*CHAPTER ONE: THE SOUND OF SILENCE*
The rain came hard that night—like it had something to prove.
Edward sat alone in a dim corner of *Café Monroe*, stirring a half-cold cup of coffee. His black hoodie cast a shadow over his sharp jawline and tired eyes. To the strangers around him, he looked like just another man trying to stay dry and invisible. But behind those calm eyes were a thousand storms he didn't talk about.
Lagos had always been loud, chaotic, alive. But tonight, it felt muted—like the city was holding its breath.
He liked that.
A sharp crash outside broke his momentary peace.
He looked up.
Across the street, a woman was struggling with two men under a flickering streetlight. No one else moved. Typical. Lagos was good at minding its own business.
Edward stood.
One of the men grabbed the woman's bag. The other tried to drag her into a tinted car idling at the curb. She kicked. Hard. Screamed. Fought like hell.
*Edward* leaned against the rusted railing of his apartment balcony, shirtless, sweat clinging to his back despite the breeze. His eyes scanned the street below, alert, trained—though he hadn't worn a uniform in three years. He left the life. Left the blood. Left the mission.
Or so he thought.
He took a drag from his cigarette, the ember lighting the sharp lines of his jaw. He was done. No more kills. No more orders. No more watching people he cared about vanish.
The scream came sharp—cutting through the quiet like a blade.
He dropped the cigarette. In one smooth motion, Edward grabbed his hoodie, slid on his boots, and ran.
***
Down the block, under the pale light of a flickering streetlamp, two men were dragging a woman into a black SUV. She kicked, screamed, bit—but they were stronger.
Edward didn't think. He moved.
[ The first man didn't see the elbow coming. Edward spun him with a single hit to the jaw, then turned as the second pulled a knife. The blade swung.
Edward ducked, gripped the man's wrist, twisted—*crack*—and dropped him to the ground.
The girl stared at him, chest heaving. Rain in her eyes. Or were those tears?
"Are you alright?" he asked, voice low but calm.
She nodded slowly. "I—I didn't think anyone would help."
He didn't reply. Just turned to walk away.
"Wait!" she called after him. "What's your name?"
He paused, looking back over his shoulder.
"Edward."
Then he vanished into the night, leaving behind only rain, breathless silence—and a woman whose life had just changed forever.
---
---
*CHAPTER TWO: ECHOES AND WARNINGS*
The next morning hit like a hammer.
Lena sat at her desk in the *Pulse Daily* newsroom, bruised but focused. Her lip was swollen, and her right shoulder throbbed from the struggle—but her mind was sharper than ever.
She replayed the night over and over.
That man—Edward. Quiet. Calculated. Lethal. And completely unknown.
She'd run background checks on people in less than ten minutes, but something told her *Edward* wasn't on any database. Ghosts like that didn't leave digital footprints.
Her editor, *Mr. Tade*, tapped the corner of her desk.
"You okay?" he asked, eyes darting to her lip.
"Yeah," she lied. "Just a rough night."
Tade wasn't buying it, but he let it go. "Your investigation on the stolen weapons? I need something stronger. A face. A link. Something to make readers care."
Lena leaned back in her chair. "I think I just found one."
Tade raised an eyebrow. "That so?"
She nodded slowly. "Last night... I was attacked. But it wasn't random. They wanted something off my laptop. The files. The syndicate knows I'm close."
"And the face you found?"
Lena pulled up a blurry CCTV snapshot from a nearby café security feed. A tall figure in black. Barely visible. Just one shot of him walking away from the scene.
"He saved me," she said. "Took down two trained men in seconds. Said his name was Edward. No last name."
Tade studied the photo. "He's either a guardian angel or a problem waiting to explode."
"Maybe both," Lena muttered.
***
Across town, Edward sat in an old gym, wrapping his fists.
The punching bag in front of him had already split at the seams.
He wasn't angry. Not exactly. But something about last night had stirred things he'd buried long ago—instincts, reflexes, the urge to protect.
She said her name was Lena. And that look in her eyes told him she wasn't just some random journalist. She was digging into something dangerous.
And now he was caught in it too.
He finished wrapping his hands, stood up, and stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror.
"Stay out of it," he told himself.
But the reflection didn't believe him.
Neither did he.
---
---
*CHAPTER THREE: THREADS IN THE DARK*
Lena stood at the edge of a rooftop parking lot, city lights burning beneath her like a living thing. She held her phone tight, the wind whipping her coat around her.
She was waiting for a message. Or a sign. Anything.
Edward hadn't called. Not that she expected him to—he didn't seem like the "follow-up" type. Still, part of her hoped he would.
Her phone buzzed. Finally.
*Incoming message: UNKNOWN SENDER*
*"If you value your life, stop digging. This is your only warning."*
She read it twice. Then deleted it.
Not because she was scared—but because she'd gotten worse.
***
Edward watched from a rooftop across the street, crouched low, hoodie up. He'd followed her for blocks—not to spy, but to make sure no one else tried what those men did the night before.
She was reckless. Brave. But reckless.
He admired that. Or maybe he hated it because it reminded him of who he used to be.
Then he saw her lift the phone, stare at it, and suddenly spin around—eyes scanning the skyline. Her instincts were sharp. Too sharp.
Their eyes met, just for a second. She couldn't see his face clearly in the dark, but she knew. She just knew.
He stepped back into the shadows.
He'd come too close again.
***
Later that night, Lena sat on the floor of her apartment, notes and photos scattered around her like puzzle pieces. Maps, weapons shipments, coded emails—all of it led back to one thing: *The Black Vein Syndicate*.
A private arms operation, hidden behind shell companies, corrupt officials, and deep silence.
And now… murder.
She pulled up a picture of a man—military file, redacted and burned.
It was Edward. A ghost from a forgotten unit.
No birth date. No family. Only a codename: *Wraith*.
Her jaw tightened.
"Who are you really, Edward?" she whispered.
Because if she was right, this wasn't just about uncovering a story anymore.
It was about waking something dangerous.
And it had already heard her knocking.
---
*CHAPTER FOUR: WRAITH*
Edward sat on the floor of his apartment, back against the wall, breathing slow.
The file lay open in front of him—an old military dossier, half-burnt, water-stained. It had been buried deep in a locked box for years. But after last night… he had to remember.
*Codename: WRAITH*
*Unit: Dagger-7 (Disavowed)*
*Specialty: Elimination. Disruption. Extraction.*
He stared at the old photo of himself. Younger. Sharper. Deadlier.
The missions had been off-the-books. Black bag stuff. Governments denied they existed. And when it all went wrong—when bodies dropped and borders blurred—they erased the team.
Except him.
He was the last one.
***
Lena paced her tiny living room, running voice notes into her recorder.
"Day 47. The Black Vein trail is narrowing. Shipment manifests point toward a shell company based out of Apapa Port. Connected officials. Maybe even military. I believe they're preparing to move heavy weapons into civilian zones."
She paused the recorder.
It was too big. And she was too alone.
But now there was *Edward*.
Or *Wraith*.
She didn't know what scared her more: that he was once capable of killing without hesitation—or that he was exactly the kind of person she needed.
She picked up her phone, hesitated, then typed a message:
*To: Edward*
*"We need to talk. I found something. Come alone."*
Then she hit send.
***
An hour later, Edward walked into the abandoned parking garage where she'd told him to meet her.
She was already there, arms folded, wearing a black jacket, and her signature fire-in-her-eyes stare.
"You followed me last night," she said.
He didn't answer.
"And you were military."
Still nothing.
"Codename Wraith. Dagger-7. Ring any bells?"
He finally spoke. Calm. Cold. "How long have you been digging?"
"Long enough to know you're not a bartender or a loner by accident."
They stared at each other in silence.
Then Lena stepped forward. "I don't care what you were. I care what you'll do next. Because they tried to kill me… and they're going to try again."
Edward looked past her, into the night.
"If you go forward," he said slowly, "there's no going back."
"I crossed that line the day I printed my first story," she said. "You in or not?"
He met her eyes. And for the first time in years, something inside him moved.
He nodded once.
"I'm in."
---
---
*CHAPTER FIVE: FIRELINES*
They met again in a run-down warehouse on the mainland. Lena brought her laptop, a bag of files, and two cups of coffee. Edward brought silence—and a gun tucked beneath his hoodie.
The air inside was heavy with dust, old oil, and tension.
Lena laid out everything on a metal table: shipping routes, transaction slips, intercepted emails. Edward scanned them with cold precision.
"They're moving crates labeled as 'machinery,'" she explained. "But the weight logs don't match. These aren't generators—they're weapons. I traced the paper trail to a dummy corp called *Thornbridge Freight*."
Edward's brow furrowed. He recognized the name.
"That's not a dummy company," he said. "That's a dead front. Used to belong to a contractor I worked with. He was buried two years ago."
Lena's eyes widened. "So someone revived it."
"Or someone never let it die."
***
Back in Victoria Island, in a high-rise with mirrored glass windows, *Victor Kalu* sipped red wine as he watched a video feed of Lena and Edward in the warehouse.
"She found him," he muttered.
His lieutenant stepped forward. "Should we handle it?"
Victor smiled, slow and dark.
: "No. Let them dig a little deeper. Edward is many things—but reckless? Never. He'll lead her straight to the heart of the operation without knowing it."
He raised his glass.
"And when they do… we bury them both."
***
Meanwhile, Lena noticed something in Edward—something even he didn't seem to realize.
The way he read maps faster than a computer. The way his ears twitched at the smallest noise. The stillness before a storm in his body language.
She'd known men who fought for justice.
Edward? He fought for survival.
And yet, when she caught him watching her out the corner of his eye—soft, like he didn't mean to—she saw something else.
Loneliness.
And maybe... guilt.
"You lost people, didn't you?" she asked gently.
He didn't answer. But the silence was loud.
And she didn't ask again.
Because some things don't need to be said.
Some scars speak for themselves.
---
*Chapter 6* is locked and loaded—just say the word.
*CHAPTER SIX: THE PORT OF SHADOWS*
Night fell like a velvet trap.
Edward stood at the edge of *Apapa Port*, watching cargo containers shift under moonlight and diesel fumes. Trucks rumbled like beasts in the dark, security moved in lazy rotations, and the hum of the Atlantic echoed beneath it all.
Beside him, Lena adjusted her earpiece and tucked her press badge deep into her coat.
"Place gives me the creeps," she muttered.
"It should," Edward replied. "Things go missing here all the time. Including people."
They were on recon. No weapons drawn. No mistakes allowed.
Edward had slipped them both past security using a forged ID badge and a little charm Lena hadn't expected him to have. Beneath all that silence—he was calculating, disarming when he wanted to be.
Now, crouched between two shipping containers, they scanned the loading zone.
"There," Edward whispered, pointing at a black crate being hoisted onto a truck. It had the *Thornbridge Freight* seal and a fake customs tag.
Lena snapped photos. "That crate's too heavy to be farming equipment."
"Those aren't guards either," Edward added. "They're hired guns. Mercs."
Just then, a red laser dot slid across the ground—then locked onto Lena's boot.
"Down!" Edward grabbed her and rolled them behind a steel drum as the first shot cracked through the air.
Sniper.
More bullets followed, pinging off metal and concrete.
The trap had been set—and they'd walked straight into it.
Edward pulled a pistol from an ankle holster and returned fire. Controlled. Clean. His eyes were cold now—WRAITH had woken up.
Lena kept her head low, heart pounding. "You said this was just recon!"
"They changed the rules," Edward growled. "Now we adapt."
He grabbed a flare from a discarded crate and lit it, tossing it across the yard. The bright burst drew fire—giving them a few precious seconds.
"Go!" he barked. "Run for the fence!"
"What about you?"
"I'll be behind you. I promise."
Lena hesitated—then sprinted.
Edward followed, ducking and weaving through crates as shadows closed in.
This wasn't just about smuggled weapons anymore.
They were getting too close.
And someone wanted them silenced—permanently.
---
*Chapter 7* is ready when you are. Things are about to get deadly.
---
*CHAPTER SEVEN: BLOOD AND ASH*
They hit the ground hard on the other side of the fence, Lena gasping for air, Edward bleeding from a shallow graze on his side. Sirens howled in the far distance—not police, but private response. Faster. Dirtier.
Edward yanked Lena to her feet. "We have two minutes max. Move!"
They disappeared into the alleyways of the mainland, cutting through darkness like hunted animals. Lena clutched the camera drive tightly in her fist. Even if they died, someone had to know the truth.
***
Twenty minutes later, inside a crumbling mechanic's garage Edward knew from his past, Lena stitched him up.
"You need a hospital," she said.
"No hospitals. No questions."
"You're bleeding."
"I've bled worse."
She looked at him, tired and angry. "You think shutting people out keeps them safe?"
"It keeps them alive," he said coldly.
Silence. Thick and heavy.
Then softer—"You're not the only one who's lost people, Edward."
He looked at her, really looked at her for the first time. And he didn't see just a reporter. He saw the fire. The pain. The survivor.
***
Meanwhile, back at the port, Victor Kalu stood near the shattered crates. Flames licked at the remains of what should've been a clean kill.
He knelt beside a spent casing and picked it up with gloved fingers.
"Sloppy," he said to his men. "He's alive."
"Should we pursue?"
Victor smiled, the kind that made men nervous.
"No. Let him run. Let her report. Let them think they're winning."
He stood, eyes narrowing into the dark.
"Because the next time we meet… I want Edward to remember what real loss feels like."
And somewhere in that night, something wicked began to move.
---
---
*CHAPTER EIGHT: UNCOVERED*
The room was dark, save for the soft blue glow from Lena's laptop. Rain tapped at the windows of her apartment like nervous fingers. She and Edward sat side by side on the floor, surrounded by takeout boxes, files, and silence.
The footage from the port had been grainy—but the voice she extracted from the audio was clear.
Victor Kalu.
CEO of three logistics firms, publicly clean, politically connected. Privately? A puppet master.
Lena leaned forward, scrolling through her research. "He runs clean on paper, but there are buried transactions, fake shell companies, and offshore accounts that don't add up. And now he has his own private army."
Edward nodded. "I've seen men like him before. Greedy. Cold. The kind who sleep fine after burning villages."
Lena glanced at him. "You ever kill someone like that?"
Edward looked away. "I've killed men better than him."
They sat in silence again. Not awkward—just heavy.
Then Lena asked, "Why'd you leave that life?"
Edward exhaled. "I was ordered to kill a man. But I found out the mission was a cover-up—he was innocent. I disobeyed. Got my team burned. Everyone died. I survived."
Lena didn't offer pity. Just understanding.
"You're not that man anymore," she said.
"No," Edward replied quietly. "But sometimes he wakes up."
***
Later that night, Lena uploaded parts of the footage to an encrypted server. It wasn't enough to publish yet, but it was a start.
As she powered down, Edward stood by the window, watching headlights move in the street below.
He sensed it. The quiet before another storm.
"Pack light," he said suddenly.
Lena blinked. "Why?"
"Because Victor's not going to wait for us to come again."
She followed his eyes—down to a black SUV parked across the street.
They'd been found.
---
*Chapter 9* is ready—things are about to break wide open.
---
*CHAPTER NINE: BREAKING POINT*
Glass shattered before the warning came.
Edward tackled Lena to the ground just as the first flashbang exploded in the living room. White light. Deafening sound. A second later, the door blew open and armed men stormed in—black masks, suppressed rifles, military precision.
Edward moved on instinct. He dragged Lena behind the couch, pulled his sidearm, and returned fire with brutal efficiency. Two down. Three more pushed in.
"Window!" he shouted.
Lena crawled toward it, coughing from the smoke. Edward followed, firing blind to cover her. She smashed it with a lamp, climbed out onto the fire escape, glass slicing her palms.
Edward turned for one last look—then launched himself out behind her as a bullet slammed into the wall where his head had been.
***
They ran through the rain-slick streets, breath ragged, clothes soaked. The city blurred around them, horns and sirens fading into background noise.
They didn't stop until they reached the railway yards—empty, forgotten. Only shadows moved here.
Inside a rusted cargo container, they collapsed. Both bleeding, shaking, but alive.
Lena looked at him, soaked and wild-eyed. "They weren't trying to scare us. They were trying to erase us."Edward wiped blood from his brow. "Then it's war."
He pulled a phone from his coat. A burner. He stared at it for a long second—then dialed.
A voice picked up.
"You told me never to call again," Edward said. "But I need guns, eyes, and a favor."
Pause.
The voice replied: "If Wraith is calling, it must be serious."
Edward's voice went ice cold. "It's Victor Kalu. And I'm done hiding."
He hung up and looked at Lena.
"No more running."
---
---
*CHAPTER TEN: GHOSTS ASSEMBLE*
Dawn broke over Lagos in pale orange and grey, but the railway yard stayed cold. Inside the rusted cargo container, Edward sat cross-legged, cleaning his pistol. Lena watched him silently as the burner phone buzzed on the floor beside them.
He answered without a word.
A familiar voice said, "Package will be dropped in thirty. You're not alone this time."
Edward hung up.
***
Thirty minutes later, a black SUV pulled into the yard. From it stepped *Ayo*, an old war-brother—stocky, bearded, with one cybernetic eye and a permanent smirk. Behind him came *Zee*, a hacker with a shaved head, tactical boots, and fingers always twitching like she could type on air.
"Damn," Ayo said with a low whistle. "You look worse than usual, Wraith."
Edward cracked half a smile. "Nice to see you too."
Lena stepped forward. "These the cavalry?"
Zee raised an eyebrow. "This her? The journalist?"
Edward nodded. "Lena."
"She's got fire," Ayo muttered. "That's good. We'll need it."
Inside the container, Zee set up a mobile station—drones, monitors, encrypted laptops. Within minutes, she'd tapped Victor's movements, bank accounts, and private channels.
"He's preparing a weapons transfer," she said. "Two nights from now. Lekki docks. Massive."
Edward paced. "That's the window. We stop the shipment, expose him, and burn his empire down."
Lena looked around the room at this ragtag unit of ghosts.
"You've done this before," she said quietly.
Edward's voice dropped low. "Too many times."
Ayo nodded grimly. "Only this time, it's personal."
And as rain began to fall again, they got to work—planning an assault not just on a smuggler…
…but on the empire that let him rise.
-
---
*CHAPTER ELEVEN: DOCKS OF DECEPTION*
The plan was tight.
Infiltrate the Lekki docks. Identify the shipment. Plant explosives on the barge. Extract clean—no body count unless necessary. And if they could get hard proof of Victor's presence on-site?
Even better.
Night cloaked the water in shadows, the scent of salt and oil thick in the air. Fog rolled across the concrete, giving Edward and his team the perfect cover.
Ayo crouched beside a shipping crane, scanning the area with binoculars. "Three hostiles by the first gate. More on the rooftops. Auto-rifles, not local boys. Victor brought in pros."
Zee's voice crackled in their earpieces. She was watching from a van two blocks out. "I've jammed internal comms for now. You've got 15 minutes before backup reroutes. After that, you're ghosts again."
Lena adjusted her vest, the bulletproof plates heavier than she expected. She was armed too—Edward had insisted. "This is realer than I imagined," she whispered.
Edward stood beside her, calm and unreadable. "It's always real. The trick is not forgetting you're still alive in the middle of it."
They moved.
Edward and Lena flanked left through stacks of containers. Ayo peeled off right toward the generator station. The barge was visible now—black, massive, loaded with crates stamped with fake logos.
A guard turned a corner.
Edward reacted fast—grabbed the man, silenced him, lowered the body gently.
Lena's breath caught. "You didn't even hesitate."
Edward's voice was low. "I don't get to."
They reached the barge ramp. Two guards blocked the way. Edward gestured—*distract left, I'll handle right*. Lena nodded, stepped out.
"Hey!" she yelled.
Both men turned.
Edward struck—three hits, clean and brutal. The second guard was stunned long enough for Lena to jab him in the throat with her elbow, just like Edward taught her.
She stared at the man coughing on the ground, shocked.
Edward gave a nod. "You hesitated. That's good."
They moved up the ramp.
Ayo's voice crackled in. "Generator offline. Explosives placed. You've got eight minutes."
Zee added, "Barge engine just powered up. They're moving early."
Edward cursed. "We move now."
Inside the hold, Lena filmed everything—crates of rifles, rockets, even anti-air launchers. Enough firepower to start a war.
Then… footsteps.
From the shadows emerged *Victor Kalu*, flanked by two armed mercenaries. Dressed in a crisp suit, he looked like he belonged at a board meeting—not in the belly of a war machine.
"I figured you'd show, Wraith," he said, voice calm. "Curiosity always was your flaw."
Edward stepped forward, gun raised. "You're done, Victor."
Victor smirked. "No. I'm just getting started."
He tapped a button on his wrist.
Alarms blared. Floodlights flared.
Outside, guards mobilized.
Zee's voice screamed in Edward's ear: "They triggered a satellite uplink! The whole feed's compromised!"
Victor turned to Lena. "You should've stayed a writer. Now you're just a target."
Edward pulled the trigger.
The bullet hit the wall beside Victor as he vanished behind his men.
Gunfire erupted.
Edward and Lena dove for cover. Ayo's voice screamed, "We've got a problem out here! Heavy reinforcements!"
Lena clutched the drive close. "We have what we need!"
Edward yanked her toward the ramp. "Then we end this now."
He pulled the remote detonator from his vest, flipped the switch—
Boom.
The rear of the barge exploded in a thunderous fireball, knocking back guards and breaking the port into chaos.
In the chaos, Edward, Lena, and Ayo sprinted through smoke and sirens toward the van waiting at the edge of the pier.
They escaped—but barely.
Victor lived. The syndicate still stood.
But now the world had seen a glimpse of the truth.
And the war had officially begun.
---
---
*CHAPTER TWELVE: SMOKE AND ECHOES*
The van screeched into a hidden underground garage beneath the Island. Zee jumped out before it stopped moving, already checking the signal jammer and laptop like a surgeon mid-operation.
Edward carried Lena out—her arm cut, ribs bruised, but conscious.
Ayo slammed the steel doors behind them, locking the world outside. "No tail," he confirmed. "For now."
Lena leaned against the cold concrete wall, clutching the flash drive like it was her heartbeat. "We got it. Everything. The weapons. Victor. His face."
Edward nodded. "It's not enough."
Zee spun toward him. "What do you mean not enough? That footage is gold!"
"He'll bury it. Buy silence. Discredit Lena. Kill anyone who tries to amplify it."
Lena wiped blood from her lip. "So what? We sit on it?"
"No," Edward said. "We go bigger."
Zee tilted her head. "Define 'bigger.'"
Edward locked eyes with Ayo. "We expose his network. Not just one deal—everything. The banks. The officials. The buyers. We light a fuse no one can extinguish."
Ayo cracked his knuckles. "That's gonna take a full breach. Deep net taps. Physical server access."
"And a message they can't silence," Lena added, pulling herself to her feet. "I have contacts in foreign media. If I publish the story with international eyes on it, they can't kill it quietly."
Zee whistled. "That'll put a target on all our backs."
"It's already there," Edward replied. "So we push forward."
***
Across town, Victor Kalu stood in his panic room, watching slow-mo surveillance of the port explosion. The heat of the fire painted his face in flickering red.
A voice spoke behind him—low, cold.
"You said Wraith was dead."
Victor turned to *Mrs. Okafor*, a military liaison with the power to vanish entire records. She wasn't smiling.
"He was," Victor said. "Or so I was told."
Mrs. Okafor stepped forward. "He's awake now. And if the media gets even a fraction of what they filmed…"
"I'll clean it up."
"No," she said. "You won't. We will. But this time… we clean you too, if needed."
Victor's smirk faltered.
***
Back in the hideout, Lena stood over the table, watching a live backup of her data upload to encrypted clouds. Her fingers trembled—not from fear, but from resolve.
Edward approached quietly. "You're doing something dangerous."
"So are you," she replied.
They stood in silence a moment.
Then she asked, "Why are you really helping me, Edward?"
He didn't answer at first.
Then softly: "Because you remind me of the people I failed."
She looked up at him. "Then don't fail me."
He nodded once. "I won't."
Outside, thunder rumbled in the distance—another storm coming.
But inside that room, their war was no longer just about justice.
It was about redemption.
And neither of them was turning back now.
---
---
*CHAPTER THIRTEEN: WIRES AND WHISPERS*
For the first time in weeks, Edward wore a suit.
Not for disguise. For strategy.
He walked through the marble halls of a top-tier offshore banking firm in Ikoyi, silent as ever. Every polished step was deliberate. Ayo walked beside him, dressed like a bodyguard, but scanning every face for hidden threats.
They were here to bait a leak.
According to Zee, Victor's money moved through this building—offshore accounts that financed not just weapons, but bribes, disappearances, and black-market connections across West Africa.
The receptionist looked up. "Do you have an appointment?"
"No," Edward said, offering a forged business card. "But your director will want to hear this name: Victor Kalu."
Silence.
Ayo muttered under his breath, "Subtle as ever."
Within minutes, they were led to a private office. A smooth-faced executive in an imported suit sat across from them, eyes calculating. "You've made a bold move. That name doesn't get spoken here."
"Then you already know who he is," Edward said. He placed a single hard drive on the table. "What you don't know is how deep the world's about to dig."
The man stared at the drive like it was a ticking bomb.
***
Meanwhile, in a shadowed café in Paris, Lena met with a contact: *Isaiah Grey*, an award-winning foreign correspondent. British. Sharp. Ruthless with facts. He sipped espresso like it was a weapon.
"You're saying Nigerian military officials, private banks, and arms smugglers are all linked to one man?"
"I'm saying I have the footage, voice logs, bank data, and field witnesses," Lena replied. "And I need you to publish it where they can't reach."
He leaned forward. "You understand what this will do to your life?"
"I'm already hunted," she said. "Might as well burn their lies down on the way out."
Isaiah smiled. "Now that… is journalism."
***
Back in Lagos, Zee's fingers flew over the keyboard. She was tracing encrypted call logs Victor had made after the port ambush.
"Guys," she said into the comms. "He's reaching out to people in Morocco. Ukraine. Even Venezuela. He's trying to move the network offshore before we hit again."
Edward's voice came through: "Then we hit now."
Zee paused. "We'll have to expose someone big. Someone that guarantees headlines."
Edward thought for a long second.
Then he said two words: "Mrs. Okafor."
Silence.
Then Ayo growled, "We go after the queen."
Edward replied, voice grim. "If we want to gut the empire, we cut the head feeding it."
That night, Lena returned to the hideout, exhausted but energized.
Edward was already back—half out of his jacket, eyes locked on maps and charts like a man preparing to tear down a kingdom.
She walked up beside him. "We're in. The article drops in 48 hours. Front page. Global."
He looked at her. "Then we've got 48 hours to make sure Victor doesn't vanish."
Lena stared at the board of red lines and coded names.
"How far are you willing to go?" she asked.
Edward looked her dead in the eyes.
"All the way."
---
---
*CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE QUEEN'S GAME*
The headquarters of the *Strategic Military Procurement Bureau* stood tall in Abuja—armored glass, concrete skin, cameras in every corner. Officially, it was a fortress of national defense. Unofficially, it was Mrs. Okafor's personal chessboard.
Edward, Ayo, and Zee had one mission: extract proof that she authorized off-book weapons deals connected to Victor's syndicate. That meant breaching the bureau's server room… and walking through fire to get out.
***
Disguised as a contracted tech team, they entered through service access. Ayo carried crates of "replacement routers." Zee wore glasses that doubled as an uplink scanner. Edward? He carried nothing but a fake ID and his past training—because he didn't need tools. He *was* the tool.
"Third floor. South wing. Secure core behind biometric lock," Zee whispered.
Ayo growled, "Place is crawling with state security. One false blink and we're body bags."
They moved fast—through maintenance halls and unguarded stairwells. Edward took out one guard silently in a hallway and slid the man's ID into Zee's palm.
Inside the server room, cool blue light glowed from dozens of humming towers Zee plugged in a device the size of a thumb. "Give me five minutes."
Outside, footsteps. Voices.
Edward flattened against the wall. Ayo stood casual, pretending to scan equipment.
A pair of military officers passed… then stopped.
"Who authorized this team?" one asked.
Zee didn't look up. "Colonel Bashiru."
The second officer narrowed his eyes. "He's in Ghana this week."
Edward moved—fast.
One strike to the throat. One to the knee. Both men down before they hit the floor.
Ayo dragged them into a supply closet.
"Clock's ticking," Edward hissed.
Zee grinned. "Download complete. And guess what? I found Mrs. Okafor's private encrypted logs—voice orders, wire routes, personal cuts. She wasn't just allowing Victor's operations. She was running half of them."
Edward nodded. "Good. Time to deliver checkmate."
***
Back in Lagos, Lena was preparing her article's final draft when Zee's files arrived.
She stared at the documents. Military clearances. Hidden payments. Audio logs of Mrs. Okafor instructing, *"Divert the crate. Tell Kalu I expect results, or I send someone less... civilized."*
Lena's heart pounded.
This wasn't corruption. This was treason.
She called Isaiah Grey. "We need to move the timeline up. I'm dropping it in 24."
He didn't hesitate. "Do it."
***
That night, Mrs. Okafor received a package.
Inside: a flash drive, a printed headline mock-up reading *"The Queen Behind the Guns,"* and a single handwritten note:
*"Check."*
She read it in silence.
Then made one call.
"Kill them all."
---
*Chapter 15* awaits—retaliation is coming, and nobody's safe.