Borrowed Light, Episode 7: Friday, 5 PM

Previously: In Kolawole's house, Mama Ngozi produced a 2019 deposit slip stamped by K. himself. Tobe's trap captured his login. He let them go, with a warning about her old shop. Then, at the gate, a thin barefoot woman stepped out of the boys' quarters. Sikirat Adebayo. Alive.

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The Gate, 2:06 PM

Nobody decided anything. It just happened.

Mama Ngozi let go of Ada's hand, crossed the hot stones in four steps and took Sikirat by the wrist like a mother pulling a child out of traffic.

"Walk," she said. "Don't look back. Walk."

Behind them, Ibrahim shouted something. The Rottweilers stood up.

The gate was still open from when he let Ada in. Three women walked out of it into the bright, ordinary afternoon of Old Ikoyi, and nobody in that house moved fast enough to stop them.

The first keke that passed, Ada flagged it down with both arms.

"Yaba," she said. "Fast. I'll pay double."

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Third Mainland Bridge, 2:40 PM

Sikirat talked the whole way across the bridge.

She talked like water from a pipe that had been blocked for seven years.

The money in 2019 was never hers. Every Friday, she paid the market's savings into her husband's account, because he told her to. One day she asked to withdraw it for Mama Bisi's daughter's wedding. He said no. She asked again. He locked her in the boys' quarters.

"He told the market I ran," she said, staring at the lagoon. "He told me the market thought I was a thief and would kill me if I came out. He told me my sister in Abeokuta was dead. He told me you were dead, Ngozi." She laughed, a broken little sound. "Seven years. I cooked for his guests. I washed his cars. Every time he needed a name for an account, he brought me papers and I signed. Because where would I go?"

Mama Ngozi held her hand the whole way and said nothing. Tears ran down her face and she did not wipe them.

Ada sat opposite them and recorded every word on Tobe's laptop.

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Balogun Market, Thursday, 11:48 PM

The fire started at the back of the shop, where the old wiring ran behind the shelves.

The night guard saw the smoke first. By the time Ada and her mother got there in a borrowed car, half the line was outside in nightgowns and wrappers, passing buckets of water hand to hand from the borehole at the corner.

Mama Bisi was at the front of the line with a basin on her head.

"Don't stand there!" she screamed at Ada. "Carry bucket!"

So Ada carried buckets.

For forty minutes, under a black sky full of orange sparks, forty market women and one exhausted founder fought a fire with their hands. Nobody called it a protest. Nobody called it anything. They just did it, the way they had always done everything in that market. Together. Without anybody's permission.

When the fire brigade finally arrived, the fire was already out.

The back shelves were black. Six years of lace, gone.

But the front of the shop stood. And the blue exercise book was in Mama Ngozi's handbag, where it had been all evening.

Mama Ngozi stood in the wet ash and looked at what was left of twenty-seven years.

"Old wiring catches fire easily," she said quietly. "He told us."

Then she turned to Ada with a face like iron.

"Tomorrow," she said. "Finish him."

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Harbour Capital, Friday, 4:58 PM

The boardroom on the fourteenth floor was full.

Mrs Adeyemi-Cole at the head of the table, glasses on their gold chain. Dapo beside her with his laptop. Tobe at the far end, pale, with three printed reports in front of him. Mama Ngozi and Sikirat on two chairs by the window, in borrowed clothes, holding hands.

And Temi.

Ada had sent her one message at 6 AM: Harbour. 5 PM. Come if you want to be on the right side of this.

Temi had come. Same cream suit. No lipstick today. She sat alone, closest to the door.

At exactly 5:00, Mrs Adeyemi-Cole said, "Begin."

So Ada began.

She did not tell a story this time. She showed evidence. The PDF metadata, created the afternoon of the pitch. The k.admin logs. Tobe's honeypot report with Kolawole's device, his phone number, his GPS coordinates in Old Ikoyi. The eleven transfers out of account 4471. The email linking it to Kayode-Bello Holdings. The 2019 deposit slip with his stamp. Sikirat's voice, recorded on the bridge.

When she finished, nobody spoke.

Then Mrs Adeyemi-Cole turned her head.

"Miss Bakare," she said. "There is one document on this table that only you can explain."

The founders agreement. Two signatures. One of them stolen.

Temi looked at it for a long time.

Ada watched her. She thought about JSS3. About a girl in a black Prado and a girl in old sandals. About forty seconds to fix a font, and three seconds to steal a signature.

Temi stood up.

"I forged it," she said.

Her voice shook, but she did not stop.

"I copied her signature from her laptop the night before the pitch. I pasted it into a document Kolawole's lawyer drafted. I signed my shares to his company because I owed people money and he said he could make them disappear. Everything Ada said is true. All of it." She picked up the agreement and tore it in half. Then in half again. "I am not her co-founder. I was never her co-founder. I was just the one who was always standing next to her."

She put the pieces on the table and sat down and covered her face.

Mrs Adeyemi-Cole let the silence sit for five full seconds.

Then she took off her glasses.

"Dapo," she said. "Tell them."

Dapo cleared his throat. "EFCC officers entered Crestline Bank, Marina, at 4:45 PM. Mr Kolawole Adebayo was taken from his office. The eleven receiving accounts were frozen at 4:50. Recovery of the traders' funds is already in progress."

By the window, Sikirat made a sound that was half sob, half laugh. Mama Ngozi held her.

Ada did not move. She could not feel her hands.

"How," she said. "How did they move so fast? I only showed you this now."

Mrs Adeyemi-Cole slid a new term sheet across the table. Clean. One founder. One name.

Adaeze Okafor, Founder and CEO: 85%.

"Sign it," she said. "Then stay behind. Alone. I will answer your question."

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6:12 PM

The room was empty now. The sun was going down over the lagoon, painting the glass orange.

Ada had signed. Her real signature. The capital A. The little tail on the Z.

Mrs Adeyemi-Cole poured two glasses of water and did not drink hers.

"They moved fast," she said, "because I gave the EFCC everything you just showed me. Yesterday. Tobenna's honeypot report reached my associate at 2:15 PM on Thursday, right after your little tea party. I asked him to copy me. He did."

Ada stared at her.

"You knew about the forgery from the lift. You knew about Kolawole. You let all of this happen."

"I let you happen." She turned the glass slowly in her fingers. "I have been trying to put Kolawole Adebayo in a cell for ten years, Miss Okafor. Every time, he wriggled out. Lawyers. Friends. Governors. I needed somebody he would underestimate. Somebody he would get greedy for. Somebody with a mother and an exercise book." She looked up. "I needed you."

"Why? Why do you care so much about him?"

Mrs Adeyemi-Cole was quiet for a long moment.

Then she reached into her bag and put an old photograph on the table. Two children in matching school uniforms outside a house with green shutters. A girl of about twelve. A boy of about eight with a gap in his teeth.

Ada recognised the green shutters.

"Adeyemi-Cole is my husband's name," the older woman said. "I was born Folasade Adebayo. Kolawole is my younger brother."

The room went very cold.

"He ruined my father's bank. He ruined my first marriage. He ruined a hundred market women and called it business." She put her glasses back on. "Today, you helped me ruin him. Thank you. Welcome to my board."

She stood, picked up her bag, and walked to the door.

Then she stopped with her hand on the handle.

"One more thing, Miss Okafor," she said without turning around. "My brother built Kayode-Bello Holdings to own pieces of other people's companies. The EFCC freezes accounts. It does not freeze companies." A pause. "And as of yesterday, my brother is no longer the owner of Kayode-Bello Holdings."

"Then who is?"

Mrs Adeyemi-Cole finally turned and looked at her.

And smiled. The exact same smile Ada had seen on Kolawole's face, coming out of the frosted office.

"Read your term sheet carefully," she said. "Founders who don't read things carefully don't stay founders for very long."

The door closed behind her.

Ada pulled the signed term sheet toward her with shaking hands and turned, page by page, to the very last one.

Section 12. Warrants.

Kayode-Bello Holdings Ltd may acquire 40% of Kolo Technologies at par value upon any breach by the Founder. Represented by: Folasade Adeyemi-Cole.

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To be continued in Episode 8.