The city never slept, but it did know its rulers. In the city of Lagos, two names carried the weight the Adeyemis and Okonjos.
They were not just families; they were empires. For decades, the Adeyemis and the Okonjos had built fortunes that fed the nation shipping, oil, finance, construction. And just as their wealth grew, so did their rivalry.
Kemi Adeyemi carried that history like a shadow. At twenty-seven, she was the daughter her father boasted about in private but guarded fiercely in public.
She was the quiet storm in his empire, the strategist with a sharp tongue and sharper eyes. Her beauty was the kind that unsettled a smooth elegance, unhurried and unbothered, as though she already knew how the world would move before it did. The press liked to call her "The Pearl of Lagos," but she never cared for the attention. What mattered to her was control, and Kemi had learned early that in her father's world, control was the only real form of love.
Across town, in a penthouse that overlooked the same restless ocean, Luther Okonjo was learning a different kind of inheritance. At thirty, he was already the face of Okonjo Enterprises, his father's chosen heir. Tall, deliberate, and always dressed like he had just stepped out of a boardroom even when he hadn't, Luther was both admired and feared. He had his father's fire but his mother's calm, a combination that made him a natural leader. Reporters said his smile could close deals, but those who worked closest to him knew better: his mind was the real weapon.
The tragedy or perhaps the irony was that Kemi and Luther were never meant to exist in each other's orbit. Their fathers had made sure of that. To the Adeyemis, the Okonjos were reckless upstarts; to the Okonjos, the Adeyemis were arrogant relics. Rival companies, rival fortunes, rival egos.
Yet fate had a strange sense of humor.
One humid evening, as the city hummed with its endless rhythm, Luther found himself seated at the same charity gala as Kemi. He had seen her name on business headlines, had even dismissed her once as a pawn in her father's game. But when she walked into the ballroom in a silk dress the color of midnight, every thought collapsed into silence.
And when Kemi's eyes found his across the room, steady and unflinching, she felt it too. Not desire not yet but recognition.
Something was beginning.
Something neither of their fathers would forgive.