Borrowed Light, Episode 2: Downstairs
Temi has an explanation for the forged signature. Tobe has a confession. And at 2:47 AM, someone approves a ₦38.5 million transfer in Ada's name.
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Previously: Ada won ₦150 million for Kolo. At midnight, the term sheet named Temi as her equal co-founder, above a signature Ada never wrote. Then Temi showed up outside. With Tobe.
The Street Below, 12:07 AM
Ada had never slapped anybody in her life.
She found out what it sounded like at seven minutes past midnight, under a broken streetlight in Yaba. A flat, wet crack that bounced off the shuttered shops and made a dog bark three compounds away.
Temi's head turned with it. Slowly, she turned it back.
She did not touch her cheek. She did not shout. She just looked at Ada with those calm, careful eyes, the same eyes that had copied Ada's answers in JSS3 and cried at Ada's graduation and watched Ada hand over her laptop the night before.
"Okay," Temi said quietly. "I deserved that one."
"One?" Ada's voice cracked down the middle. "You forged my signature, Temi. You put your name on my company. My mother's story. My two years. You put your name on it."
Behind Temi, Tobe stepped forward with his hands raised. "Ada, wait. Please. Let her talk first."
Ada turned on him so fast he stopped walking.
"And you. What are you doing in her car at midnight?"
"She called me at eleven thirty." He looked at Temi, then back. "She said you got bad news. She said you were about to do something crazy and you'd only listen to me."
"Did you know?"
"Know what?"
"Did you know, Tobenna?"
He held her eyes. "I didn't know about any paper. I swear to God."
It was a very specific answer. Ada noticed. She was too angry to know yet what she had noticed.
The Back Seat
They talked inside the SUV because the mosquitoes were winning. The engine hummed. The AC breathed cold. The driver, a silent man in a black cap, had stepped out to smoke by the gutter.
Temi sat facing her. Tobe sat in front, half turned, like a referee who had not been told the rules.
"Listen to me," Temi said. "Just listen, and then you can slap me again."
Ada folded her arms.
"When I met Mrs Adeyemi-Cole in the lift," Temi said, "she asked me who else was on the founding team. I said it was only you. You know what she said?"
Silence.
"She said, 'Harbour doesn't back solo founders. One founder is one bad week away from zero.' Her exact words, Ada. Ask her. She was going to say no before you even entered that room."
"So you decided to become my co-founder in a lift."
"I decided to save your deal." Temi leaned in. "I made a call. I had a lawyer friend draft something. I put both names on it. You would have said no because you're proud, and you would have lost ₦150 million because you're proud, and your mother would still be measuring lace in that hot shop at sixty-five because you're proud."
"You used my signature."
"I signed what you would have signed if you weren't so stubborn."
The words hit Ada harder than the slap had hit Temi.
"Forty-seven point five percent," Ada said slowly. "For a phone call."
"For protecting you." Temi's voice dropped. "We can fix the numbers later. Between us. Sisters don't need lawyers. Once the money lands, I'll sign some of it back to you. I promise."
"Then why not ask me?"
For the first time, Temi had no answer ready.
Ada watched her face search for one. It took two full seconds. In twelve years of friendship, Ada had never seen Temi need two seconds for anything.
"Here is the situation," Temi said finally, and her voice had changed. Flatter. Like a bank officer reading out loan terms. "Harbour wants the signed term sheet by Friday, 5 PM. If you sign, Kolo gets ₦150 million and we all win."
"And if I don't?"
"If you don't, you call them and tell them your co-founder is a forger. The deal dies that same hour. And then every investor in Lagos hears that Adaeze Okafor's own team is fighting in court before the money even arrived." She tilted her head. "Which VC will touch you after that? Be honest."
Ada said nothing.
"Sign it, Ada," Temi said softly. "Please. For both of us."
Then she opened the door, let the hot night in, and waited for Ada to get out.
Moving Through Yaba, 12:41 AM
Temi did not speak until the SUV turned onto Murtala Muhammed Way.
Then she pressed a name on her phone. K.
The voice that answered was a man's. Older. Slow. The kind of voice that had never once in its life needed to shout.
"Did she sign?"
"Not yet. She will. I just need two days."
A pause.
"We don't have two days, my dear. Your friends with the loan app don't have two days either."
Temi closed her eyes. "Please. I'm handling her."
"You are handling her. I am handling the rest." Another pause. "We move to the second plan."
Temi sat up. "What second plan? You said nobody would touch the traders' money. You promised me that. That was the one thing."
"I said a lot of things," the voice said, and the line went dead.
Temi stared at her phone. Her reflection stared back from the black window. For a moment, without the lipstick and the ring light and the forty thousand followers, she looked exactly like the fifteen-year-old girl whose father had just driven away in someone else's Prado.
The driver in the black cap watched her in the mirror.
He did not look like a driver.
A House in Old Ikoyi, 1:15 AM
The study smelled of old books and Earl Grey.
Mrs Folasade Adeyemi-Cole sat in a leather chair with her shoes off and a printed founders agreement on her lap. Across the desk, Dapo, her young associate, was still in his work shirt, laptop open.
"The metadata is a joke," Dapo said. "The PDF was created at 3:12 this afternoon. Not March 2024. Yesterday. And the signature is a pasted image. You can see the edge if you zoom in."
"I know."
He blinked. "You know?"
"I knew in the lift." Mrs Adeyemi-Cole turned a page. "That girl introduced herself as a co-founder before I asked her anything. Real co-founders don't introduce themselves. They complain about their co-founder."
"Then why didn't you say something in the room? We should pull the offer."
"No."
She took off her glasses and let them hang on their gold chain.
"Anybody can build an app, Dapo. I am not investing in an app. I am investing in what Adaeze Okafor does when somebody she loves puts a knife in her back." She sipped her tea. "Let's see if she bleeds or if she bites."
Dapo hesitated. "And if she just signs?"
"Then she's not the founder I thought she was," Mrs Adeyemi-Cole said. "And I'll still own fifteen percent of a very good company."
Yaba, 2:20 AM
Tobe had stayed.
He sat on Ada's only plastic chair while she sat on the bed with her knees pulled up. NEPA had not returned. The power bank light made both of them look sick.
"You said a strange thing outside," Ada said. "'I didn't know about any paper.' Why 'paper'? What else is there to know?"
Tobe rubbed his face with both hands. He looked like a man who had been holding his breath for a whole day.
"Yesterday morning," he said. "During your pitch. 9:14 AM. I got an alert on the Kolo dashboard."
Ada went very still.
"Someone created a new super admin account. Full permissions. Same level as you." He swallowed. "Username: k.admin. Login location: Ikoyi."
"Ikoyi." Ada's voice was barely there. "Harbour Capital is in Ikoyi."
"So are ten thousand other people."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"You were pitching! Then you won. Then you were happy for the first time in two years, Ada. I checked it. The account didn't do anything. No transfers, no edits. I thought maybe you or Temi made it for the investors to look around. I was going to ask you tomorrow."
"Temi doesn't have admin access."
"I know that now."
They stared at each other across the dark room.
Somewhere outside, a generator coughed to life, then died.
Tobe left at 2:40. He promised to lock down the servers first thing in the morning, and to bring his laptop by 7.
Ada did not wait for the morning.
At 2:51 AM, she opened her laptop on the bed, the same laptop, and logged into the Kolo admin dashboard.
Everything looked normal. 3,400 traders. ₦410 million in total savings. The little green dot that meant the systems were healthy. The pooled settlement account at Crestline Bank showing ₦61,240,500 waiting for the morning payouts to market agents.
She almost closed it.
Then she clicked Scheduled Transactions. She had no reason to. She just wanted to see something she understood.
One row.
2:47 AM.
Four minutes ago.
Four minutes ago, Ada had been standing at that window, watching Tobe's back disappear down the street.
Her own name was on it again.
And this time, it was not her money. It was the money of 3,400 market women who had trusted her with it.
Women exactly like her mother.
Her finger hovered over the red button that said Cancel Transfer.
She pressed it.
The screen went white.
Then a small grey box appeared in the middle of it.
Session expired. Your password was changed at 2:52 AM. If this wasn't you, contact your administrator.
Ada was the administrator.
The clock in the corner of the screen read 2:53.
Six hours and seven minutes until 9:00.
To be continued in Episode 3.