Sofi's POV.

Sofi waited in the waiting area outside Chief's office because he was with another Manager, he called for her earlier. It was the second week of his resumption, he resumed a week ago because that Dare quit. He did not even stay up to the three months that he gave Chief to find a replacement, he just left abruptly.

wicked soul. Good riddance sha.

They were initially worried about Chief's health but he assured everyone that he is much better and he has an army of Doctors monitoring his health. "Don't worry they said I'll reach 100 years" He joked. Even Amanda told her not to worry, she confirmed it too, said he is fine now.

Anyway.. . so, last week he announced in his first meeting they had that she is going to head the subsidiary Company that will handle all the gas projects ;NeoHydra Energy Limited, such a clever name. 'Neo' means new and they used 'energy' this time instead of 'petroleum' since everything related to oil is dirty and casted now lol. (Hopefully, Yinka and her people won't come near this one to protest or cause trouble, gas is a lesser evil.) Sofi is now a member of the Hydra Group Board of Directors too, the youngest member ever. lol Senator Dele is going to hang himself.

So... my dear readers you are looking at the latest MD/CEO in town! The Company is still a startup and not yet making its own money because it will take a lot of time before they start producing. Nevertheless, it is a going to be a billion dollar company once they finish drilling and developing the wells. Mr. Obaze is still going to be the COO running the technical side of things while she is just going to focus on HQ activities.

Her Mummy did massive thanksgiving during service on sunday. Sofi knows her Mum is now a VIP in the church because her daughter is a MD/CEO of an Oyel and Gas Company. People will not hear word again in this Lagos lol. Funny enough she has not said anything about Husband for a while now but Sofi knows she is just on break; once she gets over this CEO excitement, she will resume her marriage nagging.

She was still in shock too, herself, it was all too surreal because how? She wasn't expecting this! She knew she was going to be on the gas project, maybe finally get her promotion but she didn't know they'd create a whole ass Company for it and make her lead it. She sneered as she remembered how that werey Dare was gingering her to quit, and how she almost quit because of that fight they had sef. See why it's bad to date your Coworker! Enemies can disguise in many forms!

Now all her hard work and patience has finally paid off. This one is like quadruple...wait what's the word for the one that is for 5times. Yeah this is like 5 steps up. Right now, the only person she reports to is the Board and Chief. She is a freaking Boss!

TY Screamed on the phone when she told her. She is currently somewhere chilling with Osaze because she has completed her first shift in the Abu Dhabi rig. Osaze is planning to propose and he has been consulting with Sofi for her ring. Sofi is secretly going to get her ring size for him, and she has given him a list of all TY's favorite designers already.

Hmmm Hope TY is ready for electrocution because, it must choke!

Honestly, TY has been super worried about her too, especially after she told her why she and Dare really broke up. They were worried Chief would kinda stop trusting her plus the fact that they don't know the extent of the damage Dare has done or what he was even planning to do.

After their fight he didn't contact her again or say anything to her when they ran into each other at work. He was just curt and formal with her. However, when he got back to London he started calling, blowing up her phone with texts asking to talk again, he said he is sorry but she does not have his time because he is an asshole disguising and she is over him. She used the past few weeks to bury herself in work and delete the remaining dumb feelings she had for him.

Na mumu dey fall in love for Lagos. She almost ruined her life with him! She really dodged a bullet because he wanted to destroy her.

"Sofi, he is ready to see you" Ada smiled at Sofi.

She was nervous when he called for her, they've not had a one on one since he came back, she was hoping he was not about to bring up her affair with Dare. She knows he knows about it. Everyone kinda knows now (Thanks to Ada).

Thank God, he is gone! The other day, Mr. Kola (HR Guy) was thanking her for 'helping them survive' Mr. Madaki's regime. "It's like na you calm am down, no wonder the guy changed after a while" She didn't even know how to respond to that. And is he alright? Who told them that one has changed?

They still don't know that he is Chief's son, but she suspects Mr. Obaze knows. There is a way Mr. Obaze relates with Dare that tells her he is aware plus he is like Chief's oldest best friend so he definitely knows.

"Good Morning Sir," She said as she stepped into his office.....Dare's former office nothing has changed in the office but it feels completely different because he is not here. Its good they didn't do anything beyond kissing in this office, she would have felt very uncomfortable right now.

"How are you? Please take a seat," He said before she could answer.

He talked about the Subsidiary, he wants her to hire young people there; he wants them to move out of the Building to one new district like that in VI that has a lot of startups because he wants them to be much more 'energetic'. She will only come here for Board meetings here.

Wait!, this is really happening!!!!.....

"I actually asked Dare to prepare you for the role right after we won the block; I hope he wasn't too hard on you"

Her heart stopped at the mention of his name.

So this is what they were talking about the other night. But Dare didn't even say anything to her or prepare her, was it supposed to be a secret?.....

"No Sir" She smiled nervously.

Chief nodded then continued. She is done with her MBA but he wants her to "Top it up" with an executive program in Columbia Business School in the next couple of weeks. "It is a 3-week program in New York, Mr. Kola is working on it already," He said.

OMG!!!!!.....

Then he said he has spoken to Mrs. Alabi to mentor her and she has agreed so when she returns from New York she has to be see Mrs. Alabi.

God! Na me be this!.....

"I want this Company to be youth driven, take your time in scouting young people. The investors and the 'green people' love seeing young faces" They both laughed. She knew he was referring to Yinka and Co.

"But most importantly, this subsidiary will be the future of the group. I know you are smart, dynamic, and resilient, this Company will be the Group's buffer to the disruption that is coming to the Industry, it will be the division that carries us in the future. This is not going to be an easy role," He said to her seriously. "But I know you are capable"

Sofi almost cried at this point, but she remembered she is a Professional. The fact that this Man genuinely believes in her like this ehhn, Kai God bless him! He is a good man. He is a good and decent person like, everyone in the industry knows this. He is fair and he is not randy, like you can never hear Mr. Bakare's name among the randy ones sef Amanda really is lucky.

She started wondering what went wrong with him and Dare's Mum......... well he must have had his reasons.

Sofi do not get involved in this matter, mind your Business!!! A voice in her head reminded her.

When she stood up to leave he said "Did he tell you that..... I am his Father?"

She didn't know what to say, what is she going to say?... Chief sounded like he was not in support of their relationship but at the same time it seemed more like he was being protective of HER.

Because...he knows how evil Dare is....

"He mentioned it to me," She said and Mr. Bakare nodded then carried on with his work.

*****

4 Months Later.

Dare's POV.

Dare accepted the Venture Capital firm offer and they asked him to start since he is available. So he is going to start in Singapore then set up his office in either Lagos, Nairobi or Cape Town nest year depending on where he decides to set up the branch. His partners want Lagos because of Naija pop culture, they want to come and see Wizkid and Burnaboy when they come for Business (lol as if they will run into them on the street).

The thing is, he doesn't want to be based in Nigeria for obvious reasons. However, one of the reasons he even considered joining this firm is to bring more money for Nigerian startups otherwise he would have just gone solo. If he opens up the office in Lagos, he will definitely raise more money for Nigerian Businesses and there are so many of them with so much potential. But the thought of going back to Lagos makes him sick these days.

He finally saw his therapist, after a lot of procrastination. He needed to be in a positive mind frame first before starting this new journey.

Honestly, his therapist is amazing; you see he had to get help years back, when his anxiety was interfering with his work. When he got promoted to a VP he couldn't address a room of his coworkers, he couldn't speak in public. He couldn't do anything as a senior exec because on that level you have to meet with multiple clients on a daily basis and he was struggling with it. At a point he just wanted them to leave him behind a Computer screen as an Analyst. But his Boss encouraged him to get help, the guy could tell he was dealing with a social disorder.

Back then, the therapist placed him on benzodiazepine in the first 3 months because they couldn't place their hand on the cause of his anxiety. It took him almost a year of those therapy sessions before he made a break through and then he got better on his own with time.

After he boarded the flight, he went through everything the Therapist said. She said he has to let go of his resentment because it will continue to weigh him down.

"You need to acknowledge this pain and confront them (Chief and his Mum), together preferably, so no one shifts blame, and then demand for your apology it is not too much to ask."

On Sofi, his therapist said: "Dare, you're not in a good place for a relationship right now and it is quite tricky for me to form a concrete opinion on this girl because..... I see a lot of things that could be wrong with the whole relationship"

"Why?" He asked nervously.

"So, this girl works for your Biological father? Right , and you say she is his principal employee, and she is 'from' the Yoruba tribe Right?" He nodded.

(Lol the woman probably has the whole map of Nigeria in her head by now because of his story)

"Honestly, I think she was more of a Band-Aid for you to get through whatever it is that you were dealing with"

His heart dropped.

"I feel like you tried to hack the healing process with this girl" Dare didn't like what he was hearing at this point. "You wanted to resolve your issues with your biological father and you wanted to explore and embrace this other side of your roots. It looks to me like you got close to this girl in order to bypass having to do all that through and with your biological father"

"That is what it looks like to me but of course I could be wrong, I could be terribly wrong because I don't know how you really feel about her and I don't how she feels about you. The best thing you can do for yourself right now is to take care of yourself, work on yourself, resolve these issues with your Mother and 'Him'. You have to take care of these problems before you attempt to commit emotionally so you don't ruin it."

Dare smiled as the plane took off.

He won't attempt to resolve anything with them again, he feels better already he is going to move on and he is blanking the both of them for good. If they don't hear from him again maybe they'll come and explain why they decided to have unprotected sex, bring him into the world to suffer for it, turned him into this crazy guy that needs therapy for multiple mental issues. He has cut them off until they learn.

He will be fine last last, this one is not as bad his Anxiety and as long as he is not seeing Mr. Bakare's face around, he is good.

***

Singapore

His schedule was crazy in the first week, he joined the partners for research, they held meetings where they closed deals, interviewed founders, they flew out to Hong Kong the following morning then to Beijing to meet some clients and back to Singapore all in one week.

But back in Singapore he had some free time, alone time and the only thing in his head was Sofi. The whole City reminded him of her because he did so much fun stuff together, he was tempted to call her so many times but he 'stayed strong'.

He misses everything about her, her enchanting smile, her freaking beautiful eyes, her sexy fine self, her stubbornness, he missed that too, he wanted someone to argue with.

*******

London

Immediately he got back to London from Singapore (after 3 weeks), he got a call from that forensic Auditor that does jobs for him. So apparently, their Swiss hacker has been arrested for leaking the laundering activities of some European Business men to journalists.

Now, let me take you guys back to why Dare and Chief were really arguing that night;

The hacker had contacted Dare some months back, he said he had more 'tea' on Nigerian politicians and their offshore laundering activities. He said he liked what Dare did with Alhaji Buba and he was even willing to give him this new one for free.

Dare met with the guy during one of his trips to London and he actually has this new tea with him in London. He told Gowon about it but, Gowon said he's not messing with it because they were going to start up a tsunami. There are sitting Governors, Ministers and Key members of the ruling party implicated in this one.

He said he was only willing to risk his life to take down Alhaji Buba and he is not going to get involved with this one because he has no Business with them. In addition, he doesn't have the 'Power' to do it.

Long story short, it seems Gowon somehow told Chief about it. Because, one week after Chief came to talk him out of it. Said it is too dangerous but Dare wasn't ready to back down.

Dare met with the Auditor for lunch, the good news is the hacker has denied rendering services to financial professionals, he told them he is only an activist and he didn't do it for money. So he is going to get 3 years plus fines.

Omo! if that hacker talks a lot of Finance professionals across Europe will go down lol.

After his lunch with the Auditor, he went back to his apartment and It was at this point Dare realized how erratic and reckless he had been in Nigeria.

You know he has been telling himself that Alhaji Buba is a bad guy and deserved to go down but is that really why he did it?

His main motivation was that block, he needed to get Alhaji Buba out of the way, he did it for the Company........for Sofi actually because he didn't want her to have to put up with President João.

This was all for her and now he is looking at possible Jail term, because if that Swiss hacker mentions his name he will lose everything; his licenses, his charters his new job. The new Job that is keeping him sane o. No one would employ him again with a criminal record and it will dent the image of every Company he has ever worked with. He is going to get 2 years at least.

Lol, he doesn't even need to go back to his therapist to confirm how right she is about his relationship with Sofi. This is the eye opener he needed. He really needs to get over her and stay away from Lagos and Nigeria. That country brings out the worst in him every single time.

Sorry this late lol. My Monday mornings are usually free or the oppopsite. Its actually a miracle that i am still writing this, if you people know how busy i am ehhhhhhhn, like no one IRL would believe i am writing a book on wattpad lmao. But i must finish this book this month sha, we die here! See y'all on Saturday.

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