From A Producer To A Chapter 476: Something Worth Losing

Chapter 476: Sothing Worth Losing

The office was quiet in the way that only ca after midnight.

Dayo sat at his desk with the lamp angled low, casting a small circle of light across the docunts spread in front of him. Nigeria schedules. Studio tilines for Frosh, Faye, and the others. A note from Sheun about the first rehearsal, already completed, the feedback positive. He had been reviewing footage from the Lagos studio for three hours, watching the raw performances, making ntal notes about arrangents and production choices that would need his attention in the coming weeks.

He was alone in the building. The cleaning staff had finished two hours ago. Security was downstairs, a single guard at the front desk who knew not to disturb him. The city outside the window had slowed to a murmur, the traffic reduced to occasional headlights sliding past like slow-moving fish in a dark river.

This was Dayo’s punishnt for taking a long off when work was too much now he had to deal with the abandon work.

Dayo reached for his coffee and found it cold. He set it down without drinking and returned to the file on his screen. Frosh’s vocal take, rough but alive, the kind of voice that did not need polish because the imperfection was the point. He was making notes when his phone rang.

The sound cut through the silence with a sharpness that made him pause. He looked at the screen. Jason.

His father did not call him at this hour. In four years of rebuilding the label, of late nights and early mornings, Jason had learned Dayo’s rhythms. He knew when his son was working. He knew not to interrupt unless it was necessary.

Dayo answered on the second ring cause he knew it had to be serious for his dad to call.

"Dad."

"Dayo." Jason’s voice was steady, but underneath it was a tension that Dayo recognized imdiately. The sa controlled urgency that Jason had carried when he served, when he had learned that panic got people killed and calm kept them alive. "I’m at Luna’s place."

Dayo sat up straighter in his chair. "Is everything alright?"

"Everyone is fine. Luna is inside. Jennifer is asleep. But I need to tell you sothing, and I need you to listen carefully."

"Go ahead."

Jason paused. Dayo could picture him standing sowhere outside the building, probably near the parking area, keeping his voice low so it would not carry through windows or walls.

"I was about to leave with my car. And I saw the sa vehicle I noticed earlier this week. Dark SUV. Tinted windows. It passed the building slowly, turned at the corner, and ca back around the block eight minutes later. It did this twice while I was standing there."

Dayo felt sothing shift in his chest. A small, cold movent, like a door opening in a room he had thought was sealed.

"You’re sure it’s the sa one?" he asked but already knew the answer after all he knew just like his father were never wrong when

"I’m sure. I noticed it three days ago when I was driving to et your mother. Sa make. Sa plates. Sa tinted glass. I told myself it was nothing. A neighbor. A delivery. But tonight, at this hour, circling this building?" Jason’s voice dropped lower. "This is not nothing, Dayo. This is surveillance. And it’s professional."

Dayo stood up from his desk. The chair rolled back silently. He walked to the window and looked down at the street below, his eyes moving across the parked cars, the shadows between buildings, the patterns of stillness and motion that his past-life instincts had taught him to read without conscious thought.

"Did Luna see anything?" he asked.

"No. And I didn’t tell her. She’s inside, relaxed, feeding the baby. I didn’t want to alarm her until I spoke to you."

"Good. Don’t." Dayo turned from the window and began gathering his things. Laptop closed. Files slid into a drawer. Jacket pulled from the back of his chair. "I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Do not leave the building. Do not let her leave. Keep the doors locked and stay inside with her."

"Understood."

The call ended. Dayo moved through the dark office with a speed that belied the calm in his face. He took the stairs instead of the elevator, his hand sliding along the railing, his footsteps silent. The guard at the front desk looked up as he passed.

"Sir?"

"I’m leaving. Lock up behind ."

He stepped out into the night air and walked to his car with a stride that looked controlled but was driven by sothing urgent underneath. He pulled out of the parking structure and rged onto the empty street, his eyes checking the rearview mirror with a frequency that would have looked paranoid to anyone who did not understand what he was looking for.

He called Max.

The line connected after one ring. "Boss."

"I need you and Bella at Luna’s address. Now. Passive periter. No lights. No contact with the residence unless soone approaches who shouldn’t be there."

Max did not ask questions. He had worked with Dayo long enough to recognize the tone that ant information would co later and action was needed now.

"We’re moving," Max said. "Twenty minutes."

"Make that fifteen Max"

"Fifteen."

Dayo ended the call and gripped the steering wheel tighter. The city moved past him in a blur of streetlights and darkened storefronts. He told himself it could be paparazzi. The tabloids had always been interested in his personal life, and the recent reunion with Luna would have attracted attention. It could be aggressive press, the kind that camped outside celebrities’ hos for weeks, waiting for a photograph that would sell for thousands.

He had noticed the increase of lately bit passed it as tabloids. But his instincts knew better.

Paparazzi did not use the sa vehicle across multiple days. They did not circle blocks with the patience of people who were trying not to be noticed. They were loud, obvious, eager to be seen. Whoever Jason had spotted was the opposite. They were quiet. They were patient. They were trained.

Dayo pressed harder on the accelerator and felt the engine respond.

He reached Luna’s neighborhood in eighteen minutes, pulling into a space two buildings down from her apartnt. He sat in the car for a mont, scanning the street. The sa cars he had seen on previous visits. The sa tree on the corner. The sa streetlamp casting a pale yellow circle on the pavent. Nothing looked different. Nothing looked wrong.

But Jason had seen sothing. And Dayo trusted his father’s eyes more than he trusted his own hope.

He walked to the building, entered through the front door with a key Luna had given him, and climbed the stairs. When he reached her floor, the door opened before he could knock. Jason stood there, his expression calm but alert.

"She’s in the nursery," Jason said quietly. "I didn’t tell her you were coming. I said I called to check on her."

Dayo nodded and stepped inside. The apartnt was warm, lit by a single lamp in the living room, the kind of comfortable dimness that Luna kept for evenings when Jennifer was sleeping. He could hear the soft sound of movent from the back room, the low murmur of Luna’s voice as she talked to the baby in the darkness.

"Go to her," Jason said. "I’ll stay out here."

Dayo walked down the short hallway and stopped at the nursery door. Luna was sitting in the rocking chair with Jennifer against her shoulder, the baby half-asleep, her small face pressed into Luna’s neck. Luna looked up when he entered, and her expression shifted from surprise to concern.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, careful not to disturb Jennifer. "I thought you were working late."

"I was." Dayo walked closer and knelt beside the chair, his eyes moving over Jennifer’s sleeping face, her small hand curled into a fist against Luna’s shirt. "I wanted to see you both before I went ho."

The lie ca out smoothly. It was a lie of protection, not deception. He did not want to alarm her. Not yet. Not until he knew what they were facing.

Luna studied him for a mont, her eyes searching his face in the dim light. She had always been able to read him better than almost anyone, and he knew she could see that sothing was different. But she did not push. She simply nodded and looked back down at Jennifer.

"We’re fine," she said softly. "She just ate. She’s sleeping better now."

"Good." Dayo reached out and touched Jennifer’s hand, feeling the small fingers relax under his touch. He stayed there for a mont, kneeling beside the chair, letting the warmth of the room settle into him. Then he stood up. "I’ll be in the living room with Dad. Get so rest."

He walked back to the front of the apartnt where Jason was standing near the window, looking out at the street with the posture of a man who was still watching even when nothing was moving.

"Max and Bella are on their way," Dayo said quietly. "They’ll set up outside. If anyone cos near this building who doesn’t belong, we’ll know."

Jason nodded. "You think this is Michael?"

"I don’t know yet. But I know it’s not random." Dayo stood beside his father and looked out at the sa street, the sa darkness, the sa ordinary night that had suddenly beco dangerous. "If it is him, then he’s been watching for longer than I realized. And if he’s been watching, he knows more than I want him to."

"Then what do we do?"

"We wait. We watch back. And we don’t let her know until we have to." Dayo turned from the window. "Stay here tonight. I’ll stay too. Tomorrow, I’ll figure out how much they saw and how much they know."

Jason nodded and settled into a chair near the door, his body angled toward the entrance, his presence solid and immovable. Dayo walked to the couch and sat down, pulling out his phone to check the security feed Max would send once he arrived.

He did not sleep. He sat in the dark apartnt, listening to the soft sounds of Luna and Jennifer in the back room, feeling the weight of a threat he could not yet see but could no longer ignore.

The morning ca slowly. Gray light filtered through the curtains, and Dayo stood up from the couch with a stiffness in his back that reminded him he was no longer twenty. Luna erged from the bedroom with Jennifer in her arms, surprised to find both Dayo and Jason still there.

"Did you stay all night?" she asked, looking from one to the other.

"We were talking," Jason said easily. "Catching up. You know how it is."

Luna accepted the explanation with a small smile, though Dayo saw the question still lingering in her eyes. She did not press it. She was learning to trust his silences, to understand that when he chose not to explain, it was usually because he was protecting her rather than hiding from her.

Dayo kissed her cheek, touched Jennifer’s head, and left the apartnt with Jason following behind him. Max and Bella were in a vehicle across the street, visible only because Dayo knew where to look. He gave them a small nod as he passed, a signal that ant maintain watch and report anything unusual.

He drove to the office with Jason beside him, neither of them speaking. The morning traffic was building, the city waking up, the ordinary rhythm of life continuing around them as if nothing had changed.

When he reached JD Records, Sharon was already at her desk. She looked up as he entered, her eyes reading his face with the efficiency she applied to everything.

"You’re early," she said. "And you look like you didn’t sleep."

"I didn’t."

"Do I need to know why?"

"Not yet."

Dayo walked past her into his office and closed the door. He sat at his desk and stared at the dark screen of his laptop, his mind still in Luna’s apartnt, still watching the street, still waiting for sothing to happen.

His phone buzzed.

He picked it up and looked at the screen. A text ssage from a number he had not seen in months. A number he had hoped he would never see again.

"We need to talk. In person. About your family. You know how to reach ."

Michael.

Dayo read the ssage three tis. Each reading made the room feel smaller, the walls feel closer, the air feel thinner. The words were simple, direct, and devastating in their implication. Michael knew. Michael knew about Luna. Michael knew about Jennifer. And Michael wanted to talk.

Dayo set the phone down on the desk with a gentleness that contradicted the storm moving through him. He sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling, his breathing controlled, his mind racing through calculations that no longer felt sufficient.

He thought about calling Luna. Warning her. Telling her that the life they were trying to build was no longer hidden, that the walls they had constructed around their daughter had been seen through by soone who had every reason to use what he saw. But he stopped himself. Telling her now would only create panic without purpose. He needed to know the scope first. He needed to know how much Michael had, and what he intended to do with it.

Dayo picked up the phone again. His thumbs moved across the screen with the sa precision he applied to everything.

"Ti and place."

He sent the ssage and set the phone down. Then he sat alone in his office, surrounded by the empire he had built, the screens showing the Nigeria footage, the files containing the future he was trying to create, and the photograph of Jennifer that sat on his desk where he had placed it three days ago.

He had faced Michael before. He had survived attacks, sars, sabotage, and the slow erosion of a career that had once seed unshakable. He had rebuilt himself from nothing into sothing that no longer needed Michael’s approval or his permission. He was a billionaire. He was a global na. He had a system that saw patterns, and a mind that had survived two lifetis of conflict.

But sitting at his desk, looking at the ssage on his phone, Dayo felt sothing he had not felt in a long ti.

Fear.

Not for himself. For the small person sleeping in a nursery across the city, unaware that her existence had just beco leverage in a war she had no part in. For the woman who had trusted him enough to let him back into her life, not knowing that his return would bring danger to her door. For the fragile, precious thing they were trying to build together, which had just been exposed to the one person who could turn it into a weapon.

Dayo closed his eyes and let the fear settle into him. He did not try to push it away. He let it beco part of him, let it sharpen his focus, let it remind him what he was fighting for.

Then he opened his eyes and looked at the photograph of Jennifer, her small face serious and watchful even in sleep, and he made a silent promise.

Whatever Michael had planned, whatever weapon he thought he had found, Dayo would et it. He would protect them. Not with the empire he had built, or the system that guided him, or the wealth that insulated him from ordinary threats.

He would protect them with everything he had. Because for the first ti in two lifetis, he had sothing that mattered more than winning.

He had sothing worth losing.