Chapter 2 - The Contract He Tore in Half
Femi looked as if nobody had ever used that word on him before.
“No?”
“You heard me.”
“I just told you the children are mine.”
“And?”
“And you are my wife.”
“On paper.”
His expression hardened.
Shola pushed herself up from the garden bench.
“You don't get to insult me for months, accuse me of trapping you, put an expiration date on our marriage, discover the babies are yours, and suddenly announce that everything is real.”
“I apologized.”
“You admitted you were wrong. That is not the same thing.”
For several seconds he said nothing.
Shola continued.
“If you want to be their father, be their father. I will never keep them from you unless you become dangerous to them. But I will not become your wife because a laboratory result frightened you.”
“I am not frightened.”
“You look terrified.”
That stopped him.
She walked back toward the house.
Behind her, Femi said, “What do you want from me?”
Shola turned.
“Nothing.”
His jaw tightened.
“That answer is impossible.”
“For people like you, maybe.”
She went inside.
The following morning, Femi placed the marriage contract on the breakfast table.
Grandpa Williams sat at one end eating pap as though he were attending a theater performance.
Auntie Yemisi sat beside him, elegant in a green lace blouse, watching Shola with the same careful smile she had worn since the marriage began.
Femi picked up the contract.
Then tore it in half.
Williams stopped chewing.
Shola stared.
Femi tore it again.
Then again.
“The twenty-million exit payment is gone,” he said.
Auntie Yemisi raised an eyebrow.
“Femi.”
He ignored her.
“There is no financial penalty if Shola leaves. No two-year deadline. No behavior clause.”
Shola folded her arms.
“Does that mean you expect me to stay for free?”
Williams coughed to hide a laugh.
Femi looked irritated.
“It means I don't want money controlling the decision.”
“That is the first intelligent thing you have said since I met you.”
Grandpa Williams laughed openly.
Yemisi did not.
Femi placed a second envelope on the table.
“Your own lawyer.”
Shola looked inside.
A letter from an independent Lagos law firm.
“I told them they represent only you. Their bills come from a blind legal fund. I do not receive updates.”
“Why?”
“Because if we discuss custody, marriage, money or anything else, I don't want you thinking my lawyers can crush you.”
That answer unsettled her more than arrogance would have.
He was listening.
Actually listening.
For the next week, Femi did something more difficult than buying gifts.
He gave her space.
No surprise jewelry.
No flowers sent to the office.
No public declarations.
He attended prenatal appointments when invited and stayed away when she said no.
When she craved roasted corn at eleven at night, he did not send six staff members.
He drove himself.
The first vendor took one look at his car and doubled the price.
Shola laughed so hard her stomach hurt.
“You deserve it.”
“I am being robbed.”
“You have survived worse.”
At work, things became less peaceful.
Ngozi had been suspended over the cold-room incident, but claimed the door had malfunctioned.
Security logs contradicted her.
Someone used a supervisor override seconds after Shola entered.
That code belonged to Chuka.
Femi called him into his office.
Chuka denied everything.
“I was in a meeting.”
“Your access code was used.”
“Someone copied it.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Then Femi asked a question that made Chuka sweat.
“Why did you delete the corridor footage?”
“I didn't.”
“You attempted to.”
Femi slid an IT report across the desk.
Chuka's face changed.
He still denied it.
That afternoon he was suspended pending investigation.
Shola expected relief.
Instead, she felt uneasy.
Ngozi disliked her.
Chuka seemed to dislike anyone who made him feel small.
But locking a pregnant woman inside a freezing room could have killed two babies.
That was bigger than office bullying.
She returned to the cold lab with investigators.
The room stored temperature-sensitive testing samples from Sterling Group's food and pharmaceutical divisions.
Shola stood near the shelf where she had collapsed.
Something bothered her.
“When they sent me here, they said old employee files were stored in Cabinet Six.”
The investigator frowned.
“There shouldn't be employee files in this facility.”
Exactly.
Cabinet Six was locked.
Femi authorized it opened.
Inside were no personnel records.
Only six gray document boxes.
Invoices.
Shipping manifests.
Insurance certificates.
Shola picked up the first file.
She had studied business administration at university and recognized enough to see that several numbers did not match.
A supplier called Harbor Meridian Logistics had billed Sterling Group millions for refrigerated transport.
But the truck-registration numbers repeated.
Same vehicles.
Different cities.
Same dates.
Impossible journeys.
“Ghost invoices,” she whispered.
Femi looked at her.
“You're sure?”
“Maybe. Look.”
She showed him.
One truck supposedly delivered pharmaceutical products in Abuja at 10:20 a.m. and frozen food in Lagos at 11:05.
Even a private jet couldn't make a truck do that.
They opened another box.
Payments went back fifteen years.
One signature appeared repeatedly.
Yemisi Ademola.
Femi stared at it.
“My aunt managed logistics after my parents died.”
The room became quiet.
Shola turned another page.
There was a handwritten note attached to an audit.
Transportation irregularities raised with Mr. and Mrs. Ademola. Full review scheduled Monday.
Date:
The Friday before Femi's parents died in a highway accident.
Femi's face emptied.
Shola felt the babies move beneath her hand.
“Femi.”
He didn't answer.
The investigator opened the final box.
Inside was a damaged flash drive and an old employee badge.
The badge belonged to a man named Dele Balogun.
Femi recognized him.
“My father's accountant.”
“What happened to him?”
Femi looked at the photograph.
“He disappeared after the funeral.”
That night, Femi confronted Auntie Yemisi.
She barely glanced at the documents.
“Your father investigated everything. He trusted nobody.”
“These invoices carry your signature.”
“I managed the department.”
“Why were they hidden inside a cold laboratory?”
“I have no idea.”
“And Dele Balogun?”
“Probably stole money and ran.”
Femi watched her.
Yemisi smiled.
Then looked toward Shola.
“You see what pregnancy has done? Suddenly everyone is suspicious.”
Shola's expression hardened.
“What does my pregnancy have to do with fifteen-year-old invoices?”
Yemisi laughed softly.
“Nothing, my dear.”
But Shola saw it.
A tiny flicker.
Fear.
Later that night, Shola opened her bedroom door and found Femi sitting on the floor outside.
Not knocking.
Not entering.
Just sitting.
“What are you doing?”
“I didn't want to be alone.”
She stared at him.
The powerful CEO suddenly looked like the boy who had lost both parents.
Shola stepped aside.
“You can sit inside.”
He entered.
No touching.
No romance.
They sat opposite one another while rain tapped against the windows.
“My aunt raised me,” Femi said. “When my parents died, I was nineteen. Grandpa was sick. Yemisi handled everything.”
“You trust her.”
“I did.”
Shola said nothing.
After several minutes he looked at her.
“You were right.”
“About?”
“You said I decide who people are before they can show me.”
She smiled sadly.
“You learned that from somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Now I don't know who taught me what.”
At 2:13 a.m., Femi's phone rang.
Security.
Someone had broken into Sterling headquarters.
Nothing valuable appeared stolen.
Only one room had been entered.
The cold lab.
Cabinet Six had been emptied.
And on the floor, investigators found a single piece of paper.
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A photocopy of Shola's prenatal schedule.
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