The brown envelope sat on my coffee table like it had a pulse. I hadn’t touched it since she slid it across the table. Didn’t open it. Didn’t hide it. Just left it there, watching me watch it.
Part of me was itching to tear it open. Another part wanted to toss it into the dustbin and pretend I’d never met her. Her words kept replaying in my head: “If you’re seen close to Chijioke again, it will rattle him… he’ll get sloppy.”
She wanted me to play bait. Bait meant control. But it also meant risk. And I’ve been the risk-taker’s fool before. I picked up my phone. But there was a new message from Chijioke:
“Lunch? No agenda. Just food.” I almost laughed. “No agenda” in this story was like “no drama” in a Nollywood film, a lie from the opening credits. I typed back: “Sure.”
If I was going to do this, I needed to know if I could still play him like he thought he was playing me. We met at a quiet restaurant in Maitama. White tablecloths. Glass water jugs. The kind of place you can overhear government secrets if you sit still enough. He was already there, leaning back in his chair, phone face-down on the table. When he saw me, he stood, always the gentleman in public.
“You look… rested,” he said with a smile that made me wonder how much he actually knew about my sleepless nights.
We talked about nothing at first, the food, the weather, the way Abuja traffic could ruin your mood before 10am. But the way he watched me… it wasn’t casual. It was measuring. Waiting for me to slip. So I gave him nothing.
No questions about the bride. No mention of the lipstick. Just an easy laugh here, a casual comment there. Then, halfway through dessert, I caught him staring past me, his jaw tight. I followed his gaze to the entrance. Two women had just walked in. One of them… was the bride. She stopped dead when she saw us. Then she smiled, thin, sharp, and walked to a table across the room. Chijioke shifted uncomfortably.
“This… isn’t what it looks like.” I smirked. “Relax. It’s just lunch.” But inside, I was smiling for a different reason. Because I could feel the tension humming between him and the bride from across the room. And I knew, knew, that my presence here was doing exactly what the sister had predicted: rattling the cage.
When I got home, the envelope was still on the table. I picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my hands. Not heavy… but dense. This time, I didn’t put it back down.
It was just after 10pm. The city outside my window was quiet, that strange, expectant quiet Abuja gets before a late-night downpour.
The envelope sat in front of me like a dare. No tea. No wine. No distractions. Just me… and it. I slid a finger under the flap, slow enough to feel the paper fibers give way. Inside, a neat stack of documents and photos. No cover letter. No explanations. Just… evidence. The first photo was from the wedding, but not one I’d seen before.
The bride and groom smiling, champagne flutes in hand. But in the background, at the far table, were those two older men again. One of them with a cigarette half-raised to his lips, the other leaning in mid-conversation. And sitting with them… my ex’s younger brother. I flipped to the next photo.
The same two men, this time in a newspaper clipping from two years ago.
The headline: “POLICE INVESTIGATE BUSINESSMEN IN MULTIMILLION-NAIRA LAND FRAUD.”
My chest tightened. The article mentioned shell companies, stolen government contracts, and missing land registry files. No charges filed. No convictions. Too well-connected. Under the clipping was a photocopy of a cheque.
The bride’s father’s company name on the “Pay To” line. The amount? Nine figures. The date? Three weeks before the wedding. I sat back, heart pounding. This wasn’t just a gold-digger story. This marriage wasn’t a love scam, it was a business transaction. And the bride… the bride was the guarantee. The insurance?
But the last page made my hands go cold. A crisp A4 printout, black and white. Flight confirmation. Two tickets, business class. Destination: London.
Departure: One week after the legal signing.
Passenger names: My ex.
And a woman who wasn’t the bride.
I closed my eyes. I don’t even know what these all means. What have I walked into bikonu? Was the groom’s sister right? In that case, this wasn’t just about saving another woman from heartbreak. It was about getting her out before she became a shield for something that could swallow her whole.
I thought about the sister and how she was willing to throw her brother under the bus… I wondered why she didn’t just take care of things herself…
Nma’s Diaries….Life…Lessons…And everything inbetween
