The rooftop air still clung to their clothes when Amaka and Chuka walked back into the building. There was no crowd, no audience, no applause. Only the unspoken awareness that something had shifted. The fire they lit was no longer burning out of control. It was being guided now. And they were the ones holding the torch.
They rode the elevator in silence, not because they had nothing to say, but because their minds were working in the same rhythm. Something more than strategy was forming between them, something layered with memory, trust, and mutual resolve. The past could not be rewritten, but the future was theirs to shape.
Once inside Chuka's office, Amaka settled into one of the leather chairs while he walked toward the cabinet, pulling out a bottle of water and offering her one. She took it with a nod.
"We are in this now," he said, twisting the cap off his own. "No going back."
She sipped slowly before answering. "There was never a path back. Only forward."
He sat across from her, watching her for a moment.
"You know, I keep thinking about that night," he said.
She raised an eyebrow. "Which night?"
"The night you returned," he clarified. "That first board meeting. You walked in, confident, collected, like you had never left. I could see it in everyone's face. They did not know what to do with you."
"I did not know what to do with me either," she replied with a small smile. "I was terrified."
"Did not show," he said. "You walked in like you owned the table."
"Maybe because I used to," she said. "But it felt different this time. The table was colder. The eyes were sharper. And you were sitting in the seat I used to call mine."
Chuka nodded. "I know. And I kept wondering if you blamed me for it."
She leaned forward slightly, her voice even. "I never blamed you. I blamed myself for not fighting harder before I left. For thinking silence would protect me."
"It never does," he murmured.
"No, it never does," she agreed.
They sat quietly for a moment, the weight of their shared history thick in the air. But this time, it was not burden. It was foundation.
"I do not want to do this alone," she said suddenly.
"You are not," he replied quickly.
"I know. But I need to hear you say it. Not just in a meeting. Not in a memo. Here."
Chuka looked at her, then stood and walked toward the window, hands in his pockets. He stayed there for a few seconds before turning back.
"When this started," he began, "I thought I could protect you by staying quiet. I thought if I played along, if I kept the board pacified, you would be safe."
"But that is not how protection works," she said.
"No," he admitted. "It is not."
He walked back toward her, pulled another chair closer, and sat beside her.
"I should have stood by you from the beginning. Not just professionally. Personally."
She studied him closely.
"You still can."
A long breath escaped him, almost like relief.
"Then tell me what we need to do next," he said. "Not as CEO to executive. As partners."
Amaka leaned back, her fingers tapping the bottle lightly.
"We need to start building our own support system inside this company. People who believe in what we are doing. People who are not just waiting for promotions or trying to avoid fallout."
"We have Bola," he said.
"Yes," she nodded. "And Adaeze. But we need more. We need people in departments beyond finance and operations. People in marketing, tech, legal."
"I can speak to Yemi in legal," Chuka said. "He owes me more than one favor."
"And I will reach out to Uchenna in tech," Amaka added. "She flagged a vendor issue last year that was quietly erased. If she joins us, we will have access to internal audits they never intended us to see."
"Then we move fast," he said. "Because the ones we exposed are already rebuilding."
She looked at him again, this time softer.
"You know this puts you at risk too, right?"
"I am not afraid of risk," he replied.
"But are you ready for what comes if we fail?" she asked.
He did not hesitate.
"I am ready for whatever comes, as long as we face it together."
The way he said it made her chest tighten, not in fear, but in something dangerously close to affection. She stood up to shake it off and walked to his desk, pretending to review the documents stacked there.
"We will need to call a private meeting with the internal auditors," she said. "No assistants. No recordings. Just hard facts and real talk."
"I will set it up," he replied, standing as well.
"Not tonight though," she said. "I need one evening to breathe."
"Do you still go to that quiet restaurant across from the gallery?" he asked suddenly.
She turned, surprised. "You remember that?"
"I remember everything about you," he said.
This time, she did not deflect.
"Then yes," she replied. "I still go."
He nodded. "Dinner tonight. No files. No sabotage. Just peace."
She considered it for a moment, then smiled. "Peace sounds like a plan."
Hours later, they met at the restaurant. It was small and tucked away between art galleries and flower shops. The kind of place where music was low, and the waiters knew your name without asking. Amaka arrived first, wearing a simple navy dress and her hair wrapped neatly. She sat by the window, watching the soft flow of evening traffic, letting herself forget the chaos for a moment.
Chuka arrived not long after, dressed casually, without the sharpness of a CEO. Just a man who had come to share a quiet moment with someone who understood the storm.
They ordered their usual dishes without asking each other, a quiet sign that some memories never faded. And for the first time in a long while, they laughed. Not the polite kind. The real kind. The kind that loosened knots and made you forget what enemies might be lurking behind office doors.
"You remember that time we got locked in the conference room because the biometric system crashed?" Chuka asked.
"I remember you panicking because your charger was dead," Amaka replied with a chuckle.
"And you were calm as ever, eating groundnuts like we were on a picnic," he said.
"Because I knew no one would dare start a meeting without me," she grinned.
They laughed again, and it felt like freedom.
Later, as they stepped out of the restaurant into the night air, he turned to her.
"Can I ask you something real?" he said.
She nodded.
"Do you think we could ever… find our way back? Not just as allies. As more."
She looked at him, her face calm but serious.
"I think we never really left," she said. "We just took different roads."
He reached out and gently touched her hand. She did not pull away.
"Then let us walk the same road this time," he said.
She squeezed his hand once, then released it.
"Let us survive the war first," she said softly. "Then we will talk about the future."
He nodded, understanding that this was not a no. It was a promise wrapped in caution.
The next morning, they arrived at work separately, but with the same focus. The network they had begun to build was growing. Uchenna in tech agreed to provide hidden logs. Yemi in legal confirmed his support and shared a quiet warning about a shadow contract being pushed by someone in procurement. Bola had traced the last leaked email to a device connected through a side server managed offsite.
Piece by piece, they were gathering the rest of the truth.
By afternoon, the chairman called another emergency meeting.
Amaka and Chuka sat side by side, a silent message to everyone watching. The boardroom, once divided, now watched them with a mixture of curiosity and caution. No one spoke over them. No one interrupted.
Because now, they were not two voices. They were one front.
And the company was beginning to feel it.