True to his word, Akanbi did not strike back. There was no financial earthquake, no new scandal, no thugs in the night. The silence was absolute. For a week, Peter lived in a state of high alert, jumping at every phone call, scrutinizing every interaction with his family. But nothing happened. His father continued to sound hopeful about the business. Michael sent a terse, but not hostile, text about a shipment clearance.
It should have felt like freedom. It felt like the calm before a storm he couldn't see.
Peter moved back in with Fess, who accepted him without comment, though a wall of wary concern remained between them. Peter returned to his job at the freight company. The mind-numbing work of manifests and customs codes was a welcome anesthetic. He tried to rebuild a life in the cracks Akanbi had left.
But Akanbi's absence was a presence. It was in the way Peter would catch himself formulating an argument for a dinner that would never happen. It was in the hollow silence of his evenings, which had become structured around a psychological duel that had vanished. He had hated those dinners, but they had filled a space with a terrifying, brilliant intensity. Ordinary life now felt muted, grey.
Peter was struggling with a complex customs brokerage for a client. The paperwork was a nightmare, tangled in new government regulations. A senior agent had shrugged, saying it would take weeks to sort out. The next morning, the problem was solved. The documents were approved, stamped, and on his desk with no explanation. When Peter, baffled, called the customs office, a bored official said, "It was fast-tracked. High-priority clearance."
High-priority.
Peter's blood ran cold.
A week later, his ailing mother, who had been on a waiting list for a specialist consultation for months, suddenly got an appointment at the best hospital in Lagos for the following day. When Peter asked how, she said, "The doctor's office called. They said a 'benefactor' covered the consultation fee and expedited it."
Benefactor.
Then came the job offer. An envelope, hand-delivered to the freight office. Inside was a proposal from a major, reputable European logistics firm looking to establish a Lagos branch. They were seeking a local Operations Manager. The salary was five times his current pay. The cover letter was addressed to him personally, noting his "remarkable resilience and understanding of complex systems." It was the kind of career-making opportunity people dreamed of.
It was also a language he recognized. Understanding of complex systems. Akanbi's words, from one of their dinners.
He didn't apply. He tore up the letter.
This was the new game. Not breaking, not owning through force, but elevating. Akanbi was trying to shape Peter's world from the shadows, to prove his own theory: that with the right patronage, Peter could flourish. He was trying to become the invisible architect of Peter's success, making himself an indispensable, unseen force in his life. It was a more profound possession than any contract. It was the possession of potential.
Peter felt suffocated. He was a fish in a tank, and the water was being changed, the plants rearranged, the food upgraded by an unseen hand. He could swim, but he could never escape the environment that was being curated for him.
The breaking point came with Michael.
Michael invited him for a drink a monumental step. They met at a quiet bar in Surulere, the air stiff with unspoken history.
"The business is… good," Michael said awkwardly. "Better than good. We just landed the NPA tender. We weren't even shortlisted, but they called us last week."
The Nigerian Ports Authority tender. A giant leap for a company like Emmanuel & Sons.
"How?" Peter asked, though he already knew.
Michael shrugged, a strange, almost ashamed look on his face. "Connections, I guess. The right people heard our name." He swirled his beer. "Look, Peter… about what I said… about what I believed… I'm sorry. I was angry. Scared. I think… I think maybe I was wrong about what happened with that man."
Peter stared at him. This was the reconciliation he'd wanted. But it felt bought and paid for. "Why do you think you were wrong?"
Michael wouldn't meet his eye. "He's left us alone. More than left us alone. He's… he's helped. Indirectly. Someone in his circle reached out, smoothed some paths. A man like that doesn't help the person who supposedly disgusted him. It doesn't add up." He finally looked at Peter, his expression pained. "So what really happened? What's going on?"
Peter saw it then. The trap was perfect. Akanbi had not just helped the business; he had used that help to sow doubt about his own lie, to destabilize Michael's certainty, and to force this very conversation. He was scripting Peter's reconciliation, too.
"He's playing a longer game, Michael," Peter said, his voice tired. "He's helping because he thinks it binds me to him in a new way. He's trying to own my gratitude."
Michael looked confused, then uneasy. "So… we should refuse it? Send the business back to the brink?"
Could they? The taste of success, of relief, was on his brother's tongue. Peter knew the answer. The trap was baited with everything they had ever wanted.
"No," Peter said, defeated. "You can't. Just… be aware. The strings are there, even if you can't see them."
That night, back at Fess's, Peter finally broke. He put his fist through the thin plywood of his bedroom door. The pain was sharp, clean, real. It was the only thing that felt like his own.
His phone buzzed on the bed. A new message from the unknown number, the first direct contact in weeks.
Unknown: Anger is a waste of energy. Channel it. The Operations Manager role is still open. It is a better use of your mind than freight manifests. And your hand.
He knew. Of course he knew about the door, about the meeting with Michael, about the torn-up letter. The surveillance was silent, total, and benignly intrusive.
Peter didn't reply. He typed out a different message, to the only person who might understand the currency of this new war.
Peter: Fess. I need to disappear. For real. Not from Lagos. From his radar. How do you hide from someone who sees everything?
The reply came quickly.
Fess: You don't hide. You make yourself worthless to look at. Or you become a mirror so bright it blinds the watcher
Peter read the message twice. A mirror so bright it blinds the watcher.
He looked at his bruised, bleeding knuckles. Akanbi's greatest vulnerability was no longer his body or his family's business. It was the nature of his obsession itself. His need to understand, to curate, to possess the narrative.
Peter had spent months being the puzzle.
It was time to become the puzzle maker.
He had an idea. It was reckless, arrogant, and dangerous. It involved going directly to the heart of the web and refusing to be a fly.
He was going to ask Akanbi for a job.