At home, Nkiru was setting two plates on the table when Tobi walked in. She looked at the time. "Where were you?" He paused a fraction too long. "I needed to speak to someone about the case." "Who?" He watched her face. "Temi." Nkiru put down the spoon. "You met privately with your former fiancee after promising me there would be no more hidden conversations?" "We met in a public hotel lobby." "That doesn't change the fact that you didn't tell me." He started to explain, but she lifted her hand. "Stop. I need to understand whether we're rebuilding trust or just rearranging the lies."
They ate in silence. Later, Nkiru opened the old laptop Tobi had left on the table. He had once insisted the machine was broken, yet he'd been using it to search archived files. She found a folder containing a saved copy of the original payment authorization. At the top was Tobi's electronic approval, associated with four million two hundred thousand naira. A later version showed forty-two million and the same approval reference. She printed both, not because she intended to investigate behind his back but because the difference was too important to leave inside a machine nobody trusted.
When she confronted him, Tobi looked at the papers and nodded. "That's what I've been trying to explain." She held up the lower amount. "This makes the finance accusation look very different." Then she lifted the higher amount. "But you signed the first request without procurement clearance because Temi asked you. You understand that's not the same as being completely blameless." Tobi lowered his head. "I made a professional mistake. I didn't steal." Nkiru sat down. "Then we have to fight for the truth that includes both sentences. I won't protect you with the same kind of omissions that have been destroying us."
A message arrived on her phone before she could say more. It came from an unknown number and contained no introduction. The attachment was a hotel security still, grainy but clear enough to identify Tobi entering a suite corridor. The timestamp read six months after their wedding. Nkiru stared at it while a strange, painful calm spread through her chest. The message below said only: Ask him what he was doing in Abuja. She turned the phone toward her husband. His face went white.
The photograph remained between them on the kitchen table. Tobi looked at the doorway in the image and seemed to search its shadows for an explanation that would not hurt his wife. Nkiru watched him and understood that the answer was worse than anything he'd yet admitted. "Six months after our wedding," she said. "You were in Abuja, entering Temi's hotel corridor." He nodded. "Yes." "Did you go into her room?" His silence was answer enough, but she made him say it. "Yes, Nkiru. I did."