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“Amara, I think you should sit down,” she said. “You’re not making sense. Perhaps you’ve been working too hard.”
“Don’t,” Amara said through clenched teeth. “Don’t try to make me think I’m losing my mind. I saw him. I spoke to him. He told me everything.”
Something flickered in Gloria’s eyes.
Just for a second.
Then the mask returned.
“Everything?” Gloria repeated. “And what exactly is everything?”
“How you threatened him. How you offered him five million naira to disappear. How you staged his death on the Third Mainland Bridge. How you stole my baby and told me she died.”
Gloria picked up a glass of water and took a small sip.
“That is quite a story.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Did it occur to you that he may be lying?” Gloria asked. “You are wealthy now. Famous. Perhaps he saw an opportunity.”
“He has my daughter,” Amara said. “A girl named Zara. She has my eyes. My face. She is seven years old.”
“Many children have brown eyes.”
“Stop lying!” Amara screamed.
Gloria’s calm cracked.
“And you believe him?” she asked coldly. “You believe a mechanic living in a condemned house over your own mother?”
“Yes,” Amara said. “Because unlike you, he told me the truth.”
Gloria stood.
“The truth,” she said, “is that Amecha Mensah was a mistake. A terrible mistake that would have ruined your life and everything I built for you.”
Amara’s breath caught.
“So you admit it.”
Gloria walked to the window and looked out at her perfect garden.
“I did what any good mother would do,” she said. “I protected my daughter.”
“Protected me?” Amara whispered. “You made me believe my husband was dead. You kept me from my child.”
“That child was never supposed to exist,” Gloria said. “And that man was never supposed to be your husband.”
“But he was my husband,” Amara shouted. “I loved him.”
“He made you weak,” Gloria said. “Before him, you were focused. Ambitious. Ready to take over Okafor Holdings. After him, you wanted to play house in Ajegunle and pretend money didn’t matter.”
“He made me happy.”
“Happiness is not enough,” Gloria snapped. “I built this family from nothing. I turned it into an empire. And you were ready to throw it away for a man with grease under his fingernails.”
“So you destroyed him,” Amara said. “You destroyed us.”
“I did what was necessary,” Gloria replied.
No remorse.
No shame.
Nothing.
“And it worked, didn’t it? After he was gone, you became everything I knew you could be. CEO. Billionaire. Powerful.”
“I became empty,” Amara said. “A shell.”
Gloria’s face hardened.
“You are ungrateful.”
“You staged a death. You committed fraud. You stole a child from her mother. That is not protection. That is evil.”
“Watch your tongue,” Gloria warned. “I am still your mother.”