He Found Me

She thought blocking him was enough. Then she walked to her car after work and he was leaning on it. Smiling.

Tola didn’t go home that night.

After Nkem’s call, she packed a small bag, drove to Chinyere’s apartment, and slept on her couch. Or tried to. Sleep doesn’t come easy when you know someone is looking for you.

Chinyere didn’t ask unnecessary questions. She just made the couch, put out a towel, and said, “Stay as long as you need. And if that man shows up at my door, I promise you, it will be the last door he ever knocks on.”

Tola almost smiled. Almost.

She lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. A different ceiling from her apartment but the same spinning thoughts. Dubem was coming to Lagos. Not for business. For her. She could feel it in her bones the way you feel rain before it falls.

Her phone buzzed. Nkem.

“He left the house at 5am. Packed a bag. Said he’ll be back in two days. Be safe, Tola.”

5am. He couldn’t even wait for morning properly. Whatever was driving him to Lagos was urgent enough to leave his pregnant wife before sunrise.

Monday passed. Nothing happened.

Tuesday passed. Nothing.

Tola went to work both days. Normal routine. She parked in the office lot, walked inside, did her job, walked out. But she was watching everything. Every car that slowed down on her street. Every person standing too long in one place. Every unknown number that called.

She felt stupid. Like she was being paranoid. Like maybe Nkem was wrong and Dubem really did come to Lagos for business and she was out here sleeping on her friend’s couch for nothing.

Then Wednesday happened.

It started in the morning. Chinyere called her at work, voice tight.

“Someone came to my building asking about you.”

Tola’s hand froze over her keyboard. “What?”

“My neighbour, Mama Tunde downstairs, told me a man came yesterday asking if a girl named Tola was staying here. She said she didn’t know anybody by that name. But she described the man to me. Tall. Well-dressed. Light-skinned. Said he was ‘a family friend looking to deliver something.'”

Obinna. It had to be Obinna.

“How did he know to come to your building?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Dubem saw your location before you blocked him. Maybe he followed you before. Maybe these people are more connected than we think. I don’t know, Tola. But they found my building.”

Tola felt her skin go cold. These people had tracked her to Chinyere’s apartment. They had walked up to her building and asked about her by name. This wasn’t a phone call at 10pm anymore. This wasn’t an envelope in a café. This was someone standing where she sleeps.

“Pack a bag,” Tola told Chinyere. “You’re coming to stay with Bisola tonight. Both of us.”

“Tola, I’m not running from these people.”

“It’s not running. It’s being smart. Please, Chinyere.”

Chinyere went quiet. Then: “Fine. But only because you said please. You never say please.”

The workday dragged. Every hour felt like three. Mr. Balogun called a meeting about “content direction for Q3” and Tola sat through it nodding at words she didn’t hear. Her mind was in Lekki. In Abuja. In Chinyere’s building where a stranger had asked for her by name.

At 5pm, she packed her bag. Said goodbye to Shade. Walked through the reception. Pushed open the glass door into the parking lot.

And stopped.

Dubem was leaning on her car.

Arms folded. Legs crossed at the ankle. Relaxed. Like he’d been waiting there for a while and didn’t mind. He was wearing a black shirt, dark jeans, and that face. That calm, handsome, lying face.

He smiled when he saw her.

Not a smirk. Not a threat. A smile. Warm. Familiar. The same smile from the tech event. The same smile from the dinner table. The same smile from the night he ate her jollof rice and kissed her forehead at the door.

That was the scariest part. Not anger. Not shouting. The smile. Because it meant he still thought he could win.

“Tola.” He said her name softly. Like a prayer. “Can we talk?”

She stopped ten feet from the car. Her keys were in her hand. Her bag was on her shoulder. Colleagues were walking past, getting into their own cars, not paying attention. Just another man waiting for his girlfriend after work. Nothing to see.

“Move away from my car, Dubem.”

“Five minutes. That’s all I need. Just hear me out.”

“I heard you out at the restaurant. You had nothing to say then and you have nothing to say now.”

“That’s not true. I have a lot to say. I just need you to listen.” He pushed off the car. Took a step toward her. “What’s happening right now, Tola, with you and Nkem talking, with you and my brother, with all this digging into things you don’t understand, it’s going to get somebody hurt. And I don’t want that person to be you.”

There it was. Under the softness, under the smile, under the “I care about you” packaging. A threat. Wrapped in love. Delivered with eye contact and a gentle voice. The most dangerous kind.

“Are you threatening me?”

“I’m protecting you.”

“From what?”

“From things that are bigger than both of us.” He stepped closer. “The people I work with, Tola, they don’t play. I can handle them, but only if everything stays quiet. If things start leaking, if documents start moving, I can’t control what happens next. And I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

She searched his face. For a second, one brief second, she saw something real behind his eyes. Fear. Not of her. Of something else. Something bigger than his lies and his double life and his fake office with one desk.

Chidubem Okafor was scared.

Good.

“Move away from my car,” she said again. Quieter this time.

He looked at her. The smile was gone now. What was left was something she’d never seen on his face before. Defeat. Not complete defeat. But the beginning of it. The moment a man realizes that charm won’t work anymore.

He stepped aside.

She walked past him. Unlocked the car. Got in. Started the engine. He stood there watching her, hands at his sides, like a man watching something slip away that he’d never really held in the first place.

She reversed out of the spot. Drove past him. Didn’t look in the rearview mirror.

Her hands were shaking on the wheel. Her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it over the engine. But she drove straight. She drove steady.

She called Chinyere from the road.

“He was at my car.”

“WHAT?”

“I’m fine. I’m coming to Bisola’s now. But Chinyere, this is getting serious. He said things are bigger than both of us. He said people could get hurt.”

Silence. Then Chinyere said something Tola didn’t expect.

“Then we need to move faster.”

END OF EPISODE 12