Part 1
Auntie Gozi dragged Amara to the church altar with blood still drying on the girl’s wrist. The cut came from Gozi’s nails, pressed deep when Amara tried to pull away from the white lace gown that did not belong to her and the groom she had never met. On the wooden table inside the pastor’s office, N50,000 lay in dirty notes beside a stamped agreement. Outside, women in gele whispered as if they had come for a funeral instead of a wedding. Amara, 22, held her late mother’s white handkerchief in one fist, the only thing she had left from the woman who once told her she was not a burden.
—You will marry him today, Auntie Gozi hissed, bending close to her ear, or I will throw your things into the gutter before sunset.
Amara looked at the church doors, hoping one person would stand up and say this was madness. Nobody did. In Obodo-Aja, an orphaned girl belonged to the relative who fed her, and Auntie Gozi had spent 12 years reminding everyone that she had “saved” Amara after her mother died. What nobody knew was that Gozi’s fabric shop in Idumota had collapsed under debt. What nobody knew was that she had borrowed N2.8 million from a moneylender named Udo, signing a contract with a poisonous clause hidden in the last page. If she defaulted, Udo could accept “guardian-approved marriage compensation” under an old colonial rule the elders still used in secret. Gozi had not read it properly then. She read it later and smiled through her fear. Her orphan niece could settle the debt.
The groom arrived late on a rusty bicycle. His sandals were covered in mud, his shirt faded, his cuffs torn. People laughed behind their hands. Someone in the second row muttered that Gozi had finally dumped her burden on a poor man. His name was Chike Okafor, or so the pastor announced after checking the paper twice. He looked about 28, quiet and sharp-eyed, too calm for a man being mocked by 80 villagers. Beside him stood his best man, Emeka, in a cheap blazer, head lowered, one hand near the phone recording inside his pocket.
Amara looked at Chike and saw no hunger in his eyes, no lust, no cruelty. That frightened her even more. A cruel man was easy to understand. A calm man at a forced wedding was a mystery.
Pastor Okoro cleared his throat. He had been paid N20,000 to finish quickly.
—Amara Nwankwo, do you take this man as your lawful husband?
Auntie Gozi tightened her grip until Amara’s knees almost buckled.
—I do, Amara whispered.
The pastor turned to Chike.
—And do you, Chike Okafor—
Poor village girl was forced to marry a poor man unaware he is a secret billionaire…
