She reached out and placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. The warmth of her touch sent a shockwave through my body. This is my mother, my mind screamed. Tell her! Tell her right now!
“You work too hard, Amara,” Madam Beatrice said, her voice laced with a strange, melancholic tenderness. “I told the housekeeper to give you lighter duties, but you always insist on doing everything. You remind me so much of… of someone I used to know. A stubbornness that refuses to bend.”
“Thank you, Ma,” I whispered, biting my inner cheek to keep from crying out.
“Amara,” she started, her grip tightening slightly on my shoulder, her eyes dropping to my collarbone, where my uniform polo had shifted slightly to the side. For a second, I panicked, wondering if my makeup had faded and exposed the birthmark. She seemed about to say something deeply personal, something she had been holding back for months.
But before the words could leave her lips, a heavy, booming voice shattered the intimacy of the moment.
“Beatrice! Where are my keys?”
Chief Segun walked into the room. He was a tall, imposing man with a stern face that rarely showed emotion. To the public, he was a philanthropist and a business mogul. To me, he had always been a distant, intimidating figure who barely acknowledged my existence. Looking at him now, knowing he was my father, made my stomach twist in knots.
“They are on the console by the entrance, Segun,” Madam Beatrice replied, her hand falling away from my shoulder. The warmth instantly vanished, replaced by the cold reality of my position.
Chief Segun glanced at me, his eyes narrowing slightly as he noticed my disheveled state. “What is she still doing in my office? I told the staff I don’t want anyone in here past 3:00 PM when I have phone calls.”
“She was just finishing up, dear. She isn’t feeling well,” Madam Beatrice defended me quickly. “Go downstairs and rest, Amara. Take the evening off.”
“Thank you, Ma. Thank you, Sah,” I bowed quickly, keeping my head down so Chief Segun wouldn’t see the raw emotion in my eyes. I practically ran out of the office, my legs feeling like jelly as I hurried down the sweeping marble staircase toward the servant’s quarters at the back of the estate.
Safely locked inside my tiny, suffocating room, I collapsed onto my narrow bed. My mind was a war zone. Part of me wanted to run back upstairs, show them the photograph, expose my birthmark, and claim my rightful place as the heiress to this empire. I wanted the luxury, the love, the twenty-two years of stolen family warmth.
But a colder, more analytical voice in my head forced me to pause.
How did I end up with my aunt in a remote village in Ondo state? If I was stolen from a heavily guarded mansion in Lagos, how did a poor, uneducated village woman manage to get her hands on a billionaire’s daughter without anyone noticing? A kidnapping of that magnitude required inside help. It required power. It required immense amounts of money.
My aunt didn’t have that kind of money. Which meant someone had paid her to take me away. Someone had wanted me gone permanently, but alive.
Who?
