IN THE HOUSE OF SHADOWS
They fled Abuja under the moonlight.
Zainab didn't speak for the first hundred kilometers. Her thoughts were stitched tight, her eyes locked on the rearview mirror. Obi drove like a man born behind a wheel—sharp turns, silent hands. Fatiha sat in the backseat, head down, whispering prayers beneath her breath.
"Where now?" Obi finally asked.
Zainab didn't hesitate. "Abeokuta."
"Safehouse?"
"No," she said, voice flat. "The house he left me."
Obi's brows raised slightly. "Dapo?"
She nodded.
Two years ago, before things unraveled, Dapo had gifted her a quiet house on the outskirts of Abeokuta—a place she never visited, never claimed. It was meant to be their future.
Now it would be her battlefield.
They arrived before dawn.
The house was untouched. Dust on the porch, weeds at the gate. But the inside was clean. Someone had been maintaining it.
Zainab lit a candle, walked through each room. Her footsteps echoed like questions in an empty hall.
She stopped at the study. On the wall, a framed photo: Dapo, younger, smiling in front of a private jet.
She took it down.
Behind it, a safe.
Obi whistled low. "Classic."
With trembling fingers, she entered a date: the first day she met Dapo.
Click.
Inside were two things: a USB drive and a faded envelope.
Zainab took both.
She opened the envelope first.
Inside—documents.
Property deeds. Offshore accounts. Photos of Dapo with high-ranking officials… and one, blurry but unmistakable, of "Mala"—the Jackal—shaking hands with a senator now running for president.
Zainab held the USB up to the light.
"We end them all," she said
Over the next three days, Abeokuta became command center.
Obi tapped into Bureau radio frequencies.
Fatiha intercepted Telegram drops from whistleblower groups.
Zainab coordinated. Calculated. Designed.
By the fifth day, she had a list of all Bureau locations tied to Raven and Jackal.
One stood out—a private auction scheduled for Saturday night in Victoria Island.
Rumor said it wasn't for art.
It was for power.
"They're selling leverage," Zainab said. "Compromising files. Blackmail footage. Names."
Obi looked at her. "You want to crash the auction?"
"No," she said. "I want to hijack it."
Saturday.
Victoria Island.
The building was marble, glass, and menace.
Inside, powerful men and women sipped aged wine, nodding at screens that showed secret documents, video clips, and names—tools of quiet destruction.
At 8:47 PM, the power flickered.
The room went dark for three seconds.
When it returned, the main screen displayed something new:
Zainab's face.
Her voice.
"Good evening. You don't know me. But you've tried to ruin me."
Gasps. Phones out. Some trying to unplug, others running for the exits.
"You trade in secrets. So let me give you one. Every file you see here? Every dark truth? I have copies."
"And if anything happens to me or anyone tied to this movement… it all goes live."
The room turned to fire.
Guards rushed. Sirens outside. Helicopters overhead.
But Zainab was not inside the building.
She was broadcasting from a rooftop miles away.
Watching the chaos unfold.
Smiling.
"They called me a tailor," she whispered, turning to Obi and Fatiha beside her. "But I just rewrote the pattern."
By morning, the story broke.
Zainab had disrupted the deepest power network in the nation.
The Raven's bank accounts were frozen.
The Jackal's name trended on X with a million curses.
And from small towns to big cities, women gathered, threading their own rebellion—through tailoring collectives, digital protests, and open calls for justice.
But Zainab knew it wasn't over.
The house was shaking.
But the foundation still stood.
And to bring it down…
She would have to return to the beginning.
To Ilorin.
To the grave of her mother.
Where it all started.