SHATTERED💔

Chapter 6— A Deal with The Devil

‎Perry Mensah had made many bad decisions in his life.

‎He was beginning to think this was the worst one.

‎He had told himself it was simple.

‎Find the address. Walk in. Accept the job. Stay away from Abena.

‎Simple.

‎He had repeated that word to himself on the trotro ride over, sweating through his only clean shirt, the small card Nana's bodyguard had shoved into his pocket sitting between his fingers like a live coal.

‎Simple.

‎The building was anything but.

‎It rose from the middle of a quiet tree-lined street in Airport Residential Area like a statement — glass and steel and absolute confidence, the kind of architecture that didn't just say money but said old money. Serious money. The kind of money that makes problems disappear.

‎A small discrete gold plaque beside the entrance read simply:

‎NB Holdings.

‎No explanation. No description. Just two letters and a full stop that somehow managed to communicate that if you needed to ask what NB Holdings did — you had no business being here.

‎Perry straightened his shirt for the fourth time and walked in.

‎The interior hit him like a different world entirely.

‎Cool, controlled air wrapped around him immediately — the aggressive kind of air conditioning that announced wealth before anything else did. The floors were polished to a mirror shine. Everything was cream and gold and deliberate. Soft classical music drifted from somewhere invisible.

‎Women in sharp fitted dresses moved with quiet efficiency between glass-partitioned offices. Men in suits spoke in low-controlled voices into phones. Nobody raised their voice. Nobody moved quickly. Everything operated at the particular unhurried pace of people who understood that power never rushes.

‎And every single one of them looked up when Perry walked in.

‎He felt it immediately.

‎That collective shift of attention. Like a room full of predators registering the arrival of something that didn't belong.

‎His armpits betrayed him instantly.

‎Not now, he thought desperately. Not NOW.

‎He approached the front desk where a perfectly composed young woman looked at him with polite, professional eyes who nonetheless managed to communicate a thorough assessment of his slightly wrinkled shirt, his scuffed shoes and the overall energy of a man who had arrived here on a trotro.

‎"Good morning," she said smoothly. "How may I help you??"

‎"I… I have an appointment," Perry said. "With Mr.… with Nana Boateng."

‎Something flickered almost imperceptibly in the receptionist's eyes.

‎"Your name please??"

‎"Perry. Perry Mensah."

‎She picked up the phone. Spoke quietly. Listened. Set it down.

"Please have a seat, Mr. Mensah. Someone will be with you shortly."

‎Perry sat.

‎He was the only person in the waiting area not wearing a suit.

‎He crossed his legs. Uncrossed them. Looked at his phone. Put it away. Looked at the ceiling. Looked at the floor. Noticed a small security camera in the corner pointed directly at him.

‎He's watching me right now, Perry thought. He's sitting up there watching me sweat.

‎The thought did not help with the sweating.

‎"Mr. Mensah."

‎A large man materialized beside him — the same bodyguard from the airport, Perry realized with a start. Same dark suit. Same expression of absolute blankness that somehow communicated absolute menace.

‎"Follow me please."

‎It was not a request.

‎Perry followed.

‎The elevator ride to the top floor was the longest thirty seconds of his life. The bodyguard stood beside him in complete silence, staring straight ahead. Perry watched the numbers climb and tried to remember how to breathe normally.

‎The doors opened.

‎"Sir," the bodyguard's voice was low and even as he stepped forward, knocked on the large mahogany door at the end of a short corridor. "You have a visitor."

‎A pause.

‎"Send him in."

‎That voice.

‎Unhurried. Controlled. The voice of a man for whom time itself moved at his preferred pace.

‎Perry's hand was actually trembling when he pushed open the door.

‎The office was enormous.

‎Floor to ceiling windows looked out over Accra's skyline — the city spread below like something Nana Boateng personally owned, which Perry was beginning to suspect wasn't entirely untrue.

‎The desk was the size of a small country. Dark wood. Completely clear except for a single open file, a pen placed perfectly parallel to its edge and a glass of water.

‎Nana Boateng sat behind it in a high-backed chair, reading glasses on, not looking up immediately. Taking his time. Because he always took his time.

‎The walls.

‎Perry noticed the walls.

‎Awards. Photographs. Newspaper clippings framed in gold. Nana shaking hands with the President. Nana at a ribbon cutting ceremony. Nana on the cover of Business Ghana magazine — "The Man Who Owns the Room."

‎But it was something else that made Perry's blood run cold.

‎Between the awards and the accolades, almost hidden, deliberately placed where only someone looking carefully would notice —

‎A photograph.

‎A young woman in a police uniform, standing straight and proud outside what looked like a police station. She didn't know she was being photographed. Her chin was up. Her eyes were focused on something in the distance.

‎She looked exactly like her mother.

‎Abena.

‎He has a photograph of Abena.

‎"Sit down Perry."

‎Perry sat. Faster than he intended.

‎Nana Boateng finally removed his reading glasses, folded them with precision and looked across the desk with those sharp impossible eyes.

‎"You came," he said simply.

‎"You knew I would," Perry said. His voice was steadier than he expected. Small mercies.

‎The ghost of something crossed Nana's face. Almost approval.

‎"I knew you had no choice," Nana corrected pleasantly. "There's a difference."

‎He opened a drawer and produced a manila envelope which he slid across the vast desk with one finger.

‎"Six months contract. Accommodation in Albone. Monthly salary that I suspect is more than you made in a year in London."

‎Perry looked at the envelope without touching it.

‎"And all I have to do is stay away from Abena Asante," he said quietly.

‎"All you have to do," Nana agreed, "is stay away from Abena Asante."

‎The AC hummed quietly. Somewhere in the building below, a phone rang and was answered immediately.

‎Perry looked at the photograph on the wall.

‎At the woman who didn't know she was being watched by the man in this very chair.

‎What are you hiding? He thought. What is she to you??

‎He almost asked.

‎Almost.

‎Instead, he reached across the desk and picked up the envelope.

‎"Where do I sign??"

‎Nana Boateng smiled his cold, controlled smile and produced a pen.

‎Perry signed his name on the dotted line and tried to ignore the feeling that he had just signed something far more significant than a six-month contract.

‎Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, Accra glittered and hummed and went about its business completely indifferently.

‎Somewhere across the city a police officer was waking up in a village hut holding a photograph she didn't know existed.

‎And in an office at the top of a gleaming building, a powerful man watched a lost boy sign his name and felt something complicated move behind his carefully controlled eyes.

‎Something that looked almost like guilt.