The soft hum of the screens in my basement control room was the only sound accompanying me as I continued digging into Toby's background. I'd been at it for hours, combing through government databases, surveillance dumps, and encrypted registries. Finally, a thread unraveled.
Toby Winters was a ghost, but not good enough to stay hidden from me.
His real name: Oluwatobiloba Akande. Born in Nigeria. Osun State. He'd lived with his uncle, Segun Akande. My heart stuttered when I saw the name.
Segun Akande.
The same man who sent him to the United States when he turned eighteen for his university degree. He'd taken on low-level jobs while here, graduated from the University of Southern California five years ago, and moved to New York just two years back.
My breath caught in my throat.
Segun Akande. That name.
It echoed like a faint whisper in the corners of my mind, pulling memories I had long buried to the surface. A memory flashed, sharp and unwelcome.
I was seven years old....
I was tiptoeing through Aunt Mabel's narrow corridor, heading to the kitchen for some water. I paused when I heard her voice from the sitting room, Mummy Grace our neighbor and aunt Mabels best friend,
"Has Segun Akande asked about his best friend's child since you took her in?" she asked.
"For where?" Aunt Mabel's voice was full of venom. "That good-for-nothing man. I'm not even sure he knows his useless friend had a child sef."
"What about her mum?"
"No word o," Aunt Mabel snapped. "That's why the girl herself is useless and won't amount to anything. If not for my husband, I wouldn't have even given her his last name. And now he wants me to bring her when I finally relocate, or dont bother coming, can you imagine the Nonsense, i dont blame him, its God that didn't give me a child of my own but left me with a caused child"
I had stood there frozen, heart breaking in silence, before I turned and crept back to my room, I didn't stand to hear mummy Grace's response coz I was already crying.....
Back in the present, my chest tightened. That man… that name… Segun Akande. He had to be the same one. The same Mr. Segun tied to Priority Alpha. Tied to the trafficking network. Tied to the mission that had nearly cost me my life.
But why the hell would he want me dead?
I stared at the screens, fingers clenched into fists. I needed to clear my head before I drowned in memories and rage.
I stood and left the basement, climbing up the stairs, The silence felt heavier tonight. I wandered into the kitchen, only to remember of course I hadn't stocked up yet.
I picked up my phone and buzzed Silas, the head of my security detail.
"Silas, I need one of your boys to pick up some groceries."
"Yes ma, I'm on it," he replied.
I rattled off a list and then padded into the sitting room. I slumped onto the couch and flipped on the TV, letting the mindless chatter of a daytime rerun fill the space.
Twenty minutes later, a soft knock came at the front door. I pressed a button on my remote, checking the entry camera. It was Silas.
I opened the door. He held two grocery bags and something else, a small brown manila envelope.
"Groceries, ma'am. And this… we found it near the perimeter. Ran it through our scanner. Not a bomb."
I took the envelope without a word and motioned for him to drop the bags in the kitchen. "Thanks, Silas. You can go."
Once he was gone, I picked up an apple, rainsed it and bit into it, then headed back down into the basement.
I dropped into my chair, the envelope in hand. There was no note.
Inside was a burner phone. I powered it on, unlocked it easily, which was strange and suspicious.
Encrypted files.
My eyes scanned the headers. Bank records, account transfers, shell companies.
Mr. Segun.
The money trail was meticulous and messy all at once, leading across borders, through dummy companies, to an offshore accounts in Australia, France and Lagos .
And then there it was.
Codename: Vulture.
I'd come across that alias before. But never this close.
Vulture had a safe house in Lagos. Coordinates, details, images.
This wasn't just intel. It was a gift.
A calculated offering.
I set the phone down slowly, the pieces clicking into place. I hadn't changed my home security agency after I realized Michael owned Creed's Risk & Recovery. And this, this sealed it.
Only one person could've sent this package. Only one person could find where I lived and still respect the distance I put between us.
Michael Creed.
He didn't sign it. He didn't have to.
I took a deep breath, locking the files, backing them up to my encrypted drive. I wasn't ready to face him, not fully, but he'd just moved a piece on the chessboard that I hadn't expected.
The war wasn't over.
But I was no longer fighting it alone.
I don't trust him fully yet, but I know in my guts he has my back.
With a sigh of relief, I picked up the burner phone and sent a text to the only saved contact , Creed....
Me: Thank you