Amara looked directly at Chinedu, whose knees were visibly shaking.
“You told me this afternoon that your board wanted stability, Chinedu,” Amara said softly, a dangerous smile touching her lips. “So I decided to give them some. At 4:30 P.M., Okonkwo Capital bought out 60% of your company’s outstanding shares from your nervous investors. As the new majority owner, my first official act was to terminate your employment. You are no longer a director. You don’t even have a desk….
“Amara, please!” Chinedu wailed, falling to his knees right there in front of his potential in-laws, his expensive agbada trailing in the spilled champagne. “Mi amor, listen to me! It was my mother! She forced me to do it! She threatened to disown me! I love you, I love our son!”
“Do not dare mention my son,” Amara hissed, her eyes turning to pure ice.
Bisi staggered backward, clutching her chest, her majestic gele lurching sideways. “Chinedu, stand up! She is bluffing! She can’t do this!”
“Actually, she can,” Chief Balogun whispered, his face completely pale as he looked at his phone, which was buzzing frantically with alerts from his financial directors. He looked up at Bisi and Chinedu with absolute disgust. “The merger is off. Guards, remove these bankrupt fraudsters from my sight before they ruin my reputation completely.”
Nneka Balogun didn’t even look at Chinedu; she simply picked up her purse and walked away, leaving him kneeling in the dirt of his own undoing.
Amara turned her back on them as the hotel security guards grabbed Chinedu and his screaming mother by their arms, dragging them out into the rainy Lagos night. They had left a quiet woman bleeding on a hospital bed, thinking they were stepping into wealth. Instead, they had walked right into the jaws of the empire she owned.
Amara looked down at her sleeping baby boy, kissing his warm forehead as her private convoy pulled up to the glass entrance of the hotel.
“Let’s go home, my king,” she whispered. The rain had started beating them outside, but inside her world, the sun was just beginning to rise.
