Truth Sharpened By A Blade

The streets didn't feel like Lagos when Dre came back up. It felt colder, like the wind had been warned he was coming. The city didn't blink when killers walked, but tonight, it was like something bigger had shifted. Not fear. Awareness. The kind of shift that happens when one name that's not supposed to be spoken leaks back into the air. Gafaru. That name didn't belong in the present. It was a relic. A ghost. Something boys whispered about when they wanted to scare each other at night. Gafaru didn't just fund crime. He engineered it. While Dre was growing up dodging scraps and sleeping light to avoid surprise raids, Gafaru was in glass offices flipping real estate into power. And now, somehow, he was at the top of the chain that left Dre's brother with a bullet in his ribs. That meant Dre had been fighting pawns for too long. Elric, Saros, all of them chess pieces. Gafaru was the board. And Dre wasn't playing anymore. He walked without looking both ways, shoulders heavy with silence, eyes locked on something only he could see. The bus stop nearby was filled with noise, kids running with gala, conductors screaming for change, but to Dre, it all sounded far away. His mind was sharpening, cutting everything down to the next step. Saros had to bleed. Not with bullets. With exposure. With the kind of fall that made others around him choke. Dre didn't want his enemies dead anymore. He wanted them undone. He passed an old fruit seller, nodded. She smiled without teeth and returned the nod. That was the thing about the streets they knew your spirit before your name. Dre's aura had shifted and the city noticed. Not everyone, but the ones who mattered. The ones who saw with their soul. He took a left near the footbridge and slid into a narrow alleyway between two mechanic shops. There was a door there. No sign. Just a number carved into the metal: 44. He knocked three times, long-short-long. It opened without a question. Inside was darkness wrapped in red light. Thick cigarette smoke sat in the air like fog that refused to leave. A man sat behind a table, bald head shining, eyes deep. Dre sat across from him, didn't wait to be invited. "I need access to Saros," he said. The man blinked once. That was his way of saying he understood. "You bringing heat?" "I'm bringing light," Dre replied. The man chuckled like a lion that forgot it was dangerous. "You know light burns faster than bullets, right?" Dre nodded. "Exactly." The man reached below the desk and slid a tablet across. "Saros has three drop points. One in Ikeja, one in Apapa, and one underground in a church compound near Agege." Dre took the tablet and memorized the map. "Which one's the weakest?" "Apapa," the man said. "Minimal security. But he rarely shows in person. Sends couriers." Dre nodded again. "That's where I'll start." The man leaned forward. "You're shaking the tree too hard. You know who backs him?" Dre looked up slowly. "I do now." Gafaru's name hung in the air like a curse nobody wanted to touch. The man didn't ask more. He knew better. Dre stood, slid a small wad of cash across the table, and walked out without saying goodbye. Outside, Lagos moved like it always did, fast and chaotic, but Dre's path stayed clean. He moved through it like a knife through smoke, cutting a silent line toward something bigger than revenge. He took a bike straight to Apapa. Told the rider not to talk. Just ride. The man obeyed. When they reached the old warehouse near the dock, Dre got off, paid double, and walked toward the building with the calm of someone who already knew how this ended. The guards were lazy. One was smoking. The other playing Candy Crush. They didn't see Dre until he was already inside. That was the difference between street and system. The system thought uniforms made you invisible. The street knew everything had a crack. Dre found the courier room. A small space filled with bikes, brown boxes, and the same seal he saw in the basement earlier. Saros Ltd. A young boy, no older than 19, was loading packages. He looked up, surprised. "You're not supposed to be here," he stammered. Dre held up a pass he took from the security room two minutes earlier. "New transfer," he lied, and the boy believed it because Dre said it like truth. He didn't waste time. He walked over to the desk, opened the shipment logs, and took photos of everything. Then he planted a small drive behind the CPU a backdoor. Someone owed him that tech favor. That drive would leak every deal Saros did to every news outlet Dre had already blackmailed. When he left, he didn't run. He strolled. The guards still didn't notice. But Saros would. By the time Dre reached the bridge again, it was raining. Not heavy. Just soft enough to remind you you're alive. He didn't hide from it. Let it hit his face, slide down his arms, soak his shirt. He walked like someone who knew the city had just started bleeding and didn't mind being drenched in it. He went home. Not to rest. To prepare. He peeled off the wet clothes, sat in silence, and played a recording. His brother's laugh. Just once. Just to hear it. Then he deleted it. Not out of pain. Out of respect. Because the next chapter didn't belong to the past. It belonged to the war ahead. Saros would wake up tomorrow to a world where his name meant rot. Where his guards didn't trust him. Where his clients started pulling away. Where his secrets were louder than his deals. And somewhere in the shadows of that chaos, Dre would be watching, waiting, planning. Not just for Saros. But for Gafaru. Because once Saros fell, Gafaru would have to step into the light. And that was where Dre would be standing not with a gun. But with truth sharpened like a blade. The streets taught him to survive. Pain taught him to listen. But loss? Loss taught him to become what they feared the most a man who had nothing left to lose, and every reason to burn the world quiet.