The victory over Obinna Vance had been sweet, but in the shark-infested waters of Lagos business, blood in the water attracts more than just one predator. While Ada was busy reshaping coastlines, a shadow from her past was being meticulously sharpened into a weapon.
It began on a Friday morning, the air thick with the smell of rain. Ada arrived at the office to find the usual hum of activity replaced by a suffocating, leaden silence. The radio dispatchers weren't barking; they were whispering. The receptionists wouldn't meet her eyes.
On her obsidian desk sat a printed copy of a blog post that was already spreading through the industry like wildfire. The headline was a jagged blade:
"The Emerald Fraud: Was the Hurricane's Rise Paid for in Secrets?"
The Poisoned Well
The article was a masterpiece of half-truths and calculated malice. It featured leaked internal memos from her time at her old firm—memos that made it look as though Ada had been selling client data to competitors long before she ever met Mrs. Onosode. It suggested that her "miraculous" success wasn't due to brilliance, but to a long-term play of corporate espionage.
At the bottom of the page was a blurred photo of Ada meeting a rival agent in a darkened café three years ago.
Ada felt a cold shiver. She remembered that meeting. It wasn't espionage; it was a desperate plea for help when she had discovered a discrepancy in Mr. Williams' own books. But the way it was framed now, it looked like a betrayal.
Mr. Williams. He hadn't just been licking his wounds; he had been digging through the digital trash, twisting the narrative of her misery into a story of her criminality. He couldn't beat her in the boardroom, so he was trying to bury her in the court of public opinion.
The Inner Circle Cracks
The door to her office swung open. Mrs. Onosode walked in, her face unreadable. She didn't sit down. She threw a tablet onto the desk.
"The Board of Directors is in a panic, Ada," the Iron Lady said, her voice devoid of its usual warmth. "Two of our major shipping partners have paused their contracts. They're saying they can't trust their manifests with someone who has a history of 'leaking' for profit."
"It's a lie, ma'am," Ada said, her voice steady despite the hammer of her heart. "Williams is reaching for straws. That photo... that meeting was about his fraud, not mine."
"Can you prove it?" Mrs. Onosode's eyes were like flint. "In this business, perception is reality. Right now, the reality is that you look like a mole. I took a chance on the woman from the Owambe because she had fire. I didn't hire her to bring a forest fire into my house."
"I need twenty-four hours," Ada stated, standing up.
"You have twelve," Mrs. Onosode replied, turning toward the door. "At 8:00 PM tonight, we have the Port Gala. If you haven't cleared your name by the time the first toast is poured, you're out. The Hurricane will be downgraded to a footnote."
The Descent into the Deep
Ada didn't panic. She went into a mode she hadn't used in years.the "Analyst" mode, but this time, she wasn't analyzing logistics; she was analyzing a crime.
She realized Williams had made a mistake. He was so eager to bury her that he had used his own personal server to host the leaked documents before sending them to the blog. He thought he was invisible behind layers of encryption, but Ada knew the architecture of his mind. He was a man of habit. He used the same password for his home security as he did for his "Private" folders,the name of his first failed startup.
She didn't go to the police. She didn't go to a lawyer. She went to the one place Williams would never expect: back to the office she had ghosted.
The Midnight Heist
She didn't enter through the front door. She used the service entrance, the one the cleaners used at 5:00 PM. She still had her old keycard.Williams had been too busy mourning his "Portfolio Crisis" to deactivate it.
The office was a graveyard. The air was stale, smelling of old paper and desperation. She made her way to the server room, the blue light of the machines reflecting in her eyes. Her fingers flew across the keyboard.
She wasn't looking for her own files. She was looking for the delete logs.
There it was. A folder titled 'ADA_DEMOLITION'.
Inside, she found the original, unedited versions of the memos. They hadn't been leaked by her; they had been altered by Williams himself to frame her. Even better, she found the digital trail of the payment he had made to the blogger.A direct transfer from his personal account, timestamped two hours after he had begged her to come back to the gala.
At 7:55 PM, the Port Gala was in full swing. The elite of Lagos were there, whispering behind their fans, waiting for the fall of the Emerald Hurricane. Mr. Williams was there, too, looking smug in a new suit, sipping champagne as if he had already won.
The doors opened.
Ada didn't wear gold tonight. She didn't wear emerald. She wore black—a sharp, velvet tuxedo suit that made her look like a shadow come to life.
She didn't go to her table. She walked straight to the podium where the big screen was displaying the "History of the Ports" slideshow. She pulled a flash drive from her pocket and plugged it into the console.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Ada's voice boomed through the speakers, silencing the room. "Before we celebrate the future of our industry, I think it's important we settle a matter of integrity."
On the massive screen, the blurred photo of her meeting appeared. The room gasped. Mr. Williams smirked.
Then, with a click, the image shifted. It showed the original memo. Then the bank transfer. Then the metadata showed Williams' own computer as the source of the forgery.
"The Hurricane doesn't just reshape coastlines," Ada said, her gaze locking onto a trembling Mr. Williams. "It clears the air. And tonight, the air in this room is finally clean."
The silence was absolute. Then, slowly, Mrs. Onosode began to clap.