Week days mornings had never been Esther's thing, yet today felt different, a soft bloom of hope unfolding with the first rays of dawn. She stood quietly by the window, watching the sunrise spill gold across the sleepy clouds, her fingers curled around a warm mug of coffee.
She had spent most of the night reassuring herself that saying yes to Bakarr was the right choice. He was kind. He was present. He wanted her. Yet… a small, persistent ache tugged at her chest.
She didn't love him.
Not the way she had once, hopelessly, loved Mr. Lewis.
Esther bit her bottom lip, mentally scolding herself for even thinking about him again. That chapter was closed. He belonged to her past, a past best left buried.
Bakarr will love you. He'll be good to you, she reminded herself, lifting the cup to her lips. And not all relationships are built on love. Some are built on trust… respect.
The smell of breakfast broke her thoughts.
"Breakfast is ready!" Zainab called out, her voice drifting from the kitchen, light and teasing.
Esther turned, offering her sister a faint smile before heading toward the dining room.
"Hmm, smells good. Thank you," she said politely, drawing in the rich aroma of fried plantains, sautéed eggs, and toasted bread. It smelled like home.
"Good morning, Ma," Zainab greeted their mother, Musu, who had just emerged from her room with a slightly furrowed brow.
"Did you two mess with my alarm?" Musu asked, raising a skeptical brow. "I set it for five a.m. to make breakfast, but the thing didn't go off. And I know one of you had something to do with it."
Esther laughed gently and rose from her chair, walking over to her mother.
"Ma, you just got back from months of treatment. You need to rest, not rush into the kitchen like nothing happened," she said, wrapping an arm around her.
"Oh, please," Musu huffed with mock offense. "The doctors said I'm fine. They even called me brave for surviving cancer. I'm stronger than I look!"
"Yes, they did say that," Zainab agreed, "but they also told you not to strain yourself. No stress, no early mornings, and definitely no heavy cooking. You're still recovering."
"You two are being dramatic," Musu protested, waving a dismissive hand. "Do you think I would've made it through all those surgeries if I wasn't already strong? My body can handle ten more and still survive."
"You're right, Ma," Esther said with a smile, gently steering her toward a seat at the table. "But for now, come enjoy the legendary breakfast your eldest daughter prepared."
With a soft laugh, Musu sat down as Esther served her a plate.
Just as Musu lifted her fork, Sarah stumbled out of her room, hair ruffled and eyes barely open.
"Good morning," she mumbled, making a beeline for the kitchen, then suddenly froze in her tracks.
Her gaze landed on Musu.
"Ma, you're back!" Sarah gasped, quickly changing direction to hug her mother.
"Glad to see you too," Musu said warmly, returning the hug. "But where were you yesterday? Didn't you want to come pick me up?"
"I'm sorry I couldn't," Sarah replied, her tone smooth and practiced. "I had some urgent meetings. My schedule was just too tight."
"That's okay, dear. The important thing is that you're here now, and so am I. I'm just happy to have all my girls under one roof again," Musu said with a smile.
"I've missed you, Ma. You've no idea how hard these last eight months have been," Sarah sighed, as though remembering some great personal hardship.
Zainab, who had been silent until now, raised an eyebrow.
"If that's true, you could've picked up the phone," she said sharply. "We were out of the country for eight months, Sarah. Eight. Not once did you call. Not once did you ask how Ma was doing or how her treatment was going."
"I was… busy," Sarah whispered, her voice almost inaudible.
"Right. Only Sarah Cole, oh wait, should I say Sarah Williams, is always busy," Zainab snapped, letting the accusation hang in the air like smoke.
Sarah's eyes narrowed, flicking to Esther for an answer. How had Zainab found out?
Before the tension could escalate, Musu raised her voice, a mixture of strength and sorrow lacing her tone.
"Enough, both of you. Zainab, you're right to be upset, but moderate your anger. Sarah said she was busy. Let's leave it at that."
It hurt Musu to admit she hadn't received a single call from her daughter, but she knew Sarah, her flaws, her pride, her selfishness. And still, she was her child. She would rather hold on to the excuse than see her family crumble.
"Let's just have breakfast," she added, her voice softer now. "Please."
"Sorry, Ma," Zainab said with a shake of her head, pushing away from the table. "I'm not in the mood."
But Musu's voice stopped her halfway.
"Zainab, please." It cracked slightly with pain. "I want you three to get along. Family accepts each other's flaws. As the old saying goes, 'Fambul tic e go bend, but e nor go broke.'"
Zainab paused. Her anger was justified—but her love for her mother and her youngest sister outweighed her fury. She turned slowly, nodded, and returned to her seat.
Not for Sarah, she thought bitterly. But for Ma… and for Esther.
Because in her heart, Zainab believed Sarah would never change. She was still the same manipulative, self-centered woman she had always been.
But for now, she swallowed it down, for the sake of peace.
Meanwhile, Daniel was seated in the modest waiting area of the central police cyber unit, his eyes fixed on the ticking clock above the front desk. He had walked out of a crucial strategy meeting at LewisTech the moment the cyber inspector called with an update on Fatmata's case.
After the frustrating dead-end with Brima's interrogation the night before, Daniel was desperate for a breakthrough. Brima had insisted that the person who gave him the NeuroSpeech prototype drive remained completely anonymous, contact was made through encrypted platforms, and their meetings had been masked both digitally and physically.
Daniel had left the interrogation in disbelief. What kind of fool does business with a ghost?
His thoughts were cut off by the sound of heels clicking on the tiled floor.
"Mr. Lewis," the cyber inspector called, approaching with a tablet tucked under her arm and a grim determination in her voice. "We've made some progress on Fatmata Kallon's case."
Daniel rose to his feet immediately, attention sharpening.
"Though most of her call logs and messages were expertly wiped and the backups encrypted beyond standard traceability," she began, "our team managed to retrieve fragments from deep-system recovery. And we found something."
Daniel's jaw tensed, hope flickering behind his cool exterior. "What did you find?"
"Recovered messages revealed she was being blackmailed. Someone had footage, compromising video, of her daughter. According to the message string, the safety of her child was the leverage used to get her to install the virus."
Daniel's eyes narrowed. "And her daughter confirmed this?"
"Yes," the inspector nodded. "We spoke to her. The girl verified that a man once threatened her through an anonymous message, and later made her record a video under duress. Fatmata only went along with the sabotage to protect her child."
Daniel exhaled slowly. A familiar anger rose, whoever had engineered this had crossed more than one line.
"What about the man behind it? Who is he?"
The inspector's face grew more serious. "We were able to reverse-engineer several metadata fragments, and with the help of your internal IT logs, we matched login timestamps with IP anomalies."
She glanced at her notes before continuing. "His name is John Swarray. He works for you."
Daniel's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture, tense, unreadable.
"He's in HR, isn't he?" Daniel asked quietly, though he already knew the answer. He remembered John, quiet, unassuming, always polite. The kind of person people never noticed enough to suspect.
"Yes, Human Resources Officer. That gave him access to personnel data and movement patterns without raising flags," the inspector confirmed.
Daniel's silence was cold and calculated. His mind was already working through the next steps. This wasn't just about internal security anymore, this was personal.
"Find him. Quietly," Daniel said. "I want eyes on him until I get there. And no one, not even his shadow, should know he's being watched."
"Yes, sir," she replied, already turning to relay the order.
As she walked away, Daniel stood rooted for a moment longer, the bitter taste of betrayal settling at the back of his throat. First Fatmata, now John. And behind them… someone bigger. Someone still pulling strings.
He wouldn't rest until he found them.
The automatic doors of LewisTech headquarters slid open with a hiss as Daniel strode through the entrance, his pace unrelenting. The building's sleek interior buzzed with low murmurs and tapping keyboards, but those around him quickly silenced at the sight of their CEO's grim expression.
He didn't stop until he reached the elevator, stabbing the top floor button with a firm jab. His mind raced. John. HR. A mole in plain sight.
As soon as the elevator doors opened to the executive floor, Daniel stepped out, only to be stopped by two people waiting for him outside his office.
"Mr. Lewis," Sarah called quickly, rising from her seat. Hawa stood beside her, holding a file. The look on both their faces told him this wasn't just a routine update.
"I don't have time," Daniel said, brushing past them.
"But this is about John Swarray," Hawa said calmly, her words halting him in his tracks.
He turned, eyes narrowing. "What about him?"
Sarah stepped forward. "We were going to bring this to you last week, but things have been chaotic recently also we wanted to do so with concrete proof." Sarah said, "Hawa and I were investigating discrepancies in HR's financial clearances, and we found some alarming things tied to John."
Daniel crossed his arms, silent. His stillness was never passive, it was pressure.
Hawa opened the folder and held out printed documents. "Payroll irregularities. Phantom employee accounts routed to a third-party bank. He's been embezzling money for over a year. It wasn't obvious until we ran a full audit through department-specific expenditures."
Sarah chimed in, "He's also been abusing his HR clearance, deleting complaints from female staff, rerouting sensitive communication logs, even sending inappropriate messages under fake identities. We managed to trace and recover them."
Daniel took the file, flipping through the damning pages of forged records, falsified names, and tampered documents. "And you're only bringing this now?"
"We wanted to be sure," Hawa said firmly. "It's all backed. We've also attached screenshots and internal logs that weren't wiped from the server."
Just then, the door to the office opened and Thomas walked in, his face taut with urgency.
"We've got a situation," he said, ignoring the others in the room. "John didn't log in today. His desk is untouched. His access card wasn't used at any entrance."
Daniel's eyes flicked up sharply. "That's too soon. The police were meant to move quietly."
"I know," Thomas said. "But if he caught wind, we could be dealing with a runner."
Daniel closed the folder slowly, his instincts tightening. Too clean. Too fast. He knows we're closing in.
"I want you to track him. Fast," he instructed Thomas. "Start at his residence. Use internal GPS logs to trace his last official movements yesterday. If he's left the city, alert immigration control immediately."
Thomas gave a firm nod and left.
Daniel turned back to Sarah and Hawa. "Good work. This just got more complicated, but also clearer. If John had the gall to betray this company from inside HR, there's no telling how deep this goes."
Sarah nodded, subdued but resolute. "Should I alert security?"
"No," Daniel said, eyes darkening. "Let's not scare the others. For now, John Swarray is just 'on leave.' But the next time I see him, he'll wish he'd never set foot in my company."
He turned toward the glass wall overlooking the compound, the city stretching in the distance. Something told him this wasn't over.
And this time, he'd be ready.
At another end of the city, tucked away in an abandoned industrial district, John Swarray crouched in the front seat of a rusted, beat-up Honda Civic. The car stank of mildew and stale sweat, a far cry from the luxury sedan he had traded in just yesterday. But he wasn't concerned with comfort. He was on the run.
The news had broken faster than he expected.
One of his guys from the IT department had tipped him off just in time: the cyber division had cracked Fatmata's files, and his name had been flagged. Worse, Daniel Lewis had personally returned from a police meeting. That alone was enough to send John scrambling.
Now, with shaking fingers and wary eyes scanning every alley and rooftop, he clutched an old Nokia burner phone, one of the last safe lines of communication he trusted.
"You finally picked up," he growled into the speaker, his voice low and strained.
There was a moment of silence, then a clipped reply:
"Why are you calling me?" Alhaji's voice came through the other end, edged with irritation. "You should be laying low."
"I am laying low," John snapped. "But I'm low on cash and I need your help."
He kept an eye on the narrow street around him, heart thudding every time a car passed. He knew what was at stake if he got caught, endless hours of interrogation, government prosecution, and likely a lifetime behind bars. He wasn't going to let that happen. Not without a fight.
Alhaji sighed, frustrated. "John, don't get me involved. Right now, it's not just the cyber police, CID and the national force are both on your trail. Even picking up this call is a risk. I'm in the middle of a board meeting for God's sake!"
"I'm not stupid," John hissed. "I ditched my old SIM, destroyed the touch phone. This is a burner. No GPS, no trace. I'm calling because I don't have time. I need money. Now. If Daniel or the CID get to me, you know I won't be the only one going down."
There was silence. A heavy one.
John let the threat hang in the air, because they both knew it wasn't empty. He had receipts—emails, crypto transfers, blackmail records. All encrypted and stashed on a secure cloud server under lock. If he fell, he'd make sure Alhaji did too.
Alhaji exhaled slowly on the other end. "You selfish bastard."
"And you knew what I was the day you brought me in," John countered coldly.
Another pause, then Alhaji relented. "Fine. I'll have the money sent and arrange for a safe exit. Go to Guinea for now. Lay low. Things are too hot here."
"I'll send a number for the transfer," John said, already flipping open the back of the phone to insert a temporary SIM for banking.
"But hear this well," Alhaji's voice turned firm, almost dangerous, "You'll be contacted when needed. Don't call me again. Ever."
The line went dead.
John let the phone drop into the passenger seat, his pulse still racing. He knew time was running out. But at least, for now, he had a ticket out.
Or did he?.
Back at LewisTech Headquarters, the atmosphere in Daniel's private office was anything but calm.
Thomas stood across from Daniel's desk, brows furrowed, phone in hand.
"He's gone," he said, frustration thick in his voice. "John didn't report to work. We tried reaching him through every channel, nothing. I even sent someone to his apartment. The place was cleared out. No trace. Not even a toothbrush."
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"Coward," he muttered, more to himself than to Thomas. "He knows we're onto him."
"Sir, I think he's on the run," Thomas said. "If the police haven't already picked him up, we should assume he's trying to leave the country."
Daniel leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin as he considered the implications. First the betrayal with NeuroSpeech, then the reveal of internal embezzlement, and now this, his own HR officer disappearing just as the investigation narrows.
"I don't care what it takes," he finally said. "If the police can't track him, we'll use every satellite, contact, and insider tech we have. I want that man found before he crosses a single border."
"Yes sir. I'll update the cyber team and notify our airport security liaisons."
Just then, the door opened.
Dija strolled in, clipboard in hand, her presence firm and deliberate as always. She flashed a quick glance at Thomas before turning to Daniel, her tone unusually serious.
"Sorry to interrupt. Uncle Daniel, can I have a word with you?"
"Not now, Dija," Daniel replied sharply, his voice strained with the weight of everything already on his plate. The ongoing investigation, the betrayal from within, this wasn't the time for Dija's usual antics.
"But it's important," she protested, stepping closer, her heels clicking with purpose.
"Dija, please," he said again, more politely this time, though clearly trying to dismiss her.
"It's about Esther."
And just like that, everything else in the room vanished.
Daniel's gaze snapped up, the tension in his shoulders shifting to a new kind. His heart stalled, his feet already itching to move. "What about her? Is she alright?" he asked, voice laced with urgency.
"She's fine," Dija quickly assured, watching his breath escape in relief.
"But I'm going to need you to grant Thomas an early leave today," she continued, casually adjusting the clipboard in her hands. "He and I are going on a double date… with Esther and her boyfriend."
The word boyfriend landed like a gut punch.
Daniel stiffened, his body rooted in place as his mind raced to process what he'd just heard.
"What do you mean… boyfriend?" he asked, barely able to form the words. The air in the room suddenly felt thinner.
Dija blinked at him innocently. "She finally said yes to Bakarr. You remember him, right? The guy at the semester's break party. He's been chasing her for years?"
Of course he remembered. Bakarr, tall, confident, annoyingly persistent. The same man from the campus party three months ago, the one Daniel had picked Esther up from when she was tipsy and laughing under the glow of careless lights. He hadn't forgotten the way Bakarr had looked at her then, like she was something he'd already claimed.
"Everything just so happened, can you believe it all came true yesterday" Dija added with a smile
"Just yesterday?" Daniel asked quietly, trying, and failing, to mask the tightness in his chest.
"Mhm," Dija confirmed with a small nod, her voice nonchalant but her eyes too keen. "Finally gave in after all this time. I guess some girls get tired of waiting around for certain men to grow a heart."
Daniel's expression didn't change, but her words hit their target. Hard.
She didn't stop.
"And honestly," Dija added with deliberate slowness, "she deserves someone who sees her value. Who won't push her away when all she ever did was care. Some men… they don't realize what they had until it's already promised to someone else."
Daniel didn't respond.
His fingers curled slowly into fists by his sides, jaw tightening as a storm gathered behind his eyes. He didn't need Dija to spell it out. Her words were sharp enough, laced with implication, and dipped in a truth he didn't want to admit, that he'd had something precious… and pushed it away in the name of restraint and loyalty.
Now, someone else was stepping in to claim what he let slip through his hands.
"Thank you for the update," he said finally, his voice low and clipped, every word pressed down under control.
Dija gave a small, knowing smile, then turned to Thomas. "We'll be leaving around three. Don't be late."
Thomas looked between them, unsure of what emotion weighed heavier in the room, Dija's smugness or Daniel's quiet devastation.
As the door closed behind her, silence settled in. Daniel remained still, staring at the spot she had stood in moments before.
It all felt too fast. Too soon.
And yet… maybe he had only himself to blame.