Warri no dey smile.
Even inside GRA—where the roads are tarred, houses fenced with barbed wire, and children wear polished shoes to school—there's something in the air. A kind of tension. Like smoke that never leaves, even when you can't see the fire.
Tony Black adjusted his navy-blue school uniform in front of the mirror, tying his tie with calculated neatness. His hair was cut low, his socks pulled straight, and his shoes shined like glass. He looked perfect. But behind the mirror, deep behind his dark brown eyes, something else was brewing.
A storm.
At just ten years old, Tony was already two people.
At home, he was Anthony Oluwafemi Ejiroghene Black—the third child in a wealthy, respected family. His father, Mr. Dele Black, was known across Delta State's oil circles. He was strict, feared by his children and neighbors alike. A Yoruba man with no tolerance for disobedience. His mother, Mrs. Eloho Black, was an ex-principal from Itsekiri stock. Tall, graceful, cold as steel. She loved her children, but she didn't tolerate nonsense.
"Tony! Come downstairs this minute! Your driver is waiting!" her voice rang from the kitchen like a gunshot.
"Yes, mummy!" he replied, his tone crisp, obedient. The kind of tone that earned nods from aunties and claps from church members. But the moment he stepped outside the gate, Tony switched.
He wasn't just the last son of a rich family.
He was street.
---
It started like this: behind the primary school, St. George's Academy, was a shortcut road leading to Eboh Crescent. On that road, you'd find small boys playing draft on benches, older ones smoking Benson & Hedges, and somewhere in the back, by a half-burnt container yard, was Tega.
Etaga "Tega" Ovie was fifteen.
Tall, dark-skinned, eyes like gun barrels. He didn't talk much. But when he did, everybody listened.
"Warri no dey carry last," he once told Tony, handing him a clenched fist. "You fit dey wear uniform, but I dey see you. You no be like them other ajebo pikin. You get darkness."
That was the first time Tega noticed him.
Tony had fought one of the older boys—Michael—after school. Michael had pushed Fikayo, Tony's junior sister. The slap Tony gave him echoed past the gates, and the street boys nodded. They saw something in him. Not just anger. Strategy.
Tega watched from the shadows.
He later cornered Tony near the drainage behind the GRA junction.
"You sabi fight," Tega said.
Tony didn't answer.
"You dey sharp," Tega continued. "But fight no be everything. Mind, na there power dey. You wan learn?"
Tony nodded slowly.
That's how it began. Street school.
---
Nobody at home knew. Not Dayo, his perfect older brother who returned from boarding school and always called him "junior". Not his sisters, Tomi and Derin, who always said he was "a ticking time bomb". Not his parents. Certainly not the maid, Martha, who only cared about chasing Tara and making lunch.
He would leave for school in a car, uniform clean, backpack full of books. But by the time he reached the last bend before school, he'd hop out, change his sneakers, fold his shirt, and vanish for a few minutes.
Tega would be waiting.
Sometimes they would talk. Other times, fight. Tega taught him how to use your opponent's momentum against them, how to fall without bruising, how to disappear in a crowd. He spoke about power, about loyalty, about secrets.
"Everything na code," Tega once said, dragging smoke from a stick he lit with steady fingers. "Real power no dey shout. E dey observe."
Tony absorbed every word like scripture. It wasn't just play. This was survival training. A baptism into the real Warri.
---
Tony started to change.
He became sharper, quieter. Teachers praised his handwriting but noticed his eyes wandered. He stopped talking much in class. He got into fights—but never got caught. One day he framed another boy for stealing a phone, just to test a theory.
He watched how people lied. How they believed. How fear controlled behavior.
By ten, Tony Black had a blueprint in his head. Not just for escape.
But for control.
---
One rainy evening, Tega revealed something darker.
"You know say my elder brother die because dem no fear am?"
Tony said nothing. He was chewing groundnuts, watching a beetle crawl across the floor of the container yard.
"Dem carry am go inside bush. Cut am. Just like goat. Why? Because he play too soft. He no build him own crew. He no strike first."
Tega paused. "I no go die like him."
That was the day Tony found out.
Tega was part of a cult. Not the kind people talked about in scared whispers. The real one. With signs, handshakes, initiations.
Tony was only ten. But that day, he asked one question:
"Dem go accept person like me?"
Tega laughed, deep and long.
"No be age. Na what dey inside you. And you... you no be child."
---
By the end of the term, Tony had three lives.
1. The perfect rich kid, obedient and clean.
2. The smart but silent student who rarely smiled.
3. The street apprentice of Tega Ovie.
And in the back of his mind, a fourth was forming.
A life where he would one day walk away from it all, and return as something else.
A ghost.
A shadow king.
And the first place he'd claim?
Warri.