She went alone. Adrian had argued against it and she had told him that Kelvin was not a physical threat and that he would talk faster without an audience and that this was her conversation to have. Adrian had gone quiet in the particular way of someone swallowing an objection they know they won't win.
She called Kelvin and told him she wanted to talk. He agreed immediately, too quickly, the way he always did when he thought there was an opening. They met at a café near his flat, neutral ground that was actually his territory, another small habit of his she had never called out when it was happening.
She sat down across from him and put her phone on the table screen-up and said: "Tell me about the office."
He went still. It was only a second but it was enough.
"What office," he said.
"The one you rented in Victoria Island six weeks ago. The one with the direct sightline to Adrian Okonkwo's building." She kept her voice even. "I'm not here to fight, Kelvin. I just need to understand what's happening and you're going to tell me."
He looked at the table. Then at her. Then at the table again. She had always been able to wait him out and he had always known it.
"I was approached," he said. "A man contacted me about two months ago. Said he was working on behalf of a private client who had business interests connected to someone I knew. He didn't name you directly at first. He just asked if I was still in contact with a woman named Diane Osei and whether I'd be willing to pass along general information about your movements. Where you were going, who you were seeing." He turned his coffee cup in a slow circle. "He said it was a routine background matter. Corporate due diligence."
"And you believed that."
"I believed the amount of money he offered." He said it without flinching and she appreciated the honesty even as it settled in her chest like something cold. "He rented the office in my name because I don't have a company to register it under and he needed a name on the papers. I let him use mine."
"What were you supposed to be looking for."
"At first, just your routine. Where you worked, what time you left, whether you were seeing anyone. Then about three weeks ago he called again and asked specifically about any meetings you had with a man named Okonkwo. Whether you'd been to his building. Whether you looked like the meetings were personal or professional." Kelvin looked at her. "Diane, I didn't know what any of this was about. I thought it was some kind of business investigation."
"And when you came to my apartment? When you thought I might be pregnant with your child?"
He was quiet.
"Was that him too? Did he tell you to come?"
"He suggested it might be useful to reestablish contact." He said it to the table. "I know how that sounds."
She looked at the man she had shared two years of her life with and felt something settle into place, not pain, something beyond pain. Just clarity. The complete and final kind.
"Give me his name," she said.
"Dee—"
"His name, Kelvin."
A pause. "Daniel Eze. He said he was a lawyer based in Abuja. He called from a Lagos number but it changed every time."
She wrote the name in her phone, picked up her bag, and stood.
"Are you going to tell me what this is actually about," he said.
"No," she said. "We're done, Kelvin. Properly this time. Don't contact me again."
She walked out without looking back and stood on the pavement and typed the name into a search engine before she'd even reached the corner.
Daniel Eze. Lagos-based commercial lawyer. One firm listing, minimal web presence, the kind of profile that was designed to be findable but not informative. She scrolled to the bottom of the page where the firm's registered clients were listed in small print.
One holding company. Meridian Asset Partners, registered in Abuja 2018.
She clicked the company name.
The listed director was a name she recognised because she had read it in a newspaper profile three days ago when she was researching the Okonkwo family.
Chief Emeka Okonkwo. Adrian's father.
Her phone rang before she could process it fully. Adrian.
"My father just called me," he said. His voice was flat in a way she hadn't heard before. "He knows you're pregnant. He knew the exact number of weeks." A short silence. "I didn't tell him."