The alarms inside TechWave headquarters screamed like a wounded animal.
Red lights flashed across the glass walls of the server floor.
Employees ran between desks, phones pressed to their ears, panic spreading through the building faster than the system crash itself.
On the large central monitor the message kept blinking.
SYSTEM BREACH DETECTED
DATA ERASURE IN PROGRESS
Lines of code disappeared in real time.
Years of work.
Vanishing.
Daevyd stood in the lobby staring at the chaos.
Engineers rushed past him toward the server room.
Someone shouted.
"Who triggered the wipe?!"
Another voice answered.
"It's spreading through the core database!"
Daevyd pulled out his phone immediately.
"Kemi."
His assistant answered breathlessly.
"Sir the servers are collapsing. The entire platform is going down."
"Listen carefully," he said calmly.
"Disconnect every external network connection now."
"We tried. The breach is internal."
Daevyd closed his eyes for one second.
Adrian.
Upstairs on the executive floor, Adrian stood frozen in front of the monitor inside his office.
The system breach warnings kept multiplying.
File deletion.
Database corruption.
User shutdown.
This wasn't the quiet sabotage he agreed to.
This was a massacre.
His phone vibrated again.
Tunde.
Adrian answered immediately.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Tunde's voice sounded almost relaxed.
"Cleaning the board."
"You're destroying TechWave."
"No," Tunde said softly.
"I'm destroying Daevyd's empire."
Adrian rubbed his forehead.
"You didn't tell me this."
"I didn't need to."
Adrian looked back at the screen.
Half the company database was already gone.
"You're going to destroy millions of user accounts."
Tunde laughed lightly.
"Collateral damage."
The same words Adrian had used earlier.
But now they sounded much darker.
"You said you wanted control of the company."
"I do."
"So why destroy it?"
A pause.
Then Tunde spoke slowly.
"Because when TechWave collapses…"
"…I will buy what's left for almost nothing."
Adrian's stomach dropped.
"You're planning a hostile takeover."
"Exactly."
"And Daevyd?"
Tunde chuckled.
"By the time this ends, no investor will touch him again."
The call ended.
Adrian stared at the phone.
For the first time since this started…
He felt fear.
⸻
Back in the lobby, Daevyd was already moving.
He pushed through the crowd toward the server floor.
Two engineers stopped him.
"Sir you can't go in there. The board suspended you."
Daevyd didn't slow down.
"Then pretend you didn't see me."
He swiped an access card and entered the server room.
Cold air blasted from the cooling systems.
Technicians ran between machines trying to stop the damage.
"What's happening?" Daevyd asked.
One of the engineers turned to him.
"Someone activated a recursive deletion script. It's wiping every database backup."
Daevyd's eyes narrowed.
"That means the attacker has admin-level control."
The engineer nodded.
"Exactly."
Daevyd looked toward the security terminal.
"Show me the command source."
The engineer typed quickly.
A location appeared.
Executive floor.
Office access terminal.
Daevyd already knew the answer.
Adrian.
Meanwhile in Lekki, Shemmy paced the living room while Ruth refreshed the news feeds on her laptop.
"This is bad," Ruth said quietly.
"How bad?"
"TechWave servers are down."
Shemmy froze.
"What?"
"Look."
Ruth turned the screen toward her.
Breaking headlines were already appearing.
"TechWave Platform Crashes Across Nigeria"
"Millions of Users Locked Out of Major Startup App"
"Investors Panic As Lagos Tech Giant Faces Collapse"
Shemmy felt her chest tighten.
"This is Tunde."
Ruth nodded.
"He's hitting Daevyd where it hurts most."
Shemmy grabbed her phone.
"I'm calling him."
Inside TechWave headquarters, Daevyd stepped out of the elevator on the executive floor.
The hallway was empty now.
Everyone else was dealing with the chaos downstairs.
He walked straight to Adrian's office.
The door was open.
Adrian stood beside the desk staring at the monitor.
When he saw Daevyd enter, his expression changed.
"You shouldn't be here."
Daevyd closed the door slowly.
"You triggered the breach."
Adrian shook his head quickly.
"No."
Daevyd's voice turned cold.
"Don't lie."
"I'm not."
Adrian pointed at the screen.
"Tunde triggered it remotely."
Daevyd paused.
"What?"
"He's wiping the system to force a takeover."
Daevyd stepped closer.
"And you helped him get access."
Adrian didn't answer.
That silence said everything.
Daevyd's fists clenched.
"You sold us out."
Adrian finally spoke.
"I didn't know he planned to destroy everything."
"You still betrayed me."
Adrian looked down.
"Yes."
Before either of them could say another word—
Every screen in the office suddenly flickered.
Then a video feed appeared.
Tunde's face filled the monitor.
His smile was calm.
Almost satisfied.
"Good evening, gentlemen."
Daevyd stared at the screen.
"Tunde."
Tunde leaned closer to the camera.
"Watching your empire fall in real time must be painful."
"You're destroying your own investment."
"No," Tunde said.
"I'm restructuring it."
He tapped something on his keyboard.
Another screen appeared beside him.
It showed TechWave's collapsing stock value.
Investors were already panicking.
"Within six hours," Tunde continued,
"TechWave will be worth less than a quarter of its current value."
He smiled.
"And tomorrow morning…"
"…I will buy the company."
Adrian whispered.
"You planned this from the beginning."
Tunde ignored him.
His eyes focused only on Daevyd.
"You should have taken my offer months ago."
Daevyd stepped closer to the monitor.
"You think this ends me?"
Tunde chuckled.
"No."
"I think this ends everything you built."
He leaned back in his chair.
"But don't worry."
"I'll take good care of it."
The video feed ended.
The office fell silent again.
Daevyd stood there staring at the dark screen.
Then his phone rang.
Shemmy.
He answered.
"Daevyd what's happening?"
He looked back at the monitor showing the collapsing system.
Then spoke quietly.
"Tunde just declared war on TechWave."
Shemmy's voice trembled.
"What are we going to do?"
Daevyd's eyes hardened.
"We rebuild."
"But first…"
He turned slowly toward Adrian.
"We stop the man who started this."
Across Lagos Island, Tunde sat in his office watching the destruction unfold on multiple screens.
Graphs falling.
Servers shutting down.
Chaos everywhere.
He poured himself a glass of expensive whiskey.
Then smiled.
Because he knew something Daevyd didn't.
The breach inside TechWave…
Was only the beginning.
And the next target wasn't the company.
It was Shemmy.