A Five-Part Series on Decisions, Beliefs and the Architecture of Revenge
At school, Joseph had been exceptional. He had always known that the surest bridge across the circumstances around him was education. Despite the arduous task of caring for his father, he stayed near the top of his class.
He performed exceptionally well on the KCSE and was eventually awarded a university scholarship by a leading bank. At university, he completed a demanding program combining mechanical engineering and accounting.
But Joseph was not merely studying. He was mapping, learning, observing, and planning. He had decided on an unusual strategy. During the day, he would allow himself to appear vulnerable and disposable.
At night, he would build his skills. While everyone else left work, Joseph stayed behind, developing a mechanical system he believed he could eventually sell to an international company.
There was another reason he stayed at Michael’s business. Michael was connected to the family Joseph believed had destroyed his father. Joseph knew it. Michael did not know that Joseph knew. That difference mattered.
Decision-making is often less about what someone knows than about what they believe you know. Joseph studied Michael closely. His ambitions. His insecurities. His contempt for weakness. His relationship with his father. His appetite for expansion. His need to feel powerful.
Joseph also noticed something else. People often reveal themselves when they believe there will be no consequences. Give a person ample opportunity to misuse you, and human nature can become remarkably educational.
Joseph became useful. Then dependable. Then indispensable. Michael, meanwhile, became increasingly cruel. Each insult confirmed what Joseph already suspected. Each unreasonable demand gave him another piece of information.
Even Mercy had a place in Joseph’s strange architecture. He had known her for years and knew she liked excitement, status, attention, and certainty. He knew that whenever she needed him and he appeared, then appeared again, and then appeared again, something predictable would happen.
Humans treat repeated benefits as certainty. Certainty becomes expectation. Expectation can become entitlement.
Joseph gave. She took. Eventually, she stopped noticing the difference. Then he introduced her to Michael. Michael was wealthy, confident, and dominant. Everything Joseph seemed not to be.
The attraction did not need much encouragement. Joseph watched. He said little. Eventually, he walked into his house and found exactly what had been developing.
“You are a useless man,” Michael told him. Joseph felt anger rise. His father’s voice returned. Notice. His breathing. His chest. His hands. The belief beneath the anger. They are humiliating me. Then the rule. I must do something. That was where his father had lost control decades earlier.
Joseph did something different. He waited. Mercy spoke.
“You have never even been intimate with me. What did you expect from me?”
Michael laughed.
“What kind of man are you?”
Joseph looked down and walked away. Michael thought he had won. But something shifted after that evening. The following day he approached Joseph at his desk. “Young man, never spare a woman who wants it.”
Joseph said nothing. Then Michael changed the subject.
“Listen. You have been one of the best workers in this business. Through your hands, in three years, we have expanded to seven highly profitable shops in Nairobi.”
Joseph looked at him.
“I want to bring you in as a partner.”
For the first time, Joseph seemed surprised. Michael smiled. He thought the young man had finally been given something he wanted. Michael came from a wealthy family. There were five siblings. Three lived abroad and cared little about operations in Kenya. Michael and his brother remained in the country after their father's demise.
The family also held considerable investments abroad. Joseph knew much of this. And he learned more as their numbers guy.
One evening, Michael passed by Joseph’s desk and noticed what was on his computer screen. A Master of Laws in International Taxation. “You love to study,” Michael laughed. “I hope it will be of some benefit.”
Joseph closed the screen. “It should.”
What Michael did not know was that Joseph had deliberately left it open so he could see it. Small pieces. That was how Joseph preferred information to move.
Mercy eventually left Joseph’s home and moved into the accommodation Michael provided for her. Joseph did not complain or confront either of them.
And strangely, this began to frighten Michael. A shouting man can be understood. A fighting man can be predicted. But what do you do with a man who has every reason to hate you, and seems perfectly calm?
Michael started looking at Joseph differently. Perhaps this was not weakness. Perhaps it was discipline. Or perhaps Joseph simply did not care. Michael could not decide.
One evening, Joseph opened the business accounts, looked at the family assets held in Michael’s company, and quietly wrote several numbers on a sheet of paper. Factory costs. Land. Loans. Collateral. Production capacity. Family investments. He stared at the calculations.
There was a way, he realized, to destroy a wealthy man without stealing a single shilling from him. Better still…you could persuade him to destroy himself.
CONTINUED: PART FOUR — THE DEAL OF A LIFETIME
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