"When your memories start lying to you, look deeper. That's where the truth hides."
— From Ibrahim Dalhatu's final journal entry (redacted)
The photograph shouldn't have existed.
Zina stared at it her mother and Colonel Musa, locked in an intimate embrace. A smile barely concealed on her mother's lips. Her hand rested gently against his chest, like she belonged there.
This wasn't a handshake between allies.
This wasn't a friendly memory.
It was something more something that shattered every truth Zina thought she knew about her family.
The back of the photograph confirmed it: dated March 1993.
A full year before her mother married Ibrahim Dalhatu.
Zina's heart pounded like footsteps down a dark hallway.
She didn't want to believe what her eyes were screaming.
Then her phone buzzed.
"Mummy Calling…"
- THE CALL THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
Zina picked up, tension tightening her grip on the phone.
"Hello?"
Her mother's voice came through, soft, shaken, almost whispering.
"Zina, baby. Listen to me carefully…"
"Mum? What's going on?"
"I'm okay but you must not come here. Not now."
"What? Why not? What's happening?"
A pause.
Then her mother's voice cracked raw with panic.
"They're watching me. I don't have much time. Zina… there's something I never told you….."
Click.
The call ended.
Zina stared at the screen in disbelief.
That was no ordinary warning. That was a mother trying to confess something.
And being cut off.
By who?
-THE CONFRONTATION WITH AURELIAN.
Back in their safehouse, Zina packed her duffel bag with military precision. Bulletproof resolve.
Aurelian stepped into the room, concern etched across his face.
"You're leaving?"
"My mother's in Kaduna. She called, panicked. Said people were watching her. She was about to tell me something important then the line went dead."
"You're walking into a trap."
Zina snapped the bag shut. "Then I'll walk in with my eyes open."
His jaw tensed.
She turned to him slowly. Her voice dropped to something dangerous.
"You never told me you worked under my father. You signed a transport license that enabled the very smuggling operation that may have funded his death."
Aurelian swallowed.
"I was 22. An unpaid intern. I signed papers I didn't understand."
"You understood enough to hide it from me."
"I was trying to protect…."
"YOURSELF!" she shouted. "You were protecting yourself, Aurelian! Just like everyone else in my life!"
Silence thundered between them.
Aurelian looked like he'd just swallowed acid.
"I was broke. I was scared. I didn't know that one paper would cost lives."
Zina stared him down.
"I believed you were the one man in my life who didn't lie."
Aurelian looked away.
"Maybe I wanted to be."
-SPARROWS DROPS A BOMBSHELL
In the next room, Sparrow sat hunched over the laptop, scanning financial documents Jibrin Dalhatu had secretly passed to them.
"Zina, Aurelian. Come here."
They leaned in.
"There's a name hidden in one of the dummy accounts used to receive international wire transfers."
She clicked the file open.
AMIRA DALHATU.
Zina blinked. "My mother?"
Sparrow nodded. "That's the name listed as account manager on multiple offshore accounts linked to weapons licensing and ghost deals."
Aurelian leaned closer. "Could be identity theft."
Sparrow shook her head. "No. The signature matches her marriage certificate."
Zina staggered back.
"My mother doesn't even trust online banking. She still pays NEPA bills in person."
"Someone's using her name," Sparrow said, "or she's involved... willingly."
-BACK TO KADUNA
They drove through Kaduna's dusty streets the next morning, past checkpoints, silent mosques, and military trucks that seemed to patrol like wolves looking for the slowest lamb.
Her mother's house looked too quiet.
The door was slightly open.
No security.
No househelp.
Inside, the living room was almost empty. Curtains gone. Family pictures taken down. The kind of erasure that only fear creates.
On the dining table sat a single envelope, hand-labeled:
ZINA.
She opened it with trembling hands.
Inside:
A faded wedding photo of her parents
A sealed USB stick
And a folded note in her mother's handwriting:
"Forgive me. I should have told you sooner."
- THE CONFESSION VIDEO
That night, they watched the USB contents.
Zina's mother appeared on screen, older but composed.
She sat at a table. Her voice was steady too steady.
"I was young. Naïve. Colonel Musa and I… we were in love before I met your father. But Musa introduced me to a world I didn't understand. Secrets. Classified missions. Things that made me afraid."
Zina stared, frozen.
"I broke off the relationship. Then I met your father. He was honest, brave, everything Musa wasn't. We married. But Musa never forgave me."
Her mother's voice faltered.
"When your father started uncovering internal corruption, Musa came back into our lives… threatening me. I tried to warn Ibrahim. I even signed a nondisclosure agreement to keep Zina safe."
Zina gasped.
"You signed an NDA with a killer?!"
The video ended.
Silence.
- ZINA BREAKS
Zina walked out of the room like a ghost. Her feet moved, but her soul lagged behind.
Out on the balcony, she leaned against the railing, eyes blurry with grief.
Aurelian followed, hesitant.
"Zina…"
She cut him off.
"Everyone who claimed to love my father my uncle, my mother, even you ended up betraying him."
"I didn't betray him."
"You didn't stop it either."
Silence.
He looked down.
"I tried to forget what I signed. But I've lived with the guilt. Every damn day."
She nodded slowly.
"I want to believe you. I really do."
Aurelian looked into her eyes.
"Then let me help you finish what your father started."
-THE MISSING WITNESS
That night, Sparrow stormed into the safehouse, rattled.
"I was supposed to meet a man tonight. Military contractor. He had evidence your father's files were forged after death. He never showed."
Zina stood.
"What happened?"
Sparrow opened her palm.
A ring, twisted and bloodied, lay in her hand.
"He was found outside the meeting spot. Throat slit. Tortured. Someone didn't want him to talk."
Zina's stomach churned.
"How many more people have to die before the truth sees daylight?"
- THE PACKAGE AT THE DOOR
A knock. Then silence.
Aurelian opened the front door cautiously.
No one was there.
Just a box.
Inside, wrapped in soft white cotton
A severed human ear.
No note.
No blood.
Just silence that screamed louder than any warning ever could.
---
Reader's Corner
Zina just uncovered a love triangle soaked in secrets. Her mother may be involved. Her father may not be as clean as she thought. And someone is killing to bury the past.
Let's talk :
Do you think Amira was trying to protect Zina or hiding behind fear?
Can Zina trust Aurelian again?
Who sent the ear and who does it belong to?
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