The moment midnight swallows the last streetlight on Emina Crescent, I slip out through the back. I don't take my car. Not tonight. I walk two blocks to where I left the bike. It's nondescript a Yamaha I bought under a fake name six years ago. No one's ever tailed it. No one knows it exists. Just like the place I'm heading to.
The streets hum with the kind of silence Lagos only allows the desperate or dangerous. The wind carries the smell of sea and engine grease. I move quickly, ducking into alleys, passing rusted gates and slumped men asleep under kiosks. My phone is turned off, SIM removed, battery pocketed. I left the smart devices at home. No pings. No shadows. Not even Nse knows about the basement.
It takes me seventeen minutes to reach the compound. One of the old ones in Apapa, shielded by overgrown palms and heavy gates no one questions anymore. I punch in the code and the rusted gate groans like it's waking from sleep. The house is abandoned upstairs looks like it's crumbling but beneath it, I've built something solid. Hidden. Mine.
I lock the outer doors, slide the bolt, then press my thumb to the reader embedded into the floor panel beside the staircase. A hiss, a click, and the floor shifts. A small panel rises.
I step into the elevator shaft and descend.
The basement isn't much to look at. Cement walls, one iron desk, two laptops, a drawer full of flash drives, forged documents, and burner phones. On the far end, a full whiteboard scrawled with timelines, fake names, connections between identities I've worn like skin.
I sit.
Crack my neck.
Turn on the lamp.
The light is low and warm. Comforting, in a strange way. Like a womb of strategy.
I know what I'm doing. I've always known. But this time, the pressure is different. Someone is digging. Not the police. Not press. Someone smart. Surgical. I can feel it in the gaps. Whoever it is, they're following the scent of Deyemi, not Kolade. Which means they're close. Too close.
I pull out a blank notebook and write across the top:
> CONTINGENCY 4B: LEGAL EXIT
Then I begin.
First: severance.
Any identity that touches Deyemi Adebajo needs to disappear. That includes the Ajegunle origin. The hospital school fund I started under my real mother's name. Even the non-profit I set up for juvenile offenders. All of it has to burn quietly.
Second: insulation.
I list names of two lawyers one in Benin, one in Dubai. Neither know the whole story, but they owe me favors. If the investigation leaks into formal channels, I'll send decoys to redirect the trail toward an unrelated offshore syndicate I once dismantled for a client. Create chaos. Delay everything.
Third: weaponize my own victimhood.
I jot notes.
> Build a redemption narrative.
Leak a story to a journalist about a reformed ex-con targeted by political enemies.
Use old photos from my time in community service.
If I control the narrative first, I can reframe suspicion as persecution. Paint myself as a scapegoat. I've done it before. In the east. Twice.
Fourth: shield Nse.
Even now, in this concrete tomb of paranoia, I hesitate to let her go down with me. Not because I'm noble. I'm not. But because she's the only person who truly understands the game. She's smarter than me in some ways. Meaner in others. If I burn, she burns. But if she survives, she can rebuild us.
I grab a USB from the drawer. Plug it into the older laptop. This one has no connection to the outside world air-gapped since I bought it in Ghana. The drive holds backup data from all my alias setups. I scroll until I find the one I created right after the incident that forced me to become Kolade.
The murder.
It wasn't planned. Not entirely. But it was clean. No prints. No camera footage. The only mistake I made was staying in the same state too long afterward.
That's when I stopped being Deyemi. That's when Kolade was born.
I close my eyes and breathe.
Regret has no place here. That emotion is for the weak. For people who forget the cost of survival.
I open another file legal loopholes. I've kept tabs on legislative changes. Nigeria's fraud statutes are strong, but they have cracks. If I create a paper trail of manipulation, hint that I myself was conned into perpetrating schemes I didn't fully understand, I might reduce the severity of the charges if they ever stick.
Plausible deniability.
I outline the argument. Begin constructing a draft of a possible statement. One that admits to "some involvement" but blames it on a larger syndicate I can invent. I even add emotional language phrases like "deep remorse," "coerced compliance," and "naïve ambition."
I know how courts work. I've sat behind enough glass walls pretending to be consultants for men who look like me but lack my finesse. I know what makes prosecutors stall. What makes judges hesitate. I'll use all of it.
Halfway through the draft, my burner phone buzzes. Only one person has this number.
I answer.
"Did you visit your mother's grave this year?" a voice asks.
Code.
"No. I left flowers at someone else's," I reply.
A pause.
"Someone's still digging," the voice says. "Same IP from two days ago. Traced to a private terminal somewhere in Lekki. But it's bouncing. They know what they're doing."
I clench my jaw.
"Keep watching. No contact unless they surface."
Click.
I sit in silence. The hum of the lightbulb above me is the only sound.
Then I reach for the bottle of whiskey under the desk. I pour two fingers into a chipped tumbler. Sip slow.
So it begins.
I work till dawn, writing, mapping, rehearsing lies so tightly woven they might pass as memories. When the first trace of morning cracks through the ceiling vent, I save the files in three drives and seal them into envelopes marked with codes only I understand.
I turn off the lights. Slide everything back into place.
And when I leave the basement, I do so with the calm of a man who knows the storm is coming.
But this time, I intend to be the eye at its center.