I found a list of twelve girls’ names hidden inside my fiancé’s mattress in Ajah, and my name was number seven, written in red ink with tomorrow’s date.

When I met Tunde six months ago at a club in Victoria Island, I thought God had finally picked my call and answered every prayer at once.

He was tall, handsome, confident, and he spent money like it offended him, flashing cards, tipping heavily, and laughing like consequences were a myth invented for poor people.

On our second date, he bought me a bone straight wig worth eight hundred thousand naira, saying beauty deserved investment, and love should never negotiate with price or patience.

Within weeks, he moved me from my cramped one room in Ikorodu into his duplex in Badore, calling it progress and proof that destiny was finally behaving responsibly.

He told me he was into real estate and crypto, words I didn’t fully understand, but they sounded modern, masculine, and rich enough to quiet curiosity immediately.

I was blinded by enjoyment and comfort, and I didn’t ask why he never took video calls, always preferring voice notes or brief messages sent at strange hours.

I didn’t ask why he had a separate prayer room in the house, locked always, forbidden to me, explained as sacred space where women’s presence diluted spiritual focus.

I didn’t ask why he never ate food cooked by any woman, only fast food or meals he prepared himself, washing dishes immediately with unusual seriousness and ritual.

“Babe, you are too beautiful to stress yourself in the kitchen,” he would say, stroking my hair gently, and I mistook control for affection.

I believed him because belief was cheaper than doubt, and doubt threatened the comfort I had just learned to enjoy without guilt or backward glances.

The wahala started three days ago, subtle at first, like a change in weather you ignore until thunder breaks something close and personal.

Tunde became restless, waking at two every morning, sweating profusely even with the air conditioner set to sixteen degrees, pacing like the floor offended him.

He muttered words I couldn’t understand, phrases that sounded scraped from stone, repeating them under his breath as if afraid they might escape unfinished.

“The container is not full,” he whispered once, eyes unfocused, palms shaking, as though speaking to someone standing behind me in the darkness.

I asked him what was wrong, and without warning, he slapped me hard enough to rearrange my thoughts and introduce fear where love used to sit.

It was the first time he ever raised his hand on me, and the shock froze my tears before they could gather courage to fall.

“Mind your business, Amara,” he screamed, veins bulging. “Do you want to go back to poverty?” His words hurt deeper than the slap.

That night, I slept with one eye open, listening to his breathing, wondering how quickly a man could turn unfamiliar inside familiar skin.

This morning, he drove out in his Benz to see the Baba for spiritual cleansing, or so he said, leaving behind silence and unease.

He forgot his keys to the master bedroom, something he never did, and the oversight felt deliberate only after everything had already gone wrong.

I decided to do a deep cleaning, pretending productivity could distract me, wanting to surprise him, or maybe reassure myself nothing was hiding beneath comfort.

I swept, I mopped, I wiped surfaces until they shone, then I turned the mattress carefully, grunting softly with the effort.

That was when I saw it, and my world tilted without asking permission.

Stuck to the bottom of the mattress with black tape was a piece of goat skin parchment, dry, ancient looking, smelling faintly of iron and dust.

On it was a list of names written in something dark, uneven, and crusted, like dried blood or ink pretending not to be blood.

Cynthia was crossed out, aggressively. Funmi crossed out. Blessing crossed out. Chioma crossed out. Toke crossed out. Sade crossed out.

I froze completely, because I knew Sade. She was his ex girlfriend. He told me she moved to Canada last year.

I checked her Instagram just last week, worried and curious, and she hadn’t posted anything in six months, not even a story.

Then I saw number seven, written cleaner, darker, deliberate, as though the pen had paused respectfully before touching the parchment.

Amara. Date: tenth December.

That is tomorrow.

My hands started shaking so badly I dropped the mattress, the heavy thud echoing through the silent house like an announcement meant for something listening.

I scrambled for my phone to call my brother, fingers clumsy, heart racing, but the screen mocked me with one phrase, Emergency Calls Only.

I ran to the bedroom door and twisted the knob frantically, but it was locked from outside, metal clicking coldly against hope.

I ran to the window, yanking curtains aside, but heavy burglary bars covered it completely, thick, prison style, welded with finality.

Then I heard the gate open.

The deep purr of his G Wagon engine slid into the compound, confident, familiar, carrying dread with the ease of routine.

I peeked through the curtain’s narrow opening. Tunde wasn’t alone. Two other men stepped out behind him, faces unreadable, movements synchronized.

They wore red robes over expensive designer clothes, as if ceremony and wealth had shaken hands and agreed on something ugly together.

One of them held a large white ram, calm and unaware. The other carried a heavy ceramic bowl, cradled like something precious.

Tunde looked up toward the window. He couldn’t have seen me through the tinted glass, but he smiled slowly and waved casually.

He knew.

I heard the front door open downstairs, keys clinking, footsteps deliberate, voices low and chanting softly like grinding metal.

“Baby?” his voice floated up the stairs, hollow now, stripped of warmth. “I hope you haven’t been cleaning.”

“The Baba says the room needs to be dirty for the transition,” he added, almost conversational, like discussing weather or fuel prices.

Heavy footsteps climbed the stairs, each step synchronized with my heartbeat, thud, thud, thud, dragging time behind them cruelly.

They were singing now, a song without melody, words scraping together, vibrating in my bones, making my skin feel borrowed.

I ran to the wardrobe and climbed inside, pulling clothes around me, pressing myself into darkness like a child hiding from thunder.

I grabbed a pair of scissors from the drawer, gripping them tightly, though my hands shook too much to feel capable of violence.

My breath sounded loud, traitorous. I covered my mouth, tears blurring everything, trying to remember prayers I hadn’t needed in months.

The doorknob turned slowly.

“Amara,” Tunde whispered through the wood, voice intimate and wrong. “Come out. It’s time to verify your visa to the great beyond.”

The door clicked open.

Light flooded the room, footsteps entering, shadows stretching across the floor, and I understood then that survival would require more than silence.

I remembered Sade’s laugh, Cynthia’s smile from pictures I once saw, women erased gently until nothing remained but crossed out names.

As the wardrobe door creaked, I realized something else, something terrifying and sharp enough to cut through panic.

They needed consent.

The Baba’s rules were strict. The container was not full because fear alone was insufficient. Belief mattered. Acceptance mattered.

I stepped out slowly, scissors hidden behind my leg, forcing calm onto my shaking body, meeting Tunde’s eyes with something like surrender.

He smiled wider, relief flashing briefly, thinking the hardest part was over, believing control had returned to familiar hands.

“I’m ready,” I said quietly, watching the men exchange glances, rituals adjusting, certainty reshaping itself around my words.

As they began their chant again, I dropped the scissors deliberately, showing empty hands, empty resistance, empty fear.

And when Tunde reached for me, confident and careless, I screamed his name, not in terror, but accusation.

I told him I knew everything, that the list was evidence, that names had families, histories, phones, digital shadows that never truly disappear.

I spoke fast, loud, unraveling his secret with every word, describing the parchment, the dates, the crossed names, the patterns he underestimated.

The men hesitated. The chant faltered. Belief cracked. Rituals hate uncertainty.

Tunde shouted, tried to regain control, but doubt had already entered the room, corrosive and unstoppable.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

I smiled then, shaking but standing, because earlier, while the house pretended silence, I had sent one message through a borrowed signal.

To my brother. To Sade’s sister. To anyone who would listen.

Faith isn’t always prayer. Sometimes it’s preparation.

And as hands grabbed Tunde instead of me, I understood survival was not luck, but timing, courage, and refusing to stay crossed out.