The scent of scorched rubber still lingered in the air like a ghost too stubborn to leave.
Adesuwa stood at the edge of the ruined alley, watching the plumes of smoke twist skyward like wounded spirits. The fire was out. The crowd had dispersed. But the silence? It screamed louder than the explosion. She could still hear the roar, feel it, in the hollow of her chest. Each heartbeat sounded like the ticking of a bomb she hadn't yet defused.
She should've seen it coming.
Tomiwa's encrypted text hadn't just been a warning. It had been a cry for help. And now, the boy's last known location was marked with a crater, blackened brick, and a line of yellow tape that wouldn't stop the truth from bleeding.
She pressed a cloth to her nose, pushing past the barricade. Officers barely looked up. The city was unraveling, and they had no strength left for rules.
Inside the blast radius, time had stopped.
Half of the street sign still clung to a pole, swinging. The shattered remains of an underground access hatch lay near the curb. That was no gas leak. It was a message. Precise. Punitive.
The Circle knows you're close.
Adesuwa crouched by a charred slab of metal, brushing off soot with gloved fingers. Beneath it, a sliver of blue, Tomiwa's school ID, melted on one edge, the barcode partially visible. Her breath caught. She turned away, blinking hard.
"Ma'am," a voice said behind her, low and urgent.
It was Inspector Bello. He looked exhausted. His uniform bore dust and burns, and there was a tear across the sleeve.
"I told you I'd keep your friend safe," he said. "But the ones watching him… they weren't ours."
Her voice came out hoarse. "What do you mean?"
"They were plants. Circle operatives, dressed in plainclothes. They trailed him from the courthouse."
Adesuwa's hands clenched. "He was a child."
Bello didn't respond. The silence said everything.
The Circle had declared open war.
And this time, the battlefield was soaked with innocent blood.
Across the city, Efe wiped blood from his mouth as he limped down a shadowed corridor deep beneath Eleganza Towers. He hadn't expected the ambush. One moment, he'd been tailing a courier from the Nest. The next, fists and blunt metal had descended on him like wrath from above.
He didn't know how long he'd been out. But now his ribs screamed with every breath, and his left eye throbbed with the steady rhythm of vengeance.
He pushed open a maintenance door and emerged into an underground garage lit only by emergency lights. Rows of luxury cars sat in silence, watching.
Efe pulled out his burner phone.
"Adesuwa," he said when she picked up. "They know. The Nest is compromised."
There was a pause.
"I know," she said. "Tomiwa's dead."
The silence on the line felt like the whole world holding its breath.
Efe leaned against a concrete pillar, the pain flaring anew. "Then we strike back."
"You're not ready."
"I don't care."
"You should," she said. "Because what we do next won't be for justice. It'll be for survival."
In a private room at St. Anthony's Convent Hospital, Dr. Amaka adjusted the IV drip as Damilola stirred on the bed. Her lips moved slightly. The sedation was wearing off.
Amaka glanced at the clock. The last twelve hours had been a blur: gunshots, blood loss, a hurried escape through an abandoned morgue, and bribes that would haunt her.
Damilola's eyes fluttered open.
"Where…?"
"You're safe," Amaka said, her voice soothing. "But you have to rest."
Damilola struggled to speak. "I saw him… in the cathedral. He was there. Father Malachy. Alive."
Amaka froze.
"That's impossible," she said. "Malachy died three years ago."
"No," Damilola whispered. "He faked it. The fire. It was staged."
Amaka stepped back, her hand trembling.
Everything they thought they knew was wrong.
Meanwhile, in a dimly lit office overlooking Third Mainland Bridge, Councilor Ajayi removed his jacket and poured himself a drink.
The boardroom was empty, save for a large screen flickering with surveillance footage from the cathedral: Adesuwa entering, Damilola bleeding, and Efe in the shadows.
He raised his glass. "To the endgame."
Behind him, a man stepped from the shadows. Bald, scarred, eyes like broken glass.
"Everything's in place," the man said. "The boy is dead. The hacker is wounded. The journalist is isolated."
Ajayi smiled. "Then burn the rest."
Adesuwa paced outside the morgue at Lagos General.
The report was inconclusive. DNA is too damaged. They couldn't confirm Tomiwa's death without a familial sample. But the Circle would've ensured no mistake. This was a spectacle. A flex.
A voice called out. "You don't look convinced."
She turned. Efe limped forward, his hoodie soaked with sweat and blood.
"Don't come closer," she said.
"Adesuwa, listen,"
"I told him to run," she said, her voice cracking. "Told him it was safe. But it wasn't."
Efe swallowed hard. "They wanted him out of the picture."
"He was fourteen."
Efe nodded. "And smarter than all of us combined."
She turned away.
He took a breath. "There's something you need to see."
He handed her a charred, half-melted drive.
"Tomiwa uploaded a contingency," he said. "Two hours before the blast."
Adesuwa stared at it. "What's on it?"
"The Circle's black budget. Offshore accounts. Politicians. Military contracts. And names. Real names."
Her eyes widened.
It was the kind of information that wars were started over.
And now it was in their hands.
By midnight, the rain came.
It wasn't soft or cleansing. It hammered the city like penance, drenching rooftops and regrets alike.
At an old printing press turned safe house in Surulere, Adesuwa and Efe loaded the drive into an encrypted system.
The data crawled onto the screen like the confessions of a mad god.
Line after line of transactions, aliases, codenames, and blood.
Adesuwa's jaw tightened. "We have enough to cripple them."
"No," Efe said. "We have enough to expose them. But that's not the same."
She glanced at him. "You're saying we hold off?"
"I'm saying we need leverage. Right now, they think we're broken. Let's keep it that way."
She hesitated. "And when they strike again?"
He looked at the screen. "Then we answer with fire."
At dawn, Damilola awoke to the sound of chanting.
She sat up slowly. The room was empty. But the walls, were they trembling?
She pulled back the curtain. Outside, in the hospital courtyard, a group of hooded figures circled a bonfire. Their voices are low. Ancient.
Then she saw him.
Father Malachy.
Very much alive.
And smiling.