Two Threats Collide

Bimbola didn’t get in the car.

“I have somewhere to be,” she said, forcing steadiness into her voice despite her racing heart. “If you want to talk, you can talk to me right here.”

Osas studied her for a long moment, something between amusement and respect flickering across his face. “You’ve grown bold,” he said. “Church life suits you.”

“What do you want, Osas?”

“A debt was never settled between us,” he said. “You disappeared owing money to people who don’t forget easily. I’ve let it go for nine years because, frankly, I forgot about you until recently. But now that I know exactly where to find you, and who you’ve become, it seems only fair that we revisit old business.”

“How much?” Bimbola asked, exhausted by how familiar this conversation had become.

“We’ll discuss numbers later,” Osas said. “For now, I just wanted you to see my face. To understand this is real, and that unlike whatever games you’ve been playing with that boy from the church, I am not interested in warnings or testimonies. I want what I’m owed, quietly, or I burn your new life to the ground publicly. Your choice.”

“What boy from the church?” Bimbola asked, confusion cutting through her fear.

Osas’s expression shifted slightly. “Solomon. Adaeze’s brother. Did you think you were the only one he’d been asking questions to? He reached out to people from the old days, trying to build his case against you. That’s how word got back to me.” He smiled thinly. “Small world, isn’t it? Grief and greed, circling the same target.”

Bimbola absorbed this new information with dawning horror. Solomon and Osas, two separate threats she’d been fighting on different fronts, were somehow now aware of each other, both circling her, both capable of destroying what remained of her carefully built life.

“Are you two working together?” she asked.

“We have no interest in working together,” Osas said. “He wants revenge. I want money. Those are different appetites, and frankly, his is likely to get us both caught before I collect what I’m owed. I intend to speak with him directly.” His eyes hardened. “You’ll hear from me soon, Bimbola. Don’t test my patience the way you tested it nine years ago.”

He rolled up the window and drove off, leaving Bimbola standing on the sidewalk with her groceries, understanding with growing dread that Solomon and Osas were now aware of each other’s presence in her life, and that two men with entirely different motives, both circling the same wound, made for an unpredictable and dangerous combination.

That evening, unknown to Bimbola, Solomon received a phone call from a number he didn’t recognize.

“I hear we have a mutual interest,” Osas said when Solomon answered. “Bimbola Adeyanju-Coker. I think it’s time we talked, man to man, about how this plays out.”

To be continued…

Do you think Osas and Solomon will turn on each other, or team up against Bimbola?