When History Repeats Itself

The Breaking Point

Damien promised to take care of everything until my dad got back into town. I didn't doubt him for a second.

Alexa drove me home in my own car. Aunt Jamila wasn't home—some security conference somewhere in the Upper East Region. Her third one this quarter. Ever since she got appointed to that Ministry of Defence advisory board, she'd been on a plane more than in her kitchen.

Meanwhile, Damien was back at Chase Men, locked in a boardroom with the Storage Manager, Dom, Mr. Chase, Lucas Wole, and the internal security officers who had searched my things.

As a junior partner at Chase, Effah & Galley—Chase Men's external legal counsel—Damien didn't need clearance; his name was clearance. His father's oil empire made him indispensable. And with my dad and Dom's aunt both named partners, the lines between family and firm blurred fast.

HR didn't even blink when he requested access to my desk earlier today. The General Counsel—on secondment from the law firm—was on the same payroll.

Apparently, other items had gone missing from the vault in recent weeks. But this was the first time anything had been stolen from the safe. A whole safe. The realisation chilled me. I remembered how confidently I'd carried the earrings—fake, as it turned out—escorted by a security guard, smiling, even. As if I hadn't been walking into a trap.

There were no signs of a break-in. No footage of a swap. Just me, walking down the corridor, proud to have been entrusted with another luxury delivery. Meaning, if anything had happened to the diamonds, it had to have happened before they got to me.

I'd told my dad. He called minutes after Damien did.

"Why wasn't I your first call?"

I reminded him that time was of the essence. That I needed someone on the ground, not someone pacing a lecture hall in Kumasi.

He didn't like that answer. I could tell. But he swallowed it. And probably put his foot down on the accelerator. Another mess he'd have to clean up. Another mess I'd dragged us into.

Alexa was curled up beside me on the couch, notebook in hand, fervently mapping out elaborate theories about who stole the earrings and framed me. She looked like a beautiful maniac.

For a brief second, I wondered what would've happened if Alexa hadn't been born into her family. She'd be one of those conspiracy theorists on YouTube, warning people about alien invasions and secret societies. Passionate. Loud. Slightly unhinged.

She gave up on the "who-framed-Kerry" map halfway through when her own logic tripped her up. Without missing a beat, she pivoted.

"You know," she said, nudging my shoulder, "you could always take that job with my dad."

It was the third time she'd made the offer. I smiled, because she wasn't joking. And she definitely wasn't exaggerating—if Alexa so much as whispered a wish, Eli Sampson would have it boxed, bowed, and delivered before sunrise. She was his favourite. His whole world. Even his wife and son didn't bother to contest it anymore; they'd long accepted that in Eli's orbit, Alexa was the sun and they were just warm by association.

But I shook my head.

Tempting as it was, I wasn't dragging this storm cloud from Chase Men into Sampson Energy. I didn't want to be the girl who brought drama and allegations to every desk she sat at.

My dad didn't ask if I wanted to resign. He told me to. Immediately. He already knew the penalty for breaching the notice clause in my contract. He'd pay it.

That was his version of a hug: solving the problem, no questions asked.

But did I want to resign?

Maybe.