The drive back from the Palms Hotel was silent, but it wasn't the peaceful kind of silence. It was the heavy, suffocating quiet of a room after a bomb has gone off. Omolayo sat in the back of Babatunde's car, her eyes fixed on the blurring yellow Danfos outside.
She had seen enough through the glass of the hotel lobby: Tokunbo's hand on the small of Sarah's back, the way Sarah had laughed the same jagged, triumphant laugh she used when she'd outsmarted Omolayo as a child.
"Don't go home yet," Ademola said, turning in the front seat. "If you go home now, you'll burn the house down with that look on your face. Let the dust settle."
"I have nowhere else to go, Ademola," Omolayo replied, her voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of a well. "It's my father's house. Sarah is just… a guest who has declared war."
Babatunde pulled the car up to the gates of Omolayo's compound. The neighborhood was quiet, the kind of street where the houses were hidden behind high walls topped with jagged glass and electric wires.
"I'll walk her to the door," Ademola said to Tunde.
"O boy, be careful. If that Tokunbo guy is inside, I don't want to be calling your parents to come and carry lawyer from police station," Babatunde warned, but he kept the engine idling.
As they approached the small pedestrian gate, the sound of a transistor radio playing highlife music drifted over the wall. Mr. Gateman the same one who had given Ademola the tip earlier was sitting on a plastic stool, peeling a clove of garlic. He looked up, his eyes squinting through the dimming evening light.
"Ah! Small Madam, you are late today oh," the gateman said, standing up and dusting his trousers. He looked at Ademola, his eyebrows shooting up. "And you! The Lawyer! You have finally found the house?"
"Baba G, I didn't know you worked here too," Ademola said, surprised.
"I work everywhere, my son. Poverty does not sleep, so why should I?" The old man turned to Omolayo, his expression softening into something paternal. "Madam, you just missed your 'husband.' That one with the car that sounds like an airplane. He just dropped your sister and drove away like the devil was chasing his tires."
Omolayo felt a fresh wave of nausea. "Did they go inside together, Baba?"
The gateman leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper that smelled of garlic and old tobacco. "They didn't just go in, Madam. They have been 'going in' since last month. Every time you go for your late-night library study, that boy comes here. He gives me five hundred Naira to keep the gate quiet. He thinks I am an old man with no eyes."
He spat on the ground, a gesture of pure disgust. "But me, I see everything. I see the way that Sarah girl looks at your shoes when you are not looking. She is not a sister, Madam. She is a hunter. I wanted to tell you, but… the five hundred Naira was helping my rheumatism."
Omolayo leaned against the gatepost, the cold metal biting into her shoulder. "A month. They've been doing this for a month."
Ademola reached out, placing a steadying hand on her arm. "Omolayo, look at me. The fact that the gateman knows, the fact that the valet knows it means they aren't even trying to hide it from the world. They are only hiding it from you to keep the power."
"Why?" she whispered. "Why me?"
"Because you have the one thing Sarah can't buy," Ademola said, his voice hard. "Integrity. She wants to see if she can break yours. And Tokunbo? He's just a man who likes to have his cake and eat the bakery too."
"Lawyer is right," Baba G added, nodding vigorously. "That boy, Tokunbo... he came here yesterday with a big box. A gift for Sarah. I saw it. It had a 'V' on it. Valentino, abi? Something like that. He told her 'This is for the Saturday plan.' I was listening behind the water tank."
"The Saturday plan?" Omolayo straightened up. "That's the family dinner. My brother Mathew is coming home from Abuja. It's supposed to be an engagement announcement."
Ademola felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening breeze. "Engagement? To you?"
"That was the rumor," Omolayo said, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "But now I see the 'Saturday plan' isn't my engagement. It's Sarah's coronation."
The gate creaked open as Omolayo's elder brother, Mathew, pulled into the driveway in his own car. He killed the engine and stepped out, looking tall and imposing in his corporate suit. He frowned when he saw Omolayo standing there with a stranger and the gateman.
"Mola? Why are you standing outside? And who is this?" Mathew asked, his eyes raking over Ademola with suspicion.
"This is Ademola, a friend from school," Omolayo said quickly. "And Mathew... we need to talk. Before you go inside and see Sarah."
Mathew sighed, rubbing his temples. "If this is about the two of you fighting over clothes again, I don't have the energy, Mola. I just flew in, and the traffic from the airport was hell."
"It's not about clothes, Brother," Omolayo said, her voice finally gaining a sharp, dangerous edge. "It's about the fact that your 'favorite' stepsister is sleeping with my boyfriend in our father's house while you're away. And the gateman has the receipts."
Mathew froze. He looked at the gateman, who gave a slow, solemn nod. He looked at Ademola, who stood his ground, looking every bit the lawyer he was destined to be. Finally, he looked at his little sister.
"Go inside," Mathew said, his voice dropping an octave into a low, rumbling threat. "I want everyone in the living room. Now."
Ademola moved to step back toward Tunde's car, but Omolayo grabbed his hand. Her grip was tight, desperate.
"Stay," she pleaded. "I can't do this alone. And besides... Sarah hasn't seen you yet. I want to see the look on her face when the man she destroyed walks through the front door."
Ademola looked at the house the site of his past trauma and Omolayo's current nightmare. He thought about his neat shirts and his carefully ordered life. Then he looked at Omolayo.
"I'm staying," he said.
They walked toward the front door together. Behind them, the gateman went back to his stool, turned up his radio, and began peeling another clove of garlic. The "Saturday Plan" was being moved up to Tuesday night, and the air in the compound was thick with the scent of an impending explosion.