The man in the brown danshiki watched Elian disappear into the labyrinth of the market before finally lowering his phone. His name was Bashir, and he was a professional information broker—a euphemism for a man who traded in secrets, shame, and leverage. He had been hired by Chief Ferdinand Okonkwo, the same guild leader Elian had publicly humiliated at the forum, to find dirt. Any dirt. The kind that could be sharpened into a blade.
Bashir navigated the back alleys of Lagos with the ease of a water beetle skimming a stagnant pond. He passed open gutters choked with black sludge, past women frying akara over smoky fires, past children kicking a deflated football in a dusty lot. His destination was a block of crumbling, low-income flats in Ajegunle, a neighborhood where the city's pulse was
