The Price of Survival.
The Price of Survival
The sound of the rain against the hospital window always reminded me of endings.
Each drop carried a kind of finality — the soft whisper of a world that no longer belonged to me.
I sat beside my mother’s bed, my hand wrapped around hers, trying to warm the coldness in her fingers. Her breathing was shallow, her lips pale. The monitors around her blinked in steady, indifferent rhythm — as if mocking me for caring too much in a world that had already taken everything.
It had been eight months since my father’s arrest.
Eight months since the night the Dike-Lancaster Empire destroyed my family name.
My father, Chief Obinna Okafor, was once one of Lagos’s most respected businessmen. He believed wealth meant power, and power meant safety. But he was wrong. Power only paints a brighter target on your back.
When the Lancasters accused him of laundering money from their oil subsidiary, the media devoured him. Headlines screamed Okafor Empire Falls Amid Corruption Scandal. Former allies turned their backs. Friends deleted his number. By dawn, the gates of our mansion were sealed, and the police had dragged him away in handcuffs.
That night, my mother collapsed.
Her heart couldn’t take it — the shame, the whispers, the betrayal. Since then, she’s been lying here, in this private hospital suite that costs more than I can ever afford.
Every day, I begged the nurses for more time to pay the bills. Every week, the hospital reminded me that “sympathy doesn’t keep the lights on.”
I took odd jobs — modeling for adverts, freelance writing, anything that didn’t destroy the last shreds of my pride. But Lagos isn’t kind to fallen queens.
And then, one morning, he came.
Adrian Dike-Lancaster.
He walked into my mother’s hospital room like he owned it — like he owned me. Tall, sculpted, and terrifyingly calm, dressed in a charcoal suit that looked like sin stitched in silk. His eyes were cold, the color of storm clouds before thunder.
“Miss Okafor,” he said, his voice deep, smooth, dangerous. “We need to talk.”
I stood up instantly, heart pounding. I knew that name — Dike-Lancaster — the name that ruined my life.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I spat, though my voice trembled. “Your family has done enough.”
He gave a small, humorless smile. “You might want to hear me out. It concerns your father… and your mother’s treatment.”
The air in the room shifted, heavy and suffocating. He looked around the hospital room, his gaze landing on the oxygen machine humming softly beside my mother’s bed.
“Your mother’s condition is worsening,” he said. “Her bills are six months overdue. The hospital is considering transferring her to a public ward. You know what that means.”
My chest tightened. “You can’t possibly—”
“I can,” he interrupted. “And I can also stop it.”
I stared at him, confused and furious. “What do you want?”
He took a step closer. I caught a faint whiff of his cologne — dark, expensive, cold. His eyes bored into mine with unnerving steadiness.
“Marry me,” he said simply.
The world stopped moving. The rain, the monitors, even my breath — all of it froze.
“What?” I whispered, thinking I’d misheard him.
“Marry me,” he repeated, slower this time, like he was explaining something to a child. “It’s not a request. It’s an offer. In exchange, your mother stays here. Her bills — cleared. Your father — I can arrange for a retrial. All you have to do is sign the papers and play your part.”
I laughed bitterly, though tears stung my eyes. “You must be insane. Why would you want to marry me?”
His expression didn’t change. “Because my father wants to remind yours that power is a game — and the Lancasters always win. You’re a pawn, Miss Okafor. But at least you’ll be a well-kept one.”
His words sliced through me. My nails dug into my palms until I felt the sting of pain.
“You want to humiliate me,” I said quietly.
“I want justice,” he replied. “For the lies your father told. For the money he stole.”
“My father is innocent,” I whispered fiercely.
“Then prove it,” he said, his tone calm but laced with steel. “Marry me. Step into my world. Show me the truth.”
He pulled a folded document from his jacket and placed it on the table beside my mother’s medication tray.
A marriage contract. Printed in neat legal text. Signed by his family lawyer.
“If you refuse,” he added, “the hospital will discharge your mother by tomorrow. And your father will remain in prison until his trial — if he survives that long.”
He turned to leave, his voice low as he reached the door.
“You have twenty-four hours to decide, Amara. After that, my offer expires.”
Then he was gone — leaving behind the scent of danger and a silence that swallowed the room.
I sank to the floor, trembling. My mother’s breathing filled the space between my sobs. I wanted to hate him — and I did. But I also hated myself more for thinking about what he said.
Could I really sacrifice my freedom to save the people I love? Could I live as the wife of a man who saw me as a weapon in his father’s war?
That night, I stared at the contract until the words blurred into tears. Every signature line looked like a chain. Every paragraph whispered betrayal.
By dawn, the rain had stopped. The sky over Lagos burned gold with morning light.
I walked into the Dike-Lancaster Tower — the tallest building on Victoria Island, marble floors glistening beneath my feet. Every step echoed like a countdown to my own destruction.
Adrian was waiting in the private lobby, hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.
“Miss Okafor,” he greeted, his tone polite but detached. “Have you decided?”
I swallowed hard. My fingers tightened around the marriage contract I’d brought with me — signed.
“I’ll do it,” I said. My voice didn’t shake this time. “I’ll marry you.”
A ghost of a smile curved his lips — victory.
He nodded once. “Good choice.”
And as his cold fingers brushed mine to take the papers, I realized s
something terrible:
In that moment, I hadn’t just signed a marriage contract.
I had signed my soul away.
