I leave the hotel with the envelope clutched tightly in my handbag, like it might vanish if I let go. The world outside is loud and normal cars honking, people yelling into phones, laughter from a nearby café. But inside me, there's only silence. A vast, aching stillness.
My life, my carefully built, steel-framed life, has cracked open.
And now I know why.
Back at home, I toss my heels aside and slump onto the sofa. I pull out the envelope again, lay the photos and documents across the coffee table. Each one feels like a slap. A reminder that I never saw this coming.
How could I have let him in so easily?
I close my eyes and picture the first day Kola drove me to work. The way he opened the car door, quiet and composed. The way he avoided small talk, kept his answers short, respectful.
It was the silence that seduced me. The calm in him that steadied my storm.
But now I see it for what it was strategy to pull me in.
If only I knew what he had in mind.
He read me like a book.
I press my hands to my face and sit in that truth. Let it sting. Let it bruise. It's the only way forward.
Then the phone rings.
It's Gloria.
"I've got something you'll want to hear."
"Go on."
"We traced one of the accounts where the money was sent. It's a shell company called AKN Holdings. Registered under a fake name and no specific address… but the contact number matches one used by one of tech consultants,we hired two months ago."
I sit upright. "He planted someone else in the company? I ask not exactly expecting a reply"
"Possibly more than one. We're still digging."
A chill runs through me. "Do whatever you need. I want every rat out of my walls."
"Yes, ma'am."
After the call ends, I open my private diary app and type something I didn't think I'd ever write again:
>List of enemies:
1. Kolade Akinola
2. Whoever helped him breach my company
3. Myself for letting love blind me
I stare at the last name for a long time.
I'm angry, yes. But more than that… I'm humiliated.
Love was never my weakness. Trust was.
And yet, under the anger, buried so deep I almost miss it, is a whisper I can't ignore:
I miss him.
Not the liar. Not the thief.
The version of him I thought I knew.
The one who made me laugh in the middle of traffic. Who rubbed my feet on long nights. Who held me like I was something soft, not steel.
I push the thought away. I don't have room for weakness anymore.
There was no room for it before Kola came along. Not that it matters but...
My empire is bleeding.
And it's time to go to war. A fierce battle I plan to win no matter what it costs...
I must take back everything he took