Prologue — The Night the Family Disappeared
The Beginning
Seventeen years before Daniel Okoro returned to Kandara, a black car stopped outside the Okoro family home.
Rain fell hard enough to hide footsteps.
Marcus Okoro stood in the hallway with blood on his sleeve and a small steel box in his hands. His wife Evelyn held six-year-old Daniel against her shoulder. Samuel, eleven years old, stood beside the stairs, trying very hard not to cry.
“They found us,” Marcus said.
Evelyn looked toward the locked door. “Where is the ledger?”
Marcus shook his head. “It’s already moving.”
A car door slammed outside. Samuel whispered, “Who are they?” Marcus looked at his son.
“The people who believe our family belongs to them.” The lights went out.
Someone struck the front door.
Marcus pushed the steel box into a hidden compartment beneath the floor.
Then he knelt before Daniel.
“Whatever happens tonight, you must remember one thing.” Daniel’s eyes filled with tears.
“What?”
Marcus touched the boy’s forehead. “Your name is not the secret.”
The door broke. Evelyn screamed.
And Kandara began the lie that would last seventeen years.
