Moyo wangu, roho yangu – My heart, my soul
Chapter 1: The Meeting
The matatu’s engine coughed like an old man’s dying breath as it wheezed through Nairobi’s evening traffic. Amara pressed her face against the cracked window, watching the city’s neon lights blur past like fallen stars. Her fingers traced the fresh bruises on her wrist—purple reminders of her stepfather’s latest rage. At nineteen, she had learned that love was supposed to hurt, that men took what they wanted, and that dreams were luxuries she couldn’t afford.
That’s when she saw him.
Kesi stood outside a rundown bar in Eastlands, his silhouette sharp against the flickering streetlight. Even from the matatu, Amara could see the way other men stepped aside when he walked, the way their eyes followed him with a mixture of respect and fear. His expensive leather jacket seemed out of place in the dusty streets, and the gold chain around his neck caught the light like a promise of something better.
“Shuka hapa,” she told the conductor, her voice barely a whisper.
The matatu jolted to a stop, and Amara stepped into the humid night air. She didn’t know why she was walking toward the stranger—perhaps it was the way he looked at her when their eyes met, as if she was something precious instead of broken.
“Habari yako, madam,” Kesi said, his voice smooth like aged whiskey. His Swahili carried the confidence of someone who had never doubted his place in the world.
“Niko sawa,” Amara replied, though she was anything but fine. Up close, she could see the scar that ran from his left ear to his jaw, a white line that somehow made him more beautiful rather than less.
Kesi studied her face with an intensity that made her stomach flutter. “You’re running from something,” he said, switching to English. “I can see it in your eyes.”
“Everyone’s running from something,” she whispered.
He smiled then, and it was like watching the sun rise after the longest night. “Not everyone. Some of us stop running and start hunting.”
Chapter 2: The Descent
Three months later, Amara lived in a world she had never imagined possible. Kesi’s apartment in Kilimani was a sanctuary of marble floors and silk curtains, where she could forget the smell of kerosene and the sound of her mother’s sobs. He draped her in clothes that cost more than her family’s monthly rent, fed her meals that tasted like heaven, and whispered endearments in her ear until she believed she was worth loving.
“Mpenzi wangu,” he would say, tracing patterns on her skin in the darkness. “You are my heart.”
But Amara was learning that paradise always came with a price. She always knew something had to be the price. To what extend was she willing to go?
She began to notice things: the way Kesi’s phone rang at strange hours, the hushed conversations in languages she didn’t recognize, the packages that arrived and disappeared without explanation. The expensive gifts that appeared in their home—electronics, jewelry, bundles of cash—all without any apparent source.
“Where does it all come from?” she asked one evening, watching him count thick stacks of thousand-shilling notes.
Kesi’s hands stilled. “Does it matter? We have everything we need.”
“I want to know.”
He looked at her for a long moment, and she saw something shift in his expression—a hardening, like water turning to ice. “Some questions are dangerous, Amara. The people who ask them don’t always like the answers.”
That night, she lay awake listening to him breathe, wondering when love had started to feel like drowning.
Come back for chapter 3 and 4. Adios for now.
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