“Heard me where?”
“In the living room. With your guests.”
A pause.
Then her eyes narrowed almost invisibly.
“What guests?”
“The men,” he said. “The money. The bottle. The syringe.”
Silence filled the room.
Thick. Heavy. Absolute.
Then Amaka exhaled through her nose and looked away for half a second, like someone acknowledging that a game she expected to play longer had ended sooner than planned.
“Well,” she said softly, “this is unfortunate.”
The sweetness vanished entirely.
No softness. No concern. No explanation.
Only the cold metal underneath.
Chief Kletchi felt something deep in his chest harden in answer.
“You were planning to kill me.”
Amaka gave the slightest shrug.
“Business is business.”
Bissy gasped out loud.
Chief Kletchi actually swayed.
Not because he had not already guessed it.
Because hearing it spoken so plainly by the woman he had married was worse than suspicion. It was the murder of illusion.
“Business?” he repeated. “I am your husband.”
Amaka’s expression did not change.
“No,” she said. “You were my opportunity.”
The sentence seemed to echo.
Opportunity.
Not partner. Not companion. Not even victim.
Opportunity.
Chief Kletchi stared at her as if his body no longer fully recognized the person in front of him.
“Everything I have now,” she continued, calm as ever, “came from your name, your companies, your networks, your wealth. Once you are gone, I keep the structure. I keep the image. I keep the access.”
Bissy began crying softly.
“How can you say that?” Chief Kletchi asked, and the question came out rawer than he intended. “I trusted you. I defended you. I built this life with you.”
Amaka tilted her head.
“And I used it. We both got what we wanted.”
“No,” he said. “I wanted a wife.”
She gave a short laugh that contained not one gram of shame.
“And I wanted power. Love doesn’t pay, Kletchi. Power does.”
The words cut deeper than rage could.
Not because they were dramatic.
Because they were so coldly sincere.
He suddenly remembered small moments he had once dismissed: the way she studied board members instead of listening to speeches, the way she remembered who controlled which approvals, the way she insisted on access to documents that had nothing to do with household life, the way she asked detailed questions about inheritance laws with a tone too casual to challenge.
He had called it intelligence.
He had admired her sharpness.
