The rain hadn't stopped since the night Kayra vanished.
Lagos felt heavier now — like the city was grieving, but not for her. Neon signs flickered above shuttered kiosks, headlines blared lies, and Elara sat still by the window, watching water bleed from the roof like it had somewhere better to be.
Kayra's name was already fading from the news cycle.
Her father's wasn't.
"Bello Legacy Restored: A Father Reclaims His Place"
"New Initiative for National Ethics to Launch Under Ibrahim Bello"
"Was Elara Bello Misled by Rogue Journalists?"
"She's being erased," Elara whispered.
Khalid didn't look up. He hadn't slept either. His fingers tapped at the keyboard, working through trace logs and dead links. Everything Kayra touched had gone cold.
"He's not rewriting it," he said. "He's weaponizing it."
They had lost everything. Evidence. Testimony. Leverage. But something inside Elara had shifted. Fear had been burned out. Grief had curdled into focus.
If her father was playing god with the truth, she would learn to burn scripture.
Khalid opened a new terminal. "I've got a lead. Hacker in Makoko. Goes by 'NUMA.' She used to run whistleblower cleanups — hides leaks inside shell databases."
Elara leaned forward. "Is she trustworthy?"
"No," Khalid said. "But she's angry. And she hates The Silence Council."
NUMA's lair wasn't in some high-rise. It was a shanty flat wired with stolen fiber cables and illegal servers disguised as furniture.
NUMA herself was barefoot, in a stained kaftan, eyes rimmed with insomnia and coffee.
She looked at Elara and grinned. "The shame daughter. I was wondering when you'd crawl my way."
"I need your help," Elara said.
NUMA tapped a USB drive on the table. "You're lucky. I archived one of Kayra's backups months ago. She used my server without telling me — encrypted it under the alias 'BELLONA.' I only noticed because it pinged yesterday."
Khalid frowned. "Why yesterday?"
"Someone tried to delete it."
That was enough.
They spent the night rebuilding corrupted files, reconstructing lost metadata, and tracing Kayra's last 72 hours. Elara didn't cry. Didn't speak. She just watched the screen fill with fragments of what Kayra died trying to protect.
NUMA finally leaned back. "This isn't just a leak. It's a map."
Elara blinked. "A map of what?"
"The Silence Council."
Later that night, Khalid sat cross-legged on the floor, scrolling through decrypted names. Each entry led to someone powerful — judges, clergy, press, senators. Men and women who paid to keep things buried.
Elara stood behind him, arms folded. "Any link to Amara?"
"One name keeps repeating." He turned the laptop. "Senator Uzoamaka Diri."
Elara's jaw tightened. "She visited the house once. Right before Amara died."
"She's also attending the Council Dinner this weekend."
Elara didn't blink. "We need access."
Khalid looked at her. "You're not serious."
"I'll go as press. NUMA can forge credentials. You build me a story."
He hesitated. "Elara…"
"We have nothing left," she said. "This is how we start getting it back."
He sighed. Then nodded.
At dawn, NUMA stepped out to smoke. Khalid stayed behind, coding fake media IDs.
Elara lay on the mattress, staring at the ceiling, mind turning in dark loops.
Suddenly, Khalid said:
"I've been running traces on Kayra's network. Halima's name keeps circling dead nodes."
Elara sat up. "What does that mean?"
"Someone's trying to delete her. Not just socials — school records, ID, medical files. It's like she never existed."
A beat passed.
"What if she's still out there?" Elara whispered.
Khalid glanced up. "Then she's hiding… or someone's hiding her."
Elara stood. Her shadow cut across cracked tiles like a blade.
"We find her," she said. "If anyone knows how deep this goes—it's Halima. She saw too much. And they knew it."
Khalid didn't argue.
The next day, NUMA released the first file.
Not a headline. Not a video.
Just a whisper — disguised as a downloadable PDF in a forgotten health blog. A breadcrumb.
Elara watched the download counter tick upward.
Five.
Fifty.
A thousand.
She didn't feel hope.
This wasn't about justice anymore.
This was war.
And this time, she wouldn't lose.