Red Flag District S2.

DERIN’S P.O.V:

London was not escape at first.

It was proof.

Proof that I could leave before I was left.

Proof that I could choose distance before need had the chance to embarrass me.

Proof that I could rebuild a life without asking any man to understand the damage he had not directly caused.

When I first arrived, I told everyone I needed a reset. That sounded mature. Clean. Acceptable. Reset was a respectable word. It did not sound like fear. It did not sound like running. It did not sound like waking up in a new city and realising that there is a thin line between peace and loneliness.

London gave me order. Cold mornings. Predictable trains. Meetings that started on time. Weather that treated joy as suspicious.

I built a routine quickly because that was what I did. I found an apartment. Joined a firm. Learned the fastest route to work. Found the best coffee within walking distance. Filed my taxes early. Bought a black coat that made me look like every other woman silently suffering on the Central line.

Externally, I was fine.

I was excellent, actually.

Excellence had always been easier than honesty.

At work, I built a niche quickly. Intellectual property. Entertainment. Technology. African creatives expanding into the UK market. Nigerian founders who had raised money and suddenly realised vibes could not protect trademarks. Musicians who had signed contracts with optimism and no lawyers. Designers whose work had been copied by brands with better distribution and worse consciences.

The work gave me direction. Structure. Purpose. But work could not sit with me at night. Work could not answer the questions I refused to ask directly.

Questions like:

Why did you leave?

Why did you leave him?

Because the truth was simple.

Too simple.

Folarin had begun to feel safe. And safety, for me, had always looked like the place women lost themselves.

So I left.

I did not call it that at the time. Of course not. I called it wisdom. I called it timing. I called it choosing myself. All of which were partly true.

That was the problem with fear. It never came dressed entirely as a lie. Sometimes it wore enough truth to pass inspection.

For months, I moved through London like a woman who had survived something.

But survival is not the same as healing.

I learned that in a small church in Croydon with bad speakers, uneven harmonies, and the kind of after-service jollof that could make you question your salvation.

A Ghanaian woman from work invited me.

I almost said no.

Then she mentioned food. She mentioned African food served buffet style after service. Food evangelism remains undefeated.

I went once.

Then again.

Then again.

Not because the sermons were spectacular. They weren’t. Not because the music was perfect. It was not. One drummer in particular needed deliverance from overconfidence.

But there was something honest there. People were not performing wholeness. They were being formed.

Slowly.

Messily.

Together.

This was rare for a congregation made up mostly of west africans.

I had grown up around faith. I knew the language. The scriptures. The songs. The right places to say amen. But in London, God stopped being inherited. He became personal.

And personal things are harder to control.

That was how the real work started. There was no dramatic altar moment. No sudden personality transplant. Just a slow undoing.

God meeting me in ordinary moments and asking questions I had spent years outsourcing to achievement.

Who are you when you are not working?

Who taught you that needing people was weakness?

Are you sure you are in control of your life or you are being ruled by fear?

Annoying questions. But the answers were the first steps into a journey of healing sponsored by the Holy Spirit.

By the time I decided to return to Lagos, it was not because I had suddenly become soft. People always think healing makes women soft. Sometimes it makes things clearer. Maybe that was a kind of softness

I came back because Lagos still mattered. I came back because I had unfinished business. I came back because God told me to.

He told me other things too. It was time to start my own company.

Adebayo IP had existed on paper for years, but now I was ready to build it properly. Entertainment law. Technology. Fashion. Brand protection. Licensing. Contracts that did not read like traps.

Structures for the people creating the culture everybody else was eating from. Nigerians are very creative and resilient people who have been creating despite the odds, without the appropriate structure and support. I was going to be a part of the people who built that structure.

And so, I packed my bag, and invested 50% of my financial portfolio to start my own law office.

We begun with Lagos. The work was chaotic. But chaos is not always a warning. Sometimes it is the sign of an unplowed field, brimming with possibilities.

So I came back. For the work. For purpose. For the version of myself I could no longer build from a safe distance.

My phone buzzed. It was a message from Folarin.

Folarin Cole: I want to see you

Heat moved into my chest. I didn’t understand why.

Ok I did. Folarin had come dangerously close. I had come dangerously close to loving him. And even if I wouldn’t admit it, he was the reason I left. Ran.

And now, I couldn’t help but wonder…

I came back for work. Not for Folarin. I told myself that clearly. Repeatedly. Which was usually how I knew something required further investigation.

I picked up my phone and typed

I want to see you too. Does Thursday work?

I dropped the phone and began to put things in place. Adebayo IP did not look like much yet. That was fine. I liked beginnings before people knew what they were looking at. The office sat on the second floor of a quiet building in Ikoyi, tucked between a private equity firm and a dermatologist whose clients arrived wearing sunglasses indoors.

The space still smelled faintly of paint and new furniture. Two offices. One conference room. A small reception area. Shelves not yet filled. Boxes everywhere. A firm in pieces, waiting to become itself.

I stood in the middle of the conference room with a framed certificate in one hand and a measuring tape in the other.

I had spent fifteen minutes trying to decide where to hang it. Not because I was indecisive, but because placement mattered. Things should be where they belonged.

My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a phone call.

Mummy.

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