Mobola Johnson
I didn’t sleep Monday night.
I kept replaying it, my name erased from the board, my work hijacked, my presence reduced to a whisper in the office I bled for. But Tuesday morning, I didn’t walk in quietly. I walked in prepared.
Hair done. Heels sharp. Mind sharper.
I’d stayed up drafting a full report on *Project Phoenix*—including original time stamps, email trails, and edit logs. Every file he accessed. Every comment I’d made. A digital footprint of everything Bako stole. And I copied HR, Legal, and the new Regional Director who had just resumed from South Africa.
If they wanted receipts, I came with a folder full.
By 10:30 a.m., my inbox was on fire.
First HR.
Then the Regional Director’s assistant requesting a meeting—immediately.
At 11:15 a.m., I stepped into a glass-walled conference room. Bako was already there, legs crossed, fake calm. The Regional Director, a polished woman in a navy suit, looked at both of us like we were chess pieces.
“Miss Chiamaka, your report was… thorough,” she said. “Disturbingly so.”
I held her gaze. “I document my work. Always.”
Bako chuckled. “Let’s not turn this into a witch hunt.”
“Then maybe don’t act like one,” I replied before I could stop myself.
A flicker of amusement crossed the director’s face. “I appreciate your honesty,” she said. “And we will be reviewing this internally.”
Translation: This wasn’t over. But it had begun.
Back at my desk, I felt eyes watching me. Curious. Calculating.
But someone was smiling.
Linda.
She walked over during lunch, leaned on my table. “Told you—this place eats the ambitious. But damn… you bit back.”
I smiled. “I’m not done biting.”
That evening, back home Obi came by with some suya and yoghurt. We sat on my tiny balcony under the blinking sky.
“You didn’t quit,” he said, I am proud of you.
“I don’t run,” I replied.
He smiled, then turned serious. “But just make sure you’re not fighting to stay in a place that was never built for you.”
That hit me.
Because I had spent so much time trying to fit in, I hadn’t asked if I even *wanted* to belong here.
The ceiling was glass but maybe, just maybe, I could shatter it.
And if not? I’d build my own damn building.
Mobola Johnson is a creative writer and a master storyteller