Finding Love

The Blood Convenant

Photos of Femi’s crashed car, autopsy reports listing “blunt force trauma” (not cut brakes), and a video timestamped the night he died—security footage from a Port Harcourt petrol station.

Femi arguing with a man in a hoodie. The man turned, face clear: *Nathaniel.*

Jane’s coffee cup shattered on the floor.

“It’s doctored,” Amara said. “Look at the pixels.”

“Is it?” Jane zoomed in. Nathaniel’s scar, his watch, the way he rolled his sleeves—all perfect.

Amara hesitated. “I’ll verify it. But Jane… if he lied—”

“He did.”

Mama arrived with a new herbalist—an ancient woman with filed teeth and eyes milky with cataracts.

“She’s a *babalawo*,” Mama said. “Stronger than the last one.”

The woman circled Jane, bone necklaces clattering. “You’ve angered *Egúngún*. The masked ones.”

“The what?”

“Spirits of the dead. They cling to you.” The *babalawo* pressed a gourd to Jane’s chest. “Who have you wronged?”

*Femi. Ngozi. Tara.* The list coiled in her throat.

“Open the gourd,” the woman ordered.

Inside lay a photo of Nathaniel, his eyes scratched out.

He collapsed during the board meeting.

One moment, he was dissecting Q3 losses; the next, gasping, blood speckling his notes. The doctors called it a “delayed hemothorax”—a lung drowning in its own blood.

Jane stood in the ICU, his monitors beeping a discordant hymn.

“You knew,” she said.

His gaze drifted to the ceiling. “About Femi? No. But the rest… the pain, the cough… I thought I had time.”

“To what? Lie better?”

He turned, tubes tethering him to the bed. “To deserve you.”

She left before he could see her cry.

Senator Oduma’s militia rolled into Abuja at dusk.

Toyota Hiluxes packed with Kalashnikovs and teenage soldiers choked the streets. They stormed radio stations first, then the airport, their leader—a boy general with Oduma’s smirk—declaring a “cleansing” on live TV.

Amara intercepted Jane at the hospital. “Oduma’s reclaiming power. We need to go.”

“And Nathaniel?”

“He stays. They’ll kill him for the coup.”

Jane’s phone buzzed—a text from Tara’s burner number: *“SUNDOWNER = ODUMA’S FOREIGN ACCOUNTS. MEET AT SATELLITE DISH.”

The abandoned telecom tower loomed on Abuja’s outskirts, its dish rusted to lace. Tara waited atop, her wrists raw from handcuffs, laptop balanced on her knees.

“Took you long enough,” she said.

Jane hugged her, relief sour with guilt. “How’d you escape?”

“Amara’s guys bribed the guards. Now help me c***k this.”

The SUNDOWNER files scrolled by—Oduma’s offshore networks, shell companies, payments to militia leaders.

“We leak this, the world burns,” Tara said.

Jane hesitated. “And if we don’t?”

Gunfire echoed below. Oduma’s militia had found them.

Amara covered their retreat, her pistol singing. Tara fell first, a bullet grazing her thigh. Jane dragged her behind the dish, blood slick on her hands.

“Go!” Tara shoved the laptop at her. “I’ll distract them.”

“No!”

“Yes.” Tara smiled, tears cutting through dust. “Tell my mom I died fabulous.”

Jane ran as shots rang out.

Jane burst into NTA Studios, gunmen on her heels. The night crew froze as she hijacked the broadcast.

“Senator Oduma is a terrorist.” Her face filled every screen in Nigeria. “These are his secrets. These are your truths.”

The files went viral as Abuja erupted.

Jane returned to the tower at dawn.

Tara’s body lay curled around her laptop, fingers still typing.

Abuja’s streets hummed with the static of unease. Jane sat in the back of Amara’s bullet-scarred Land Cruiser, Tara’s laptop burning a hole in her lap. The cracked screen glowed with a folder labeled *SUNSET PROTOCOL*. Tara’s final gift—or curse.

“Open it,” Amara said, her voice raw from chain-smoking Rothmans.

Jane clicked. A video loaded—Tara’s face pixelated but unmistakable, her glitter eyeliner smudged by tears or exhaustion. *“Hey, superstar. If you’re watching this, I’m dead. Check the ‘WHITELIST’ file. And Jane… don’t trust Nathaniel.”*

The screen died. Jane’s throat tightened.

The WHITELIST was a ledger of blood money: arms dealers, traffickers, politicians. At the bottom, an entry froze her breath:

*$2.7M received. Consulting fees. -N. Ayodele.*

The date matched Femi’s last week alive.

Nathaniel’s hospital bed stood empty, IV tube snipped clean. A nurse shrugged. “He left. Said he had business.”

Jane’s phone buzzed: *Jabi Lake. Alone.*

He stood at the water’s edge, his silhouette sharp against the bleeding sunset.

“You saw the files,” he said.

“Did you kill Femi?”

“No.”

“But you took Oduma’s money.”

He turned, his face gaunt. “For the Women in Tech centers. I didn’t ask questions.”

Jane’s hand hovered near Amara’s pistol. “Tara died for this.”

“I know.” He pressed a flash drive into her palm. “Oduma meets his backers tonight. This proves he ordered Femi’s death.”

“Why you?”

“Guilty men recognize their own.”

Mama’s apartment reeked of burnt sage and fear. The *babalawo* chanted over a calabash, bone necklaces clattering.

“Wear this.” Mama shoved a wooden charm into Jane’s hands. “Bullets will turn to rain.”

Jane almost laughed. “This isn’t Nollywood.”

Mama’s grip tightened. “Survival isn’t a movie.”

The cement factory loomed, its skeleton ribs glowing under militia spotlights. Jane crouched in shadows, Amara’s pistol cold against her ribs. Below, Oduma barked orders to mercenaries.

Nathaniel stepped into the light, hands raised.

“Senator.”

Oduma grinned. “Prodigal son.”

“A gift.” Nathaniel tossed the flash drive.

The screen erupted with Femi’s final scream, Oduma’s voice beneath: *“Make it hurt.”*

Chaos exploded.

Jane fired. Oduma’s head snapped back.

Nathaniel grabbed her. “Run!”

Bullets chased them through rotting metal. At the exit, he shoved her into night.

“Go!”

She turned as the grenade rolled to his feet.

The blast painted the sky in hellfire.

Jane staggered back, the concussive force slamming her into the dirt. Her ears rang, vision blurred into streaks of orange and black. The factory’s skeletal frame groaned, collapsing inward like a dying beast.

“Nathaniel!” Her scream tore her throat raw.

Amara materialized from the smoke, dragging her upright. “Move! They’re coming!”

Jane’s legs buckled. “He’s still in there—”

“He’s gone.” Amara’s voice cracked. “*Move!*”

Safehouse: 3:47 AM

The safehouse stank of mildew and desperation. Jane hunched over Tara’s laptop, replaying the WHITELIST files. The $2.7M transaction glared back—Nathaniel’s initials a jagged scar on the screen.

Amara slammed a bottle of *ogogoro* onto the table. “Drink. You’re shaking.”

Jane ignored her. “We need to cross-reference these accounts with Femi’s letters. There’s a pattern.”

“You’re in shock.”

“I’m *working*.”

Amara snatched the laptop. “He played you. Accept it.”

Jane lunged, knocking the *ogogoro* to the floor. “You think I don’t know that?!”

The bottle shattered. Silence pooled between them.

Amara exhaled. “We need to leave Abuja. Oduma’s men are hunting us.”

Jane stared at the shards. “Not yet.”

Mama’s slap echoed off the kitchen tiles. “Foolish girl! You think bullets fear your pride?”

Jane touched her stinging cheek. “I need your help. Not your proverbs.”

The *babalawo* emerged from the shadows, her milky eyes reflecting Jane’s fractured resolve. “The dead cling to you. Femi. Tara. They demand justice.”

“How?”

The old woman pressed a dried scorpion into Jane’s palm. “Feed the fire.”

Ngozi’s hands trembled as she handed Jane a dusty ledger. “Femi hid this. Oduma’s offshore routes.”