THREADS THAT BITE

Ibadan was slower.

Not like Lagos, where everything shouted. Here, the wind carried secrets in softer tones.

Zainab watched the girls from under the mango tree. The same tree her mother once sold groundnuts beneath, long before death came with its scythe. The children were learning to stitch—ordinary fabric, ordinary needles. But she was watching something else.

Movement.

Eyes in the crowd.

She'd seen the black Toyota twice today. No plate. Windows tinted. Sitting still longer than any car should.

Obi would've noticed it too. But Obi wasn't here. He was underground again, back to what he did best—hunting ghosts in government.

Fatihah had relocated. Married. A quiet life in Kogi State. Still sent voice notes every week.

But Zainab?

She stayed in the open.

Wore no disguise. Smiled in interviews. Gave talks at women's tech conferences.

But behind the new foundation, behind the national recognition and the sewing academy bearing her name, she was still waiting for the stitch to snap.

And today, it just might.

Around 3:13pm, the car finally moved. Down the street. Slow.

Zainab handed her needle to one of the girls. "Finish the hem," she said, rising.

She walked calmly inside the small bungalow that doubled as her workshop. Locked the door. Pulled the curtain.

The alert was already waiting on her second phone: "Signal breach. Code: Jackal's Echo."

She sat.

Eyes cold.

It wasn't over.

They'd replaced the Bureau with a new agency—"NSSIC" they called it. National Surveillance & Systems Integrity Commission. Sounded cleaner, looked sleeker.

But it was just the Bureau, reborn.

And someone inside NSSIC wanted her gone.

The documents she dropped during the inauguration had broken the back of the Raven.

But the Jackal… had vanished.

She opened her encrypted tablet.

New tip from Raji: "NSSIC is recruiting ex-Russian assets. Someone fitting Jackal's profile was spotted in Ethiopia, boarding a plane marked for Lagos."

So he was back.

And she was the reason.

Zainab stood slowly, pulled off her flowing wrapper, and reached for the jacket folded inside a wooden drawer. Inside its lining—sewn with the precision of a master tailor—was a narrow pocket. She slipped the tablet inside, pressed the hem closed, and stitched it shut in seconds.

That jacket held her insurance. And her revenge.

A knock at the back door.

Three taps. One long. Two short.

She opened.

It was Mallam Yusuf's son—barely sixteen, already taller than his father.

"They want you in Abuja," he said quietly. "High priority. But you're not going alone."

Zainab blinked. "Who?"

"They said to tell you... 'The thread never forgets the needle.'"

Her heart stopped for a second.

It was Obi's code.

She picked up her bag, closed the shop, and walked past the children who were still stitching their small dreams onto big cloths.

She paused once.

Looked at them.

And whispered to herself, "One last mission."

Then she got into the car.

Headed north.

The thread was tightening.

And this time, it might choke.