Writers 
The rain in Lekki flogged the roof like a landlord collecting arrears.
Inside the sprawling duplex, 19-year-old Monday was sweeping the corridor, the mop hissing against the tiles, when he noticed something funny.
Madam Kofo's bedroom door was slightly ajar.
Usually, it was bolted tighter than a bank vault whenever Oga was away at his Ikeja office.
Monday pushed the door gently, just to retrieve a stray piece of tissue that had escaped his dustpan, only to freeze.
Madam Kofo and Emeka, the family driver, were tangled up on the Persian rug. Limbs, whispers, hurried breaths.
But that wasn't even the real shocker.
On the low bedside stool lay a hardcover notebook with a black leather spine.
Monday knew exactly what it was because he had personally handed that same file to Oga before.
It was the company's secret financial ledger, stamped in gold: _Lekki-Apapa Logistics & Haulage_.
What Monday didn't know was that it contained precise account numbers, phantom payroll names, and forged signatures โ the paper trail of how Madam Kofo and Emeka had been siphoning tens of millions of naira from Oga's shipping business for months.
What he did know, from the way the ledger was splayed open and the way they hovered over it, was that it felt wrong. Dangerously wrong.
The floorboard creaked.
Emeka's head snapped toward the door.
"Who is that?!" he barked, shoving Madam off him.
Monday didn't wait to be interrogated. He pulled back, his heart hammering so hard he thought his ribs would crack, and slipped quietly down the stairs before they could catch his face.
But the damage was done.
They knew someone had seen the ledger, and in a house where only three people were present, it wouldn't take a soothsayer to tell them who.
The houseboy knowing their secret was a death sentence. Either him or them.
Two days later, Monday woke up with a heavy sense of foreboding sitting on his chest like a stone.
He was in the kitchen brewing Oga's special Lipton tea when Madam Kofo walked in, wearing a deceptive, motherly smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Monday my son, you are trying too hard today. Rest small. Let me finish preparing my husband's tea," she said smoothly, stepping too close.
Monday remembered the terrified, murderous look Emeka had given the doorway two days ago.
And then he saw it โ a small white sachet tucked secretly inside Madam's palm.
"No problem, Madam. Let me just help you stir it before I take it to the study," he offered.
"No! Go and wash the front veranda right now!" she snapped, her voice sharp as a broken bottle.
Monday pretended to leave, but he ducked behind the pantry partition.
Through the glass reflection of the microwave, he watched her. She tore the sachet open and tipped a heavy dose of colourless powder โ rat poison โ into the steaming mug, swirling it until it dissolved completely.
Later that morning, when Madam handed him the tray with a sweet smile to take to Oga's study, Monday's hands were shaking.
As he walked past the swimming pool, he deliberately tripped.
He launched the entire ceramic mug and saucer straight into the deep end of the pool where it shattered against the tiles with a dull crack.
"Ah! Jesus! Village people are pursuing me o!" Monday screamed, rolling on the carpeted grass in fake agony.
Madam rushed to the balcony, her face contorted with pure murder.
"You useless, clumsy boy!" she yelled, her voice trembling with rage as she realized her shortcut had just dissolved into chlorine.
A week later, the tension in the house was thick enough to cut with a knife.
Oga had traveled to Port Harcourt, leaving the property under the silent, watchful eyes of Emeka, Monday, and Madam.
They knew the poison had failed. And time was running out before Oga returned to balance the books.
At the same time, they needed to get rid of Monday, because they were sure he knew something.
"Monday, carry this generator diesel container and put it in the boot of the Highlander," Emeka ordered, tossing him the car keys with a fake, tight smile. "And make sure you test-drive it to the mechanic workshop down the street before Oga returns tomorrow. The steering has been acting funny."
Monday nodded, but as he opened the driver's door, a familiar knot formed in his stomach.
He crouched and looked underneath the front bumper.
A puddle of fresh brake fluid was pooling on the interlocked stones. The main hydraulic brake line had been cleanly sliced with a razor blade.
Emeka wanted him dead in a high-speed accident. Driver error. Case closed.
When Emeka walked over a few minutes later, urging him to get going, Monday cleverly played dumb, clutching his belly.
"Ah, Emeka bros, my stomach is paining me o! Severe running stomach. Abeg, let me run to toilet first. Na you be driver na."
Emeka cursed under his breath, snatched the keys back, and decided to drive the car himself to pretend nothing was wrong.
Ten minutes later, a neighbour's security guard rushed into the compound shouting, "Ah! Your driver just crash car for trailer o!"
Turned out, Emeka survived with a broken leg and a bruised ego, screaming curses from a hospital bed while Monday whispered a prayer of thanks in his room.
By midnight two days later, the house was dead silent.
Monday was sleeping on his foam mattress in the boys' quarters when he felt a strange, cold feeling crawl over his skin.
He opened his eyes, just as the wooden door slowly pushed open.
Silhouetted in the moonlight was a masked figure holding a long kitchen knife.
It was Emeka, hobbling on one crutch, driven by absolute panic.
With Oga due back the next morning, Emeka knew that if Monday was still breathing, the ledger and their entire scam would come to light.
Monday rolled off his bed just as the knife plunged deep into the foam, ripping right through the mattress where his chest had been a second before.
"Where are you going, you small rat?!" Emeka hissed, struggling to pull the knife out of the wooden frame.
Monday quickly grabbed a heavy Ghana-must-go bag and swung it with the full adrenaline of a survivor straight into Emeka's injured knee, and bolted out into the night, screaming at the top of his voice: "Thief! Armed robber! Dem wan kill me o!"
People from outside flooded the compound with torches, but Emeka managed to limp into the shadows, disappearing into the dark corners of the street.
The next morning, Oga returned home unexpectedly, looking exhausted from his journey.
Madam Kofo was already downstairs, looking like an angel, preparing a narrative about how Monday had gone rogue, stolen valuables, and brought trouble to the house.
Monday walked straight into the main living room. He looked battered, his shirt torn, his eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep.
"Oga, make una hear my own side o," Monday said, his voice trembling as he dropped heavily to his knees right in front of Oga's expensive Italian leather shoes.
"Monday? Are you out of your mind? Get up before I call the police for you!" Madam Kofo shrieked, her face draining of all colour.
"Let him talk!" Oga thundered, his instinct telling him something was deeply wrong with the atmosphere in the house.
Monday looked Oga straight in the eyes. "Oga, Madam and Emeka driver wan kill me. Na because I open Madam door two weeks ago and I see the black leather ledger on top the stool, the company account book where una dey siphon the firm money. Na that book make Madam try poison your tea, na inside swimming pool I throw am enter. Na Emeka cut the brake of your Highlander to kill me inside accident. And last night, he enter my room with knife!"
Oga froze. He slowly turned his burning gaze toward his wife.
Madam Kofo opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out; her knees buckled under her own weight and she slid down the wall.
Oga walked past them in total silence, to their shared bedroom, then came out back with the said ledger.
He flipped it open to the audit pages, and his expression hardened into stone.
The exact pages detailing the missing funds were torn out โ matching the exact black ledger Monday had described.
The silence in the living room was deafening, broken only by the steady tick-tock of the wall clock, and Monday, still kneeling on the floor, letting out a long, ragged breath of relief that his boss was a just man who sought evidence rather than taking sides.
And like a cat with nine lives, he refused to die.
