From A Producer To A Global Superstar

Chapter 567: Executive Revenge

Dayo woke before the first light had fully committed to the sky, his body responding to the internal clock that had governed his mornings since adolescence, the particular rhythm that no amount of indulgence could permanently override. Beside him, Luna slept with the deep unconsciousness of someone who had finally exhausted reserves of tension she had carried for years, her breathing slow and even, her face softened into something younger than waking allowed. He watched her for a moment, memorizing the particular peace of her features, the way her hair spread across the pillow like dark water, the small sound she made in her sleep that was not quite a word but carried the cadence of contentment.

He rose with deliberate quiet, his movements careful not to disturb her, and pulled on the workout clothes he had abandoned the morning before. The house was still, the remnants of their celebration visible in the scattered petals that had not yet been cleared, the faint scent of roses that clung to the air like memory. He moved through the darkness with the ease of long familiarity, descending to the gym he had built and rarely used with the intensity it deserved.

Thirty minutes. Push-ups, pull-ups, the stationary bike, the disciplined rhythm of maintenance that kept his body ready for stages and schedules and the physical demands of performance. His mind wandered as he worked, not to music or strategy or the accumulated obligations of his empire, but to the simple fact of her presence in his house, in his bed, in the life he was building with the care he had once applied only to his career.

When he finished, he showered with the same efficiency, dressed in clothes that signaled return to routine—dark trousers, a fitted shirt, the uniform of the executive he would become again today—and moved to the kitchen with purpose that had nothing to do with theater and everything to do with care.

He made something light. Pastries from the freezer, warmed and glazed with something sweet. Fresh fruit arranged with less precision than his previous effort but equal intention. Coffee brewed strong and black, the way she preferred it when she was awake enough to prefer anything. He carried the tray upstairs with the quiet steps of someone who had performed this service before, who understood that gestures repeated became ritual, and ritual became the foundation of love.

Luna stirred as he entered, her eyes blinking open with the reluctance of someone who had not slept enough and did not want to admit it. She smiled at the sight of him, the tray, the morning he had constructed for her, and the expression transformed her face into something that made his chest tighten with recognition of his own good fortune.

"You’re leaving," she said, not a question but an observation, her voice rough with sleep.

"I have to resume." He set the tray beside her, leaning to kiss her forehead, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. "The world has been patient. It won’t be patient forever."

Luna stretched, the sheet falling away from her shoulder, her body still marked with the evidence of their night together. "Hmph." The sound was half protest, half amusement. "You were supposedly too weak to work yesterday. Yet here you are, energetic as ever, performing actions that..." She paused, her smile turning knowing. "Well. Let’s just say the evidence contradicts the claim."

Dayo blinked, the reference not landing immediately. "Weak?"

"You told them you weren’t coming in." Luna reached for her coffee, her movements languid, her eyes watching him over the rim of the cup. "Said you were weak. Unable to perform your duties." She took a sip, her expression innocent except for the laughter in her eyes. "And yet."

He laughed, the sound rich and genuine, understanding finally arriving. "That was strategy. Not confession."

"Of course it was." She set the cup down, reaching for his hand, her fingers warm and slightly sticky from the pastry she had sampled. "Go. Work. Build your empire. But remember—" She pulled him closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that vibrated against his ear. "—you’re my personal chef now. The internet has spoken. I expect breakfast tomorrow. And the day after. And every day you think you can escape me."

Dayo kissed her properly then, the kind of kiss that made him reconsider leaving, made him calculate the cost of delay against the pleasure of her company. But he pulled back, eventually, his breathing slightly uneven, his resolve intact. "Tomorrow," he promised. "And the day after. And every day you demand."

He left her smiling into her coffee, the tray of pastries between them like a promise he intended to keep.

***

The drive to JD Records headquarters took longer than usual, Lagos morning traffic compressing into its usual density of impatience and exhaust. Dayo used the time to review his mental calendar, the meetings he had postponed, the decisions that had accumulated during his day of absence, the particular challenge of reintegrating into a rhythm he had deliberately interrupted. He arrived with his mind focused, his composure intact, his expectations calibrated for the ordinary business of running an empire.

The receptionist looked up as he entered, and something flickered across her expression—something that made Dayo pause mid-greeting, his hand still raised in the wave he had already initiated.

"Good morning, Mr. Dayo." Her voice was professional, warm, exactly as it always was. But her eyes held something else, something that danced at the edge of her composure, something that looked almost like suppressed laughter.

"Good morning, Amina." He knew her name, as he knew all their names, the particular gift of memory that he had cultivated deliberately, that made people feel seen in a world that too often looked through them. "How was your weekend?"

"Eventful, sir." The word carried weight he could not parse, delivered with a smile that seemed to contain secrets he was not yet invited to share. "Yours?"

"Productive." He moved past her desk, feeling her eyes follow him, the sensation unfamiliar and slightly unsettling. He had built his label on positivity, on the particular atmosphere of collaboration and respect that came from knowing people’s names, remembering their stories, treating them as individuals rather than functions. The receptionist’s look was not hostile—nothing at JD Records was hostile—but it was *different*, charged with information he did not possess.

The pattern continued as he moved through the building. The security guard who held the elevator, his smile too wide, his nod too knowing. The young marketing associate who whispered something to her colleague and then straightened with visible effort when he passed. The senior producer who met his eyes with an expression that seemed to hover between respect and outright amusement, the kind of look one gave to someone who had done something impressive but slightly embarrassing.

Dayo greeted them all by name, his composure unshaken, his confusion carefully concealed. He had learned early in his career that authority expressed itself through calm in the face of uncertainty, that the moment you revealed you did not understand the joke was the moment you became its victim. So he moved through his building with his usual warmth, his usual attention, his usual grace, while his mind worked rapidly through explanations that ranged from mundane to concerning.

Had something happened during his absence? A leak about Luna’s return? A problem with Beautiful Things? Some industry development that had shifted the landscape while he was occupied with domestic pleasure? He would find out. He would reach his office, check his messages, and understand whatever had transformed his employees into carriers of secret knowledge.

He reached the executive floor, his stride confident, his expression neutral. And there, at her desk outside his office, sat Sharon.

Sharon. His personal assistant for eight years, recently returned from personal leave that had lasted six weeks—six weeks during which three temporary replacements had failed to match her efficiency, her intuition, her particular understanding of how he worked. She is in her early forty her hair streaked with gray she refused to dye, her reading glasses perpetually perched on her head rather than her nose. Her daughter, Deborah, had grown up with Dayo’s younger sister, had shared birthday parties and graduation ceremonies and the particular intimacy of children who became family through proximity rather than blood. Sharon had been there when JD Records was merely an idea, when Dayo was merely an artist with ambition, when the future was unwritten and terrifying and full of possibility.

She looked up as he approached, and her smile was genuine, warm, the particular expression of someone who had known him before the fame and had chosen to stay.

"Well, well." Her voice carried the particular amusement of someone who had already seen what he had not, who possessed information he was still seeking. "Look who finally decided to return to the land of the living."

Dayo smiled, the expression transforming his face into something younger, lighter, relieved of the confusion that had accumulated during his walk through the building. "Sharon. You’re back."

"Evidently." She stood, moving around her desk to embrace him with the familiarity of long relationship, the hug brief but complete, the gesture of someone who had earned the right to physical affection through years of loyalty and care. "And apparently just in time. The building has been buzzing since yesterday. I thought I was returning to a music label, not a gossip column."

Dayo pulled back, his confusion resurfacing, his eyes searching her face for explanation. "What are you talking about?"

Sharon laughed, the sound rich and knowing, and returned to her desk, reaching for her phone with the deliberate slowness of someone who understood the value of dramatic timing. "Oh, nothing. Just that my boss, the man who once made four executives cry with a single strategic memo, the man who built an empire through sheer force of will and terrifying competence—" She scrolled through her screen, her eyes bright with mischief. "—is now apparently a personal chef."

The words landed with the precision of a well-delivered punchline, and Dayo felt his comprehension finally arrive, delayed by the particular density of a mind that had been focused on other things. He blinked. He processed. He remembered Luna’s post, the photos, the breakfast he had prepared with such care, the domestic moment he had believed was private.

"Oh," he said, the sound small and slightly strangled.

"Oh," Sharon repeated, her smile widening as she turned her phone to show him the screen. "Yes. Oh."

The post was there, Luna’s account, the images he had watched her capture without understanding their destination. The pancakes, the French toast, the berries glistening in crystal, the chocolate sauce in its pitcher. And Luna herself, visible in the reflection of a spoon, wearing his shirt, her expression radiating the particular satisfaction of someone who had been thoroughly cared for. The caption he had heard her murmur but not fully registered: *My man. My morning. My everything.*

The comments numbered in the tens of thousands. Dayo scrolled through them with the fascination of someone watching a natural disaster from safe distance—awe mixed with helplessness, recognition that nothing could be done now to contain what had been released.

*GOALS. ABSOLUTE GOALS.*

*I need a man who cooks like this. I don’t even care if he can sing.*

*DAYO CAN COOK? IS THERE ANYTHING THIS MAN CANNOT DO?*

*Luna, girl, you won. You won everything.*

*The way he’s looking at her in that reflection though. I’m not crying, you’re crying.*

And then, the comments that made his ears warm with recognition of what they implied, what they celebrated, what they *knew* without being told:

*He skipped work for this. He told them he was weak. WEAK. And then he made her breakfast like this? Sir, define weak.*

*So when he said "weak" he meant... not weak? Asking for a friend.*

*The man said he was too weak to work and then spent the night proving exactly how not-weak he is. I respect the strategy.*

*Personal chef AND personal trainer? Luna, share your secrets.*

Dayo set the phone down with the careful precision of someone handling evidence at a crime scene, his expression cycling through embarrassment, amusement, and something warmer that he did not want to examine in front of Sharon.

"How did everyone here find out so quickly?" The question emerged with genuine curiosity, his mind working through the mechanics of information spread. "Luna posted yesterday. I wasn’t here. But the way people looked at me when I arrived—" He gestured vaguely toward the building beyond his office. "—it was like they all knew. Instantly. Simultaneously. As if someone had sent a company-wide memo."

Sharon’s laughter returned, fuller now, the sound of someone who had been waiting to deliver this particular piece of information. "Oh, they knew. They knew because your executives made sure they knew." She settled back into her chair, her posture relaxed, her eyes bright with the pleasure of revelation. "Alice, Wayne, Valerie, Ulrich—they saw the post yesterday, recognized the implications, and decided that the entire building needed to share in their amusement. They walked through every department, Sharon. Every floor. Showing the post, reading comments aloud, adding their own commentary about what ’weak’ apparently means in Dayo-language." She paused, her smile turning knowing. "They called it revenge."

Dayo felt his eyebrows rise, his mind traveling backward through years of working relationship, through the accumulated history of collaboration and conflict and the particular intimacy of people who had built something together. "Revenge?"

"Revenge." Sharon’s voice carried the weight of shared memory, of stories told and retold until they became legend. "You don’t remember? Your birthday, three years ago. They spent weeks preparing—presentations, speeches, emotional appeals, everything they could think of to convince you to release that song. The one you performed at the party. The one everyone loved. They rehearsed their arguments, built their case, prepared for every objection you might raise." She leaned forward, her voice dropping into the register of storytelling, of myth being recalled. "And you let them. You sat there, listening, nodding, asking questions that made them think you were considering refusal. You let them exhaust themselves, Dayo. Let them pour their hearts into persuading you. And then, when they finally finished, when they were spent and hopeful and certain they had won you over—" She paused, her smile widening. "—you told them you had already decided to release it. That you had made the decision before they spoke a single word. That their efforts, while appreciated, were entirely unnecessary."

Dayo felt the memory surface, the particular pleasure of that moment, the satisfaction of outmaneuvering people who thought they understood him. He had not been cruel—had thanked them sincerely, had acknowledged their passion, had made sure they knew he valued their input. But he had also enjoyed the game, the strategic patience, the revelation that he had been playing on a different level than they realized.

"They vowed revenge," Sharon continued, her voice rich with amusement. "Swore they would get you back. Swore they would find a moment when you were exposed, vulnerable, caught in something you couldn’t control. And yesterday—" She gestured toward her phone, toward the post that had transformed his private morning into public spectacle. "—they found it. Your ’weakness.’ Your domestic performance. Your..." She searched for the word, found it, delivered it with theatrical precision. "Your personal chef era."

Dayo felt his face warm, the embarrassment genuine but layered with something else—recognition that he had been outplayed, however briefly, by people he respected. That the game he had initiated few weeks had finally produced its counter-move. That the executives he had treated as pieces on his board had proven themselves capable of their own strategy.

He shrugged, the gesture attempting nonchalance, achieving something closer to amused resignation. "It was a good move," he admitted. "Effective. Well-timed. I respect it."

Sharon’s eyes narrowed, her expression shifting from amusement to the particular knowingness of someone who had watched him operate for too long to be fooled by performance. "And?"

"And?" Dayo repeated, his voice innocent, his eyes already calculating.

"And you’re planning something." She leaned back, her arms crossing, her posture relaxed but alert. "I know that look, Dayo. I’ve seen it since you were twenty-one years old and plotting how to get your first album made without label support. You’re not shrugging this off. You’re not accepting defeat. You’re planning."

Dayo felt his smile emerge, the expression that Sharon had correctly identified, the particular pleasure of strategic thinking that had always been his truest addiction. "Call them," he said, his voice casual, his eyes bright with intention. "The executives. All of them. Tell them I need a meeting. Urgent. Something has come up that requires immediate discussion."

Sharon laughed, the sound knowing and delighted, already reaching for her phone to deliver the summons. "They’ll know," she said, her fingers moving across the screen. "They’ll know exactly what this is."

"Let them know." Dayo moved toward his office door, his stride confident, his mind already racing through possibilities. "Let them prepare. Let them strategize. Let them think they’ve won, that I’m merely licking wounds, that this meeting is damage control rather than—" He paused at the threshold, looking back at her with an expression that contained all the warmth and all the competitive fire that had built his empire. "—rather than the beginning of my counter-attack."

Sharon shook her head, still laughing, still typing, already anticipating the drama that would unfold when the executives arrived expecting contrition and found instead the man who had never learned to accept defeat gracefully.

"You’re impossible," she said, the words carrying no reprimand, only fond recognition.

"You’ve said that before."

"I’ll say it again. Frequently." She looked up, meeting his eyes with the particular intimacy of shared history. "But I’m glad you’re back, Dayo. The building wasn’t the same without you."

He smiled, the expression softening into something genuine, something that acknowledged the truth of her words and the value of her presence. "I’m glad you’re back too, Sharon. Now—" He gestured toward her phone, toward the messages she was still composing. "—let’s remind them why they missed me."

He entered his office, the door closing softly behind him, and sat at his desk with the particular satisfaction of a man who had been temporarily outmaneuvered but had no intention of remaining so. He pulled up Luna’s post on his own screen, scrolling through the comments again, his smile widening at the ones that made him blush, the ones that made him laugh, the ones that made him want to return home immediately and repeat every moment they celebrated.

But first, revenge.

He opened a new document, his fingers moving across the keyboard with the speed of inspiration, and began to plan. The executives thought they had won. They thought they had exposed him, embarrassed him, turned his private moment into public amusement. They thought they understood the game they were playing.

They were wrong.

Dayo smiled into the empty office, the city sprawling beyond his windows indifferent to his schemes, and began to type with the particular pleasure of a man who had never learned to lose.

Yes he was that petty and obsessed with winning.