Dre turned slowly, his voice low. "I don't want them chanting me. I want them chanting the truth."
She nodded. "Then we better give them something to scream."
That afternoon, the team regrouped in an abandoned warehouse. The new recruits sat on crates and broken chairs—teenagers, university students, ex-convicts who believed in something again. Dre stood before them, unarmed, eyes burning.
"The streets are watching. Not just ours. Kano, Enugu, even Abuja. They see us. They see you. They think we're just noise, but noise can shake buildings."
He paced slowly. "Zion didn't die for us to keep posting hashtags. We're not fighting for attention. We're fighting for air. For life. For a Lagos where kids don't carry trauma like ID cards."
A boy raised his hand. "How far do we go?"
Dre stopped. Looked the boy dead in the eye. "As far as the truth takes us. We're not terrorists. We're not thieves. We are the city's heartbeat, and if they silence us again, this city dies."
They listened. Every breath. Every word. He wasn't just a leader anymore. He was the war cry.
Malik approached after the meeting, a tablet in hand. "We have something. Obayemi's son. He's been laundering money through a youth NGO. We have footage."
Kemi gritted her teeth. "Let's release it."
Dre held up his hand. "Not yet. Let's give them more rope to hang themselves. Set up a press ambush tomorrow. Invite independent journalists. Let them see him lying in real-time."
Malik nodded, already moving.
That night, Dre didn't sleep again. He sat on the rooftop, wind brushing his face, the city glowing beneath him. He thought of his mother, gone long before the war began. He thought of Zion's laughter. Of the blood on his hands. He didn't regret any of it.
The next morning was chaos.
Chief Obayemi's son was giving a speech at a youth summit. "Africa's Future Is Now," the banner said. Dressed in white agbada, he stood at the podium, smiling for cameras, lying like his father.
But this time, Dre was waiting.
In the middle of the speech, a projector flickered. For a second, everyone thought it was a glitch. Then came the footage. Unedited. Obayemi's son in a backroom, counting stacks of blood-stained money, laughing with known cartel members.
Gasps.
Phones out.
Journalists rushing.
The son froze, mouth open, sweat crawling down his forehead.
Then came the voiceover. Dre's voice, calm and brutal.
"This is the man you trust with your youth. The son of a vulture. Raised on stolen bread. Groomed to inherit silence. But Lagos remembers. And Lagos speaks."
Police rushed in, not to arrest him—but to protect him. People screamed. Protesters outside stormed the gates. The whole building shook.
Dre watched from across the street, disguised in a market woman's shawl. He didn't smile. He didn't blink. He simply walked away.
Back at the hideout, Kemi clutched her phone. "It's trending. Every platform. Even international. We shook them."
Dre sat, his voice quieter. "Then it's time to break them."
But war doesn't knock.
It barges in.
That night, the safe house was hit.
A truck, no license plate, rammed into the gate. Men in black poured in. Silenced weapons. No warnings. Just smoke and bullets.
Dre had seconds.
He grabbed Kemi and Malik and dragged them into the side tunnel. Screams echoed behind him. Some of the new recruits didn't make it.
He didn't look back.
They ran through sewage tunnels, crawled through wire fences, and emerged on the other side of town. Blood on their clothes. Dirt in their lungs.
They didn't speak until they reached an old rooftop above a condemned estate.
Malik spat out, "How did they find us?"
Kemi looked at Dre. "Someone betrayed us."
He stared into the distance. "No. Someone feared us enough to use every tool they had. They're not just fighting us with guns anymore. They're fighting us with desperation."
Kemi whispered, "We lost people tonight."
Dre clenched his fists. "Then let's not waste them."
For the next 48 hours, Dre disappeared.
He didn't eat. He didn't sleep. He infiltrated government servers, bribed insiders, dug through digital graveyards. And what he found chilled him.
A file.
Project: Clean Slate.
A covert program approved by select high-ranking officials. The goal? Erase insurgents, street leaders, and online voices through "untraceable accidents."
Dre was target number one.
So were others—female protest leaders, student activists, even journalists.
Dre slammed his fist into the wall. "They're planning genocide."
He looked at Kemi. "Get me a broadcast. Live. No pre-recordings. I want to speak. Tonight."
They set up the system in a dark basement. It wasn't fancy. Just a camera, a microphone, and truth.
Dre sat before it. No mask. No special effects.
He began.
"My name is Dre. I come from the gutters you ignore. I was raised in hunger, forged in silence, and born of vengeance. Not because I wanted revenge, but because I had no choice."
He paused, eyes burning.
"You see protests. You see graffiti. You call us thugs. But we are the children of mothers you let die on plastic chairs in underfunded hospitals. We are the voices of those you priced out of their own homes. We are the fists that rose after every promise you broke."
The camera shook slightly as a tear rolled down his cheek.
"You can kill me. You can silence me. But for every one Dre you bury, a thousand more will rise. We are not a movement. We are a reckoning."
He stood.
"And we are coming."
The broadcast ended.
By morning, his name was on every radio. Some cursed him. Some worshipped him. But no one ignored him.
And somewhere deep inside a mansion, Chief Obayemi watched the clip, his hands trembling.
He turned to his guards.
"Find him. Burn the city if you must. But bring me his heart."
Outside, the smoke rose again.
Because the fire had only just begun.