Chapter 2

Chapter 2

ODALYS

I watched her.

Her face didn't move. Not even a little.

She just stood there by the bookshelf with her arms folded, looking at the lawyer like he was reading a bus timetable.

My joy went sour.

"However," Mr. Adeyemi said, and he turned a page. "There is a condition."

The room went still.

"The shares in Ashford Shipping will remain locked until both of my daughters are married. Odalys is to marry Cassian Vance. Reign is to marry Rhett Vance. This was agreed between myself and the Vance family many years ago. Both marriages must take place within sixty days of this reading. If either of my daughters refuses, or if either marriage does not happen in time, the whole of my estate will pass to my nephew, Silas Ashford."

Nobody spoke.

I heard the clock on the wall. I heard my own heartbeat. I heard Silas shift on the sofa.

"Read that again," I said.

"Miss Ashford—"

"Read it again."

He read it again. It didn't change.

Cassian Vance. I knew the name, of course. Everyone did. The Vance brothers ran the biggest shipping company on the coast. Our biggest rival. My father had spent twenty years fighting them, and now he wanted me to marry one of them.

And he wanted her to marry the other.

Then Reign laughed.

It wasn't a small laugh. It was a real one. It came out of her like she couldn't stop it, loud and bright in that quiet room. She put a hand over her mouth, but she kept laughing.

"Something funny?" I said.

"Everything." She wiped her eye. "So let me get this right. I get nothing. Not one naira. But I have to marry a stranger so that you can keep your money?"

"It's not my condition."

"No. It's his. It's always his." She dropped her hand. The laugh was gone now. "No."

"No?" Mr. Adeyemi said.

"No. I won't do it." She picked up her bag from the floor. "He didn't want me when he was alive. He doesn't get to use me now that he's dead."

"Reign," I said.

It was the first time I had said her name out loud in years. It felt strange in my mouth.

She stopped at the door and looked back at me.

"You threw me out of his funeral, Odalys. In front of everyone. Did you think I'd forget that in two days?"

And she walked out.

The front door closed behind her. The sound went through the whole house.

For a long moment, nobody moved.

Then Silas stood up. He fixed his cufflinks, slow and careful, one and then the other. He walked over to the desk and leaned down so his face was close to mine.

"Sixty days, cousin," he said softly. "I'll have the house cleaned for me."

He smiled. Then he left too.

I sat in my father's chair and stared at the door.

It hit me all at once, cold and heavy. Everything I had. The house. The company. My name. My brother's future. All of it was sitting in the hands of the one person in the world I hated most.

The mistress's daughter held my whole life in her hand, and she had just laughed at it.

---

Mr. Adeyemi packed his folders. Before he left, he took out one small white envelope and put it on the desk in front of me.

"Your father asked me to give you this. Privately."

I looked at it. My name was on the front in his handwriting. Odalys. Just that.

My fingers were not steady when I opened it. I don't know what I expected. An apology, maybe. For all the nights he never came home. For my mother. For choosing them over us, over and over, for years. Or maybe just one line saying he loved me. Just once.

It was one line.

Take care of your sister. She is more mine than you know.

I read it three times.

Then I tore it in half. Then in half again. Then again, until it was just small white pieces all over his desk.

Even now. Even dead. Even in his last words to me, it was about her.

I sat there until the room went dark. I didn't turn on the light.

Then I picked up my phone and called the family accountant.

He answered on the second ring. "Miss Ashford? Is everything all right?"

"I want you to go through my father's accounts," I said. My voice was very calm. "Find every payment he ever made to that woman. Her rent. Her bills. Her hospital. Everything."

"Miss Ashford, that could take—"

"Find all of them," I said. "And stop every single one. Tonight."