A Dynasty Of Deceit

t because they lacked courage,

obab tree that stood on the edge of the Maduako estate, shielded by darkness and the sound of waves crashing beyond the gates, their fingers interlocked like broken promises holding each other together, and whispering fragments of plans and stolen futures while pretending, for a few stolen minutes, that the world beyond them didn't exist, "I want to disap

n and Adanna began building a plan beneath it all. They got burner phones, new IDs, bank accounts registered under aliases, a series of exit routes, safehouses in Ibada

onverting assets into physical gold and offshore bonds, all while keeping Kelechi in the dark and smiling through every investor call as if nothing beneath the surface was cracking and his team noticed the shift. Zayn, who was once composed and methodical, now worked with feverish urgency, his eyes grew darker, as though he knew something was coming, and they were right. The first warning came not from the Maduakos, but from Amara, his mother, who showed up at his Yaba flat one morning unannounced. Her hands trembled while clutching a newspaper with a headline he hadn't seen yet "Ojukwu-Maduako Merger to Birth Nigeria's First Family of Power," and below it, a photo of Adanna and Tobe, smiling like royalty, her hand held out to display a massive rin

each day heavier than the last, and Zayn spent it preparing meticulously. He was closing out accounts, transferring equity to dummy directors, writing a final letter to Kelechi disguised as an investment briefing, and then, hardest of all, telling Amara goodbye. She refused at first, begging him to stay, to fight in the light, to take down the Maduakos legally, to

tol tucked into the back of his pants just in case. Minutes haspassed, then an hour, then two, and just when he thought she wasn't coming, a cab pulled up and there she was. Adanna, hooded, no makeup, she was wearing jeans and sneakers and holding nothing but a single backpack and a

people's ambitions. They spent three days in Ibadan, hiding in an apartment above a butcher's shop, eating instant noodles and listening to the hum of generators laughing like children when the power came on, crying quietly when it went off. They hold each other in the d