring at her on the floor, trying to read her face, trying to connect something — anything at all — but her eyes and actions weren’t giving me anything.

“Darous,” she said quietly, but didn’t wait for a response before continuing.
“What I’m about to tell you… it must never leave this room. It must stay between us until we stop breathing.”

I couldn’t talk, even though I wanted to. I’m not sure if it was shock or the stress of the whole day, but my voice just refused to come out.

Then the god of thunder whispered:
“Don’t worry, son. I’ve muted you from this end. At this point, you don’t need to talk. Just listen.”

Toyosi sat up slowly, brushing her hair back like she needed to steady herself. She pulled her knees close, rested her elbows on them, and stared at the marble floor as if she was dragging out a memory she wasn’t proud of. Then she lifted her head and locked eyes with me.

“Darous… eight years ago, my ex-boyfriend and I were sentenced to jail.”

My heart skipped. The mute button life put on me instantly turned itself off.

“Wha— jail? As in… pri— prison?” I managed to say.

She raised her hand immediately.
“Please… Darous, please, don’t interrupt me. Let me finish.”

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat and nodded.

She took a slow breath.

“Back then… we were into robbery.”
Her voice was steady, but her eyes looked far away. “Not small-small stealing. We had a gang. All of us were eighteen years old. We called it Eighteen Gang. Clark — my ex — founded it, but I was the one behind all our successful operations.”

My face went blank. I honestly didn’t know what expression to wear to this occasion of her confession.

“We didn’t kill. We didn’t rape,” she continued. “Those were our rules. Every mission was planned with precision by me. We robbed banks, strong rooms, private facilities… just anywhere money was a tenant.”

She gave a small, sad smile.
“And we made a lot. Darous, a lot of ego… enough kudi to live life like we owned the biggest company in the country.”

She shifted slightly, adjusting her legs, and as she moved, I noticed her panties peeking between her thighs — but my brain didn’t even process it properly. Her words were heavier than anything romantic at that moment.

“Our last job…” she said quietly. “That was where everything scattered. We weren’t supposed to touch a bullion van. I was totally against it. I warned them. The risk was too high. Too open. Too exposed. But everybody wanted one final operation — one big job that would settle all of us for life.”

Her fingers tightened slowly against her palms.

“They begged me to tag along. I refused. We were on it for more than two weeks; each day that passed reduced the window of opportunity. But after much pestering and begging from my boyfriend — who even threatened to break up with me — and me being young and foolish and naïve, I finally agreed. I set a plan and the plan worked. Perfectly. We got the van. We got the bags. We were already leaving. No shootout, no alarm, nothing. Everything went exactly the way I designed it.”

She paused… then her voice dropped.

“Until one trigger-happy policeman decided to act like Rambo.”

She shook her head regretfully.

“He fired. He shot one of us. Killed him instantly. And that was it. The rest of the gang broke the rule. They fired back. The police fired back. It turned into a big mess.”

She swallowed, her voice thinning.

“They caught us that day — all of us, including the dead ones. Took us to court and sentenced us. I was given thirty-five years… my boyfriend got life… because he killed a policeman…”

Her eyes met mine again — this time with a kind of tiredness I’d never seen in her eyes.

“And that… is how my life went from being the smartest girl in the room… to being a beautiful prisoner.”

She kept her eyes on the floor for a moment, like she needed strength to open the next chapter of her story.

“I had resigned to fate,” she said quietly. “Prison was my home now. I wasn’t fighting it. But two years into my sentence… someone approached me.”

She looked up at me with eyes filled with nothing but regret and sadness.

“He said they could make my sentence disappear. Completely. Wipe it clean. But only if I agreed to work for them.”

My eyebrow jumped on its own at that revelation.

“And you agreed?” I asked before I could even stop myself.

She shot me a warning look — another look I’d never seen on her face before.

“What did I say about interrupting me?”

“Oh… I’m sorry… continue please… please… no vex.”

She rubbed her nose gently and nodded slowly. “I agreed immediately to the offer. Who wouldn’t? I was going to be fifty-four by the time I finished my sentence… I didn’t want that for myself. And to even make the offer more tempting, they promised to help release my boyfriend once I accepted.”

“Same boyfriend that got life?”

I was expecting a response from her, but instead, what I got surprised me.

Remaining parts dropping soon. Keep the reaction s coming. This week has been nothing but hectic. But we survived...