The first time Amara Adeyemi discovered that the man she loved was the subject of her next investigation, she was sitting three feet away from the editor who had just assigned her the story.
She did not scream.
She did not drop the file.
She did not even stop breathing.
She simply stared at the name printed across the first page.
DAVID AKINWALE.
For several seconds, the newsroom continued around her as if nothing had happened.
Phones rang.
Keyboards clicked.
Someone laughed loudly near the features desk.
A television mounted on the far wall played a morning news bulletin, the anchor's voice rising and falling beneath the constant hum of conversation.
But Amara heard none of it.
Her eyes remained on the name.
David.
Her David.
The man who sent her ridiculous voice notes when she was working late.
The man who knew exactly how she took her coffee.
The man who had once driven across Lagos at midnight because she'd casually mentioned that she was craving suya.
The man who hated photographs.
The man who refused to attend events where people might recognize him.
The man who had told her, more than once, I don't want our relationship on the internet.
And now his name was sitting on her desk beneath a red stamp that read:
CONFIDENTIAL.
“Amara?”
She blinked.
Her editor was still standing beside her desk.
Tunde Adebayo was a man who had mastered the art of looking permanently unimpressed.
Even when something was going terribly wrong, he somehow managed to look as though he had expected it.
He tapped the file.
“You're not reading it?”
“I am.”
“You've been staring at the same page for almost a minute.”
Amara slowly lifted her eyes.
“I'm processing.”
Tunde gave her a look.
“You're usually faster than this.”
“I know.”
“Then process faster.”
He walked away.
Amara looked down again.
There were six pages in the file.
A proposed technology infrastructure partnership.
A government agency.
Several companies.
A series of financial transfers that raised questions.
And, at the center of it all, Akinwale Technologies Group.
David's company.
Amara swallowed.
She reached for her phone.
There were already three messages waiting for her.
The first was from her production assistant.
CHIOMA:
Madam Director, the actors are asking if call time is still 4 p.m. Please say yes because I've already threatened everybody.
Amara almost smiled.
Almost.
The second was from her mother.
MUM:
Don't forget your auntie's birthday on Saturday.
She ignored it.
Then she saw the third message.
Her heart stopped.
DAVID ❤️
Good morning, trouble.
A second message appeared while she was still looking.
Can I see you tonight?
Then:
There's something I need to tell you.
Amara stared at the screen.
For the first time that morning, fear moved through her.
Not because of the story.
Because of the timing.
She looked at David's message.
Then at the confidential file.
Then back at the message.
There were thousands of journalists in Lagos.
Thousands of stories.
Thousands of companies she could have been assigned to investigate.
But somehow.
Today,
Her editor had handed her David.
Amara slowly locked her phone.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself.
She opened her laptop.
The familiar Global News Arena logo glowed across the screen.
She created a new document.
At the top, she typed:
INVESTIGATION: AKINWALE TECHNOLOGIES AND GOVERNMENT CONTRACT
Her fingers hovered above the keyboard.
She knew what she was supposed to do.
Follow the evidence.
Verify every claim.
Contact every source.
Give the subject an opportunity to respond.
Separate facts from allegations.
Do the story properly.
Do the job she had spent years building her reputation on.
But there was one problem.
She knew the man behind the company.
And worse,
She loved him.
By eleven that morning, Amara had convinced herself that she could handle it.
By noon, she was lying to herself.
“Amara!”
She looked up.
A young reporter hurried toward her carrying a phone.
“What?”
“You need to see this.”
“What is it?”
“The minister just denied the whole thing.”
Amara took the phone.
A video was already spreading across social media.
A government official stood behind a row of microphones.
“No such secret agreement exists,” he said firmly. “These allegations are completely unfounded.”
Amara watched the clip twice.
Then she looked at the reporter.
“Where did this come from?”
“Someone posted the documents at 6:40 this morning.”
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
“Then find out.”
The reporter nodded and disappeared.
Amara leaned back.
This was what she loved about journalism.
The uncertainty.
The chase.
The moment when a story stopped being a headline and became a puzzle.
She opened another tab.
Then another.
She searched David's company.
Nothing unusual.
She searched the government agency.
Nothing.
She searched the names appearing in the documents.
Still nothing.
Then she noticed something.
A payment.
One that hadn't appeared in the first report.
Amara sat upright.
She read the figure again.
Then she whispered:
“Oh, no.”
Because suddenly the story wasn't about whether David's company had signed a government deal.
There was another company involved.
A company she had never heard of.
And whoever owned it had received millions of naira shortly before the alleged agreement was signed.
Amara reached for her notebook.
She wrote one sentence:
WHO REALLY BENEFITED?
Her phone vibrated again.
She glanced at it.
DAVID ❤️
Tonight. Please.
This time, there was no playful emoji.
No teasing.
No trouble.
Just those two words.
Amara stared at them.
Something was wrong.
She could feel it.
And she had the terrible feeling that before the night was over, David was going to tell her something that would change everything.
She just didn't know yet whether she was going to hear it as his girlfriend.
Or as a journalist.
And that was the beginning of the problem.
To be continued
By Queen Diana Story
