Married to the Mafia King

Episode Three

The compound was not what she had built in her head.

She had imagined something cold and fortified, with gates that looked like warnings. Walls with loud purpose. A place that told you exactly what it was from the outside so you knew what you were walking into.

The Obi compound on the outskirts of Ikoyi sat behind a wall that was high but covered in bougainvillea. The gate was black iron, yes, but it opened into a driveway lined with palm trees and low yellow lanterns on either side. The main building was three storeys of dark stone and glass, modern and clean-edged but not cold. There was a fountain in the front courtyard, and unlike her father’s dead fountain, this one was working. Water moved evenly in it, catching the evening light.

She looked at the fountain as the car stopped.

"Six staff in the main house," Ikenna said from the front seat. He had been silent for the entire drive, but now he half-turned to address her directly. He had the kind of face that was built for serious work. Square jaw, close-cropped hair, eyes that missed very little. "Three security on rotation outside. If you need anything, you call the house line, extension four. That is my line."

"Why your line?" she asked.

"Because the boss said your calls come to me first."

She looked at Eze, who was already getting out of the car. He had not looked at her since the knuckle kiss. She found that she was paying more attention to him than she wanted to.

"Thank you, Ikenna," she said.

He blinked, but it was small and quick, like the words had surprised him. She filed that away too.

* * *

Her room was on the second floor.

It was large and it had been prepared. She could see that immediately. Fresh flowers on the dresser, white and yellow, and they were not the showy orchids people put in rooms to look expensive. They were simple and sweet-smelling. Somebody had chosen them. A shelf on the left wall held books, and when she moved closer she saw they were medical texts and two Nigerian literary novels she had mentioned to her father she wanted to read, in a conversation she had never had with Eze Obi.

She stood very still in front of that shelf.

He had researched her.

She did not know whether to be reassured or concerned, and after a moment she decided the honest answer was both.

There was a connecting door on the right wall. She walked to it and tried the handle. It was unlocked.

She opened it.

It led to a sitting room that separated her room from what was clearly his. His door on the other side was closed. She stood in the shared sitting room and looked at the space between the two doors and understood that he had structured this deliberately. Separated but not sealed off. Close enough to be real but bounded enough to be honest.

She respected that, even if she was not yet ready to say so.

* * *

She found out about the kitchen at eleven that night.

She could not sleep, which was not unusual. She had never been a good sleeper though. In the hospital, the sleeplessness had purpose. Here, it just sat on her chest.

She went downstairs and found the kitchen by following the light. It was a large kitchen, open and well-equipped, and a woman in her fifties was sitting at the kitchen island with a cup of tea and a crossword puzzle.

The woman looked up without looking startled.

"Mrs. Okafor-Obi," she said. "I am Mama Chidi. I run the house. Sit down. I will make you something."

"You do not have to."

"I know I do not have to, but sit down."

Adaeze sat. She watched Mama Chidi move around the kitchen with the authority of someone who had held a space for many years and knew it thoroughly.

"How long have you worked here?" Adaeze asked.

"Twelve years." She set a cup of warm milo in front of Adaeze. "Since he bought this compound."

"How old was he when he bought it?"

"Twenty-two."

Adaeze thought about that. A twenty-two-year-old buying a compound in Ikoyi. She thought about what kind of work you had to be doing at twenty-two to afford this, and the thought settled in her stomach in a complicated way.

"Is he a good man?" she asked.

Mama Chidi sat back down with her crossword. She was quiet for long enough that Adaeze thought she would not answer.

"He is a complicated man," she said finally. "But I will tell you this. In twelve years, I have never seen him be cruel to someone who did not choose cruelty first. He is not careless with people. He is very careful with people." She looked up. "You are the first woman he has brought to this compound. In twelve years."

Adaeze said nothing.

"Finish your milo," Mama Chidi said, and went back to her crossword.

* * *

She met Eze the next morning.

He was in the courtyard at 5:30 am, running. She had come out with her coffee to sit near the fountain and gather herself before the day, and she found him doing laps on the path that circled the courtyard. No shirt. He ran with the concentrated economy of someone who did this daily and derived nothing from it except function.

He stopped when he saw her.

They looked at each other across the courtyard.

"You are awake early," he said. He was not winded.

"I was not asleep," she said.

He walked closer and picked up a towel from the bench near the fountain. He wiped his face. She looked at the fountain. She was aware of him in the way she was aware of a high current near water, a thing you respected without needing to name it.

"Your books," she said. "The ones in my room. How did you know?"

A pause.

"I researched you," he said. No apology in it. Just fact.

"And what did you find?"

He looked at her directly. "I found someone I was not expecting."

She waited for him to continue, but he did not.

He picked up a water bottle and walked back toward the house.

At the door, he stopped.

"Breakfast is at seven," he said without turning around. "You do not have to come. But Mama Chidi will be unhappy if the food goes uneaten."

She almost said something sharp back. Instead she watched him go inside, and then she turned to the fountain and sat with the water sound until the sky got light.

At 6:58, she went inside for breakfast. She told herself it was because of

Mama Chidi. She was not entirely sure that was the truth.