Her Crown of Thorns

an'

ve story building above Ikoyi's manicured streets, I stood in stillness, the hum of distant generators softened by glass

dred-million-dollar deci

y day in seamless order: board meeting at nine, a call with the Tokyo office by noon, and the high-stakes investor

pany; it was an empire. I was its archi

ttle on my chest. Not metaphorically but physically. A tightness I could never fully exh

s a terrain of polite facades and calculated alliances. Genuine

ion. And I had alread

le reflected the shimmer of the city, but my attention locked

wn only to my inner circle. Inside it lived the future: proprietary blueprints, core algorithms, and neural mapping for ou

slot where I always kept it.

I was methodical to a fault. there w

again. Sti

d pulled out last night's charcoal suit. I patted down each poc

n sharpened.

tal timeline. Dinner with the board. A brief meeting with our lead eng

rief moment outs

jostle. ba

en mid-call with Tokyo, deep in

ow, i

yssey

through me like

breakthroughs, intellectual property worth billions, not to

leak; it was corporate devastation. T

A cold, tighteni

delay. This wa

as a c

ad alrea

ced urgency. Demola, my head of corporate security, would be awak

ine c

ed in my gut like a live wire. "I need a trace. A flash drive. Custom

ds hang. He k

miss

ssional silence as the weight

ll. Any idea where or

. There was a brief contact with someone; it was uni

aid, tone clipped, efficient. "Any guida

ng AI integration. If it's compromised, it won't just delay the project; it'll give our competitor

be

ce dropping. "And Demola; this st

erst

k to the skyline, Lagos stretched wide beneath me, unaware that on

hands, we wouldn't just lose

resight, and an unbroken string of w

sn't a

was

o intention