One More Time

Funke lasted four days.

Four days of telling herself she was done. Four days of sending her CV to companies that never replied, of scrolling job boards that listed salaries that couldn’t cover their rent alone, of watching her mother ration the rice like it was something precious.

On the fifth day, Tunde came home from school and told her his WAEC fees were due.

₦47,500.

He said it quietly, the way he said things he knew would hurt. He didn’t look at her when he said it. Just put the paper on the table and walked to his room like he already knew the answer was no.

Funke picked up the paper. Read it twice.

Then she looked at the ring.

One more time, she told herself. Just this one. Then I stop for real.

She already knew how it would go. She had told herself the same thing about nothing before — had watched her aunties say it about ogogoro, watched boys on her street say it about street life. One more time was never one more time.

But Tunde’s exam fees were on the table and her CV was going nowhere and the ring was right there.

She wore it to bed.

The vision came faster this time. Like it had been waiting.

She saw a woman, fifties, expensive lace, heavy gold earrings, walking into a real estate office on Victoria Island. She saw a deal being signed. She saw the property number. She saw the agent’s commission slip — ₦800,000 — sitting on the desk unsigned because the woman had changed her mind at the last second over one clause in the contract.

Funke woke up at 3 AM with the details already fading at the edges the way dreams do.

She grabbed her phone and typed everything she remembered. The office name. The property. The clause the woman had objected to.

She stared at her notes until morning.

This one wasn’t a bet. She couldn’t just walk into a real estate office and collect commission on a deal she had no business being part of. She needed to think.

By 7 AM she had a plan. Rough, risky, the kind of plan that only works if you commit fully and don’t flinch.

She dug out the one corporate outfit she owned, a black blazer her former boss had gifted her two Christmases ago, a plain white blouse, dark trousers. She ironed everything twice. She found a small handbag that looked more expensive than it was. She borrowed Tunde’s printer to print a fake business card she designed on her phone in twenty minutes.

Funke Adeleke — Property Investment Consultant.

Tunde watched her from the doorway. “What are you doing?”

“Going to work,” she said.

“You don’t have work.”

“I’m creating one.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then: “Is this about the ring?”

Funke stopped. Turned. “What do you know about the ring?”

Tunde shrugged but his eyes were careful. “I’ve been watching you. Since that woman at the gate. You’ve been different.”

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say you weren’t fine. I said you’re different.” He paused. “Where did that woman come from, Funke?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you seen her again?”

“No.”

Another pause. Longer this time. “Be careful,” he said finally. Not like a small boy. Like someone who had seen enough to know that things that looked like help sometimes weren’t.

Funke looked at her brother, seventeen, thin, trying so hard to be the man of the house without anyone asking him to, and felt something pull in her chest.

“Your fees will be paid by Friday,” she said. “I promise.”

She left before he could say anything else.

The real estate office was exactly where she’d seen it. Glass doors, marble floors, the kind of air conditioning that hits you like a wall when you walk in from Lagos heat.

She told the receptionist she had an appointment with the senior agent. She didn’t. But she said it with the voice of someone who did, and in Lagos, confidence is half the meeting.

She got three minutes of waiting before a man in a navy suit appeared. Sharp eyes. The kind of man who could smell a bluff.

“I don’t have you on my schedule,” he said.

“I know,” Funke said. “But I have a client who was here yesterday. She had concerns about one clause in the Lekki Phase 2 contract. I believe if that clause is amended — specifically the exit penalty on sub-clause 4B — she signs today.”

The man went very still.

“How do you know about sub-clause 4B?” he asked slowly.

Funke held his gaze. “Because I know my client. And I know what she needs to feel safe enough to commit.”

The silence between them was thin and electric.

Then he said, “Come to my office.”

By 2 PM, the clause had been adjusted. By 3 PM, the woman in the expensive lace, who Funke had never met before in her life, was signing the contract.

The agent looked at Funke across the desk with an expression she couldn’t fully read.

“You’re good,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

He slid an envelope across the table. Inside, ₦150,000. A finder’s fee. Not the full commission, but enough. More than enough.

She walked out into the VI sun and stood on the pavement and allowed herself exactly ten seconds of feeling like she had won something.

Then she thought about the vision. About how she had known. About the ring, warm on her finger right now even in this heat.

She thought about what Tunde had said.

Be careful.

She flagged down a cab and told the driver Mushin.

On the way home, she checked her hand. The ring looked the same. Dull silver. Unimpressive.

But when she looked closely — really closely — the engraving on the inside had changed.

Before, she couldn’t read it.

Now it said two words, clear as anything.

Two left.

Funke’s blood went cold.

To be continued…