Zina had barely slept.
The message on the burner phone echoed in her skull like a ticking bomb:
"YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO DROP THE CASE OR JOIN HIM."
She'd reread it ten times. Deleted it. Recovered it. Then left it face-down on the desk in Aurelian's suite while she paced like a prisoner in her own thoughts.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Aurelian had asked once. Just once. Then gone silent.
He knew her answer. Silence was her defense. Law was her weapon. And right now, she had neither.
It was 2:37 a.m. when she left the suite.
Aurelian insisted on calling his driver, but she declined. Her body needed motion. Her mind needed air. She wanted to feel the cold sting of the wind and remind herself she was still alive.
But the streets of Abuja at night were not for the grieving especially not those grieving publicly.
A sleek, unmarked black car passed her slowly, twice. She pretended not to notice. Someone was watching. Or maybe following. Or maybe both.
By the time she reached her apartment building, her nerves were stretched like glass.
She typed her door code with shaking fingers: 8 - 4 - 3 - 9 - 2.
Click.
She entered, shut the door, then leaned against it and listened.
Silence.
Too much of it.
Zina turned on the lights everything looked untouched, but it didn't feel untouched.
There was a strange scent in the air. Slight. Metallic. Not hers.
She checked the door again. Still locked.
Checked the windows. Still latched.
But when she stepped into the living room, something sent her heart diving into her stomach.
Her father's old legal journal the one he always kept locked in his safe was sitting on her coffee table.
Open.
Page bookmarked with a red thread.
Her blood went cold.
She hadn't seen that journal since the funeral. In fact, it had disappeared from his office the week after his death.
She dropped her bag and slowly stepped toward it.
There, under a line of scribbled notes about "shell companies" and "legislative laundering," her father had written in his tight, sharp handwriting:
"If I go missing, follow the pattern.
It always returns to Gambo.
And if you're reading this, don't trust anyone not even him."
Zina felt her legs weaken. She sat down hard.
Who brought this here?
How did they get in?
She scanned the room again. Nothing else was touched. Not visibly. But that journal wasn't a coincidence. Someone had been here. Someone had a key. Someone wanted her to know they'd been here.
She took a breath.
And then the doorbell rang.
She froze.
Three quick buzzes.
Then silence.
She didn't move. She watched the peephole.
Nothing.
Then... a small white envelope slid under her door.
She waited until she heard footsteps receding slow, deliberate before crawling over and picking it up with the tip of a pencil.
Inside was a single piece of paper. Printed. Clean. Almost sterile.
"THE DEAD DON'T STAY DEAD WHEN THE LAW DIGS THEM UP.
STAY BURIED, ZINA."
Her hand trembled.
By morning, her composure was fractured but functional. She showered, dressed, and locked her apartment like she was sealing a crime scene.
She met Aurelian at a cafe near the High Court. He looked at her like he already knew something was wrong.
"You didn't sleep," he said quietly.
"I slept enough to remember how to be dangerous," she replied, sipping bitter black coffee.
He slid a folder across the table.
Inside were court summons for a surprise witness in her father's sealed investigation. Someone who had requested anonymity but now wanted to come forward.
"He called my office late last night," Aurelian said. "Didn't leave a name. Just said to meet him at the old train yard. Noon. Today."
Zina narrowed her eyes. "That sounds like a trap."
"I know," he said. "But it's our only lead outside the Senate."
They arrived at the abandoned train yard just before noon.
The place was a skeleton rusted tracks, broken walls, shattered glass crunching underfoot. A place long forgotten. A perfect place to hide the past.
A man stepped out from behind a rusted cargo train.
Slim. Nervous. Wearing thick glasses and a hoodie zipped up to his throat.
"You're the lawyer?" he asked.
Zina nodded. "Speak."
"I worked with your father," the man said. "He was close to exposing the offshore accounts. The fake NGOs. The foreign arms deals. He trusted Senator Gambo... but it was a setup."
Zina's pulse thundered.
"Then the night before the press conference, your father received an untraceable call. He left me this." The man handed her a flash drive. "I never opened it. I was scared. Still am."
She held it tightly.
"What's your name?" Aurelian asked.
The man hesitated. "My name is—"
Crack!
A shot rang out.
Blood sprayed across the side of the train.
The man fell backward, a bullet through his throat. Eyes wide. Still gasping.
Zina screamed and ducked, grabbing the flash drive as Aurelian yanked her behind cover.
Another shot rang out this one grazing the rusted edge of the train beside her face.
They were being hunted.
Aurelian pulled a compact pistol from his coat. "Go! Run to the car!"
Zina sprinted as gunfire echoed behind her, knees nearly buckling, heart pounding so loudly it drowned out the world.
They dove into the car just as Aurelian's driver sped off.
Behind them, the train yard disappeared in smoke and fear.
In the safety of the moving car, Zina clutched the flash drive like it was her father's last breath.
"We just watched a witness die in front of us," she whispered.
Aurelian looked straight ahead. "That was the message."
She turned to him, fire returning to her veins. "Then here's mine."
She slid the flash drive into her laptop.
And as the files opened dozens of documents, videos, bank statements, voice recordings a video began to play.
It was footage. Shaky. Grainy.
But clear enough.
Senator Gambo, in a dim room, accepting a black suitcase from a man in military uniform.
"This isn't about elections anymore," the voice said.
"It's about who survives the purge."
The video cut.
Zina stared at the screen.
Tears didn't come. But resolve did.
"They killed him," she said, voice flat.
"And now they'll come for you," Aurelian replied.
She looked at him. Not with fear.
With fury.
"Let them come."
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Chapter Five: The Return of Fear. Zina is entering the most dangerous phase of her journey and trust me, everything from here on gets even darker, scarier, and… more addictive.
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Leave a comment – I'd love to hear what shocked or moved you most!
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– With justice & suspense,
Author K.H.O
Update Schedule:
New chapter every single day buckle in, because this story is just heating up. Chapter Six is coming next, and it might just break your trust in everyone…