Chapter 1

The hot heavy summer breeze on a Monday morning was the first greeting Elena got coming out of her house. Lagos they said was the city of opportunities and the summer season did nothing to stop or reduce its bubbly runs of bodies brushing and past each other, not even stopping to give as much as a glance. 

 The bodies belonging to workers of every sort, rushing down the alley to get to their works, students either bouncing with joy to be back to school again or the ones that cat walked, dragging their feet's on the floor like the school is the last place they'll want to be. 

Elena loved all the muses and buzzes of Lagos, that's why she'd chosen her to start her life over. She needed somewhere she could blend in and at the same time float in or wordless be in the background without been noticed. Elena looked like any Lagosian so she did easily blend in with short wavy black hair, a face that looked almost twice younger than her age, and a body that fit into anything, she did fit in.

The sight of the medium studio apartment painted a light shade of brown complemented with the beds of green plants that surrounded it made her smile proudly as it always does. Three years. Three years was all it took Elena to build an empire in that little studio apartment. 

The building that held Legal Sega, Elena's law firm was anything but small, but she wouldn't admit it because she was determined to get someplace bigger. 

Three years ago, she'd rented the medium-sized studio apartment only to live in it, but then decided to turn it to an office, Legal Sega, then she'd rented a smaller one-room apartment that'd cost her not more than 200 thousand naira all from the money her mother had left stocked in an account, not even her guardian knew about till she was able to escape. 

Three years later, Elena had moved to a bigger apartment of two bedrooms with enough space to house 2 more people, but she lived alone as she'd always prefer. People were too nosy and she cherished her privacy.

I did it, she thought. I built a company from scratch. 

Then a thug came as she remembered it hadn't all been easy. Yes she built Legal Sega from scratch and it had become a competition with bigger law firms all over Nigeria, but she's done something dreadful for the sacrifice of all she's built. Did she regret it? No, Elena sighed admittedly. 

The squeaky clean mahogany floor although old that it gave little squeaks when one walked complemented the cream painted walls, the mahogany tables that dated back to the 1900s, and the art collections she'd gathered on the few auctions she'd attended. A big fan of art, she found a way to balance law quotes in pictures, abstract, figurative, and representative art. 

The knock on the door was what made Elena look up from the MacBook she'd been buried in for two hours straight. She sighed realizing how tired she was. "Come in." 

She managed a tired smile on seeing Anna, her best friend, and personal assistant, walked in.

"Hey, Ele. Just wanted to let you know I'm going home now."  Anna paused with an equally tired smile on. "Bet you didn't know it's 30 minutes past four already,"  she said as she saw Elena sneak a look at the watch on her wrist.

"Actually, no. I was just so caught up reviewing this case, and if you hadn't shown up, 12 am would come and I'd still be here, thinking it's just early in the afternoon."  She chuckled, more tired than she thought. Her back hurt from been strained. 

"You better get yourself home to rest. You really do need it. Have you seen your eyes? You look like you could use some sleep," Anna said, trying to persuade her best friend and boss by pulling her up, but failing completely. 

Elena grumbled yanking her hand free from Anna's tugging hands. "You just go. I'll finish up here and go straight home mummy," she mumbled the last part, making Anna smile at her in defeat. 

"Alright then. See you tomorrow." She pecked her cheeks, and then pulled on her shirt playfully.

"Bye!" Elena called after her as she left.

She sighed going into work and didn't once raise her head until she saw the dark through the window from the corner of her eyes. She inquired from her wrist what the time was and saw that it was 7 pm.

"What the fuck!?" She mumbled under her breath, shutting down her Macbook and gathering her belongings. She turned the light off to make her way home, but then realized she needed to use the bathroom first. 

She sighed as she made her way back to her office to see the lights turned on, thinking 'I thought I'd turned it off.. stupid me."  She turned the light off. "For sure this time," she told herself.

She took her bag and a documented file she'd hoped to work on sometime after she's had dinner. Just as she made her way through the door, the lights went off. 

Her brows furrowed in confusion, her heart racing in fear, but then she relaxed as a thought entered her head, the light system is probably faulty. I'll call the electrician tomorrow. 

And then she locked up and made her way to the bus station, as her car had disappointed her earlier that day. 

Two blocks away from her office, she slowed her steps and looked behind as she thought she had heard footsteps but saw nothing. 

She continued walking but stopped short when she heard a titter. 

Perhaps I was hallucinating, probably from too much work stress, she concluded in a half sigh, ignoring the gut that told her someone was following her. 

Halfway to the bus station, she looked back again, surer than before that she heard footsteps. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw a shadow before it disappeared. That was the conviction she needed to confirm that she was indeed been followed. 

She hurried her footsteps, even as her heart raced. 

Squeezing a hand full oh her blouse, she tried to keep her composure, don't run. Don't fret. Act normal. Don't let them know you're scared. Act normal— those were the words she kept chanting to herself. 

As she heard the footsteps drawing nearer, she hurried on her legs, half running till she caught sight of the bus station. She didn't stop until she was at the station with about 15 people, 2 amongst whom were uniformed men. Phew! Thank God.

She was finally able to breathe as she settled in her seat inside the bus. Someone was following her, and she frowned as she continually thought of it. 

Who would want to follow her? Why her? She had no enemies. 

She was just a girl who worked her way up the ladder, having had an opportunity to open a law firm of her own. A firm that grew so rapidly successful than she'd ever thought. No one would follow her. No one had a reason to follow her as she had no enemies, or maybe that was what she told herself. 

Still, inside the bus, she became uneasy as she caught the attention of a guy in a hoodie, standing in the middle of the bus, even though she was sure they were more than one free seat on the bus. The hoodie guy stood facing her directly, but she couldn't see his face. He had an aura that made her feel unsettled, she wouldn't admit to herself, but she was scared. 

The guy stood very still, and with the way her skin burned, he was obviously staring intently at her. He was unmoving, even though he didn't hold on the pole stand on the bus. She cleared her throat, bringing her phone out of her bag as a way to let whoever the person was in the hoodie to know she wasn't fazed. She was totally fine and settled. 

Only as she swiped on her phone, playing candy crush, her hands shook. She wasn't fine and the guy never stopped staring until she looked up and saw that he was gone. He probably came down at the last bus stop, she thought sighing in relief. 

He was gone... but still, she felt eyes burning the back of her neck. She looked back and blinked rapidly. She must be going crazy, she certainly was going crazy. How was it that the hoodie guy who came down at the last bus stop was now seated on the row of seats directly behind her? 

She couldn't look away from the guy, she wanted to see his face, was he a ghost traveling perhaps? She thought. Only ghosts don't travel on buses. 

If only she could manage to catch a glimpse of the face that was shadowed by the hoodie. 

As if on cue, the hoodie guy moved his hand, pointing his index finger at her in a warning gesture that she should look away. Her heart almost leaped out of her chest. She snapped her eyes and looked straight forward, not moving her head until the bus stopped at its final destination, which was her stop. Thomas estate, Aja. She hurried out of the bus, muttering 'sorry' to the people she shuffled past. 

As she moved farther away from the bus, she looked back to see the hoodie guy standing where the bus had stopped. She half ran to her apartment, glancing once or twice to see he was still there. Standing. Unmoving. She picked up pace and ran like she never had, never stopping until she entered her compound. 

As soon as she entered her compound, a hand came on her shoulder, altering her movement. Her eyes widened in shock. He was a ghost after all and he meant to kill me. 

"Christ!" She exclaimed in what might have been a relief but was mixed with anger.

"Calm down, Elena. Are you being chased by a dog or what?" Benny, her neighbor asked.

"Ah, Ben! You almost scared me to fucking death." She shrugged moving past him.

"I'm sorry. Wait up,"  he called, but she kept walking to her apartment, obviously not in the mood to socialize. 

"Later," she answered back at him, loud enough for him to hear as she inserted her key into the door. 

To her surprise, the key didn't turn. She twisted the doorknob and was going to try again when the door opened. It would've been a mistake of her leaving her door unlocked when she left for work in the morning, but with what had happened with the hoodie guy, she thought it wasn't normal. She never left her door unlocked.

She felt a presence behind her and looked to find Ben. What did he want now?

"That's what I wanted to tell you. The landlord just came to changed everybody's lock and that, without our permission." He paused, allowing what he had said sink in. "I was speaking to Becky's mum and we agreed that it would be a legal right if we should sue him, and we have you to represent us in court. What do you think?"

"The landlord came to change all of our locks? For what reason?"

"He said the locks were getting old and shit like that." Ben's tone was an angry one. 

"Oh. That's a breach of our privacies. For all, we know things could be missing in our various apartments right now. What was he thinking?" She asked rhetorically.

"It's pure shit if you ask me."

She sighed in relief, at least it was a lock change, not a break-in. "So where are the new keys? Have any idea?" 

"It should be..." he trailed, stepping past her and making his way into her apartment. "Right here." 

She looked to see him pointing right at the back of her door. 

"Alright. Thanks." 

As soon as Ben left, she locked the door and dropped her bag to the chair, making her way to her bedroom for a quick shower. 

From the time she showered, to where she ate diner, and to when she was now working from her HTC laptop, her mind wandered to the guy in a hoodie. 

Who was he? 

Surely the evening happenings that caused her to fret was just her been paranoid. But as she opened an email from an unknown email address, she was almost sure it wasn't her been paranoid. She had someone following her and a hoodie guy watching her. 

Coincidence?