The billionaire Lagos bride book

Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Weight of Gold

​The humidity in Lagos always felt like a thick, wet blanket, but today, it felt like it was suffocating Amaka. She stood in the middle of the cramped living room, the rhythmic creak-creak-creak of the rusted ceiling fan above her doing nothing to cool her skin. It only served as a countdown to the disaster waiting to happen.

​"Amaka, did you hear what the doctor said?" her mother's voice drifted from the small bedroom, thin and brittle like dried parchment.

​Amaka squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers digging into the worn fabric of her skirt. "I heard, Mama. I'm handling it."

​But she wasn't handling it. The medical bill sat on the plastic dining table, the zeros staring at her like mocking eyes. Two million Naira. For a girl who spent her days haggling over the price of fish in the market and her evenings cleaning the offices of people who didn't even know her name, two million might as well have been two billion.

​She walked to the window, looking out at the chaotic street of Mushin. Below, a yellow danfo bus screeched to a halt, the conductor shouting destinations into the dusty air. Life was moving on for everyone else, but for her, it had come to a grinding halt.

​"The landlord was here again," her younger brother, Chidi, whispered as he emerged from the kitchen. He was only ten, but the dark circles under his eyes made him look like an old man. "He said if we don't pay the arrears by Friday, he's throwing our things into the gutter."

​Amaka turned, her heart breaking at the sight of his thin frame. "He won't do that, Chidi. I won't let him."

​"How?" Chidi asked, his voice cracking. "You already work three jobs, and we still don't have enough for Mama's medicine."

​Amaka had no answer. She went to her small bedside table and picked up a crumpled flyer she had found stuck to the windshield of a car she was cleaning yesterday. It was elegant, printed on heavy cream paper that felt like wealth against her calloused skin.

​"NEEDED: A COMPANION FOR A HIGH-PROFILE CONTRACT. DISCRETION MANDATORY. REWARD: LIFE-CHANGING."

​There was no company name. Only a sleek gold logo and a phone number. It felt like a trap, the kind of thing her pastor warned her about. But then she looked at her mother through the half-open door-pale, shivering despite the heat-and then at the eviction notice taped to their front door.

​God, please forgive me for what I am about to do, she prayed silently.

​She grabbed her only "good" blouse-a faded yellow one that she had scrubbed until the stains were almost gone-and her worn-out black flats. She didn't have money for a taxi, so she braced herself for the long trek to the address listed on the back of the flyer. It was in Victoria Island, the land of the gods, where the roads were paved