The text message comes in at 2:11 a.m.
"Guy. We need to talk. It's about you."
It's from Jide. We haven't spoken in months, maybe even a year. Last I heard, he got promoted at the state archives office in Alausa. The same place where the original Kolade Babatunde Adebayo's birth records would have been altered. Where mine were, too.
I sit up in bed, the ceiling fan clicking softly above me. Nse has been sleeping on the couch these days. Too many arguments. Too much tension. I don't even know what we are anymore co-conspirators? Enemies? She doesn't trust me, and I've stopped pretending I trust her. But we still move in orbit around each other, both too smart and too trapped to run.
I type back: "What kind of talk? You can't just drop that and vanish."
The response is quick: "Something weird. I'll call. Can't text this."
The phone rings almost immediately. I answer on the second buzz.
"You still breathing?" Jide's voice is tense. Not his usual sarcastic tone. He sounds rattled.
"Barely," I mutter. "Talk."
He sighs. "There was a system ping at the office. Someone requested access to your old file. Not the alias. Your real name. Deyemi Ayoola."
My blood goes cold.
"Who?" I ask.
"That's the thing. It came through a third-party legal requisition routed through a private investigator. The trail was sanitized. No names. Just a timestamp and case number. But whoever it is, they're not playing. They're not amateurs."
I rub my jaw, staring at the dark window. The Lagos skyline glitters back like a mouth full of secrets.
"They pulled everything, Deyemi. Birth record, criminal docket, prison photo. Even your mother's hospital records. I've never seen a dig this deep, this fast."
I whisper, "Jesus."
"Yeah," Jide says. "That's about right. Listen, I only found out because I flagged your file when I helped you back then. The system triggered the flag when someone accessed it. They're building something. And it's not for curiosity."
"You think it's the cops?"
"No," Jide replies immediately. "Too careful. Too methodical. This isn't state work. This is personal. Someone wants to bury you, not arrest you."
I end the call and just sit there.
Sweat beads under my collarbone. My whole body goes hot and then cold.
Someone's digging.
I have enemies, sure. A long list. But this feels different.
It feels like a reckoning.
+++
By morning, I'm outside, pacing in the compound barefoot. The concrete is warm beneath my feet. Nse steps out of the flat, her arms crossed. She's wearing one of my old shirts, hair tied up in that careless knot that always used to undo me.
"You look like you haven't slept," she says.
"I didn't."
She eyes me. "Something wrong?"
"Someone's pulling my file. The real one."
Her body stills. "How far back?"
"Back to Ajegunle. To before Kolade was even a thought."
She exhales sharply. "The murder?"
I glance at her. That word still hits like a punch to the ribs. Murder. No matter how much we dressed it up self-defense, chaos, accident it's what it was.
"You think it's her?" she asks. "Rita?"
I shake my head slowly. "Maybe. Maybe not, I doubt she has the means to do something this big. But someone who knows where to look and how. That narrows it down."
She steps closer. "Do you want me to reach out to my contact at Techlink again? They might trace the server route."
"No," I say. "Too risky. We might spook them. I want to see how far they go. I want to know what they want."
She lifts a brow. "And what if what they want is your head?"
"Then I'll make sure mine doesn't roll alone."
She looks at me for a long moment. Not with love. With calculation. Like an investor deciding if the risk is still worth the reward.
Then she turns and walks back inside.
+++
Later, I drive to Ikorodu.
There's an old barbershop there, one of the few places where no one asks questions. The kind of place people like me go when they need silence, not haircuts.
Inside, I find Tolu the only man who still remembers me as Deyemi. He doesn't flinch when he sees me. Just nods.
"You need cleanup?"
"No. I need history."
We sit in the back. No one else around.
"Someone's scraping the past," I tell him. "I don't know who. But they're not stopping at the surface."
He lights a stick of Benson & Hedges, exhales. "Then it's almost time."
I look at him sharply. "Time for what?"
"Time to choose who you want to be when it all collapses."
I hate his riddles. But I can't argue.
He leans closer. "You built Kolade like a house of mirrors. But you forgot mirrors crack. All it takes is one stone."
"I didn't forget," I say.
"Then why didn't you run when you still had time?"
I don't answer.
Because part of me didn't want to run. Part of me wanted Rita to see me. The real me. Even if it meant destruction. Even if it meant everything else fell apart.
+++
Back in the flat that night, Nse's pacing.
"We need to pack."
"No," I say. "Not yet."
She glares. "You think I'm going to wait around while some anonymous ghost peels us like onions? We need to vanish. Change phones. Get new names."
I smile bitterly. "You really think changing names is going to save us this time? They're already past the surface. They'll find the next layer, too."
"Then we burn the layers. All of them."
"We can't burn Rita," I say quietly. "Not like that."
Her voice sharpens. "You still care about her. Even now."
I don't answer.
She throws her hands up. "God, you're a fool. You always were."
Maybe she's right.
Maybe I am.
But if I go down, I want to know why. I want to see the face of the person who's reaching back into my past like a surgeon with a scalpel. I want to know what they're planning. What they think they'll find.
Because the truth isn't clean. It's messy. Bloody. Twisted. The kind of truth that doesn't just ruin a life it questions it.
And whoever's looking… they're not ready.
But I am.